J.D. Vance’s Coming Dilemma

By Jonah Goldberg

Thursday, July 18, 2024

 

Longtime readers may recall that one of my favorite genres of bad punditry is what you might call “Shelbyvillianism.” A rough definition would be: turning normal things about your opponents into villainous weirdness.

 

In an episode of The Simpsons, Bart and the other kids are in a kind of war with the kids of Shelbyville to retrieve their stolen lemon tree. While searching the woods for signs of Shelbyville incursion, they find a candy wrapper in the woods, and Milhouse says, “Oh! They’re always eating candy in Shelbyville. They love the sweet taste.”

 

At the risk of ruining the joke by explaining it, I love this because of the insinuation that Shelbyville kids—unlike, well, all kids—like candy and that their fondness for the “sweet taste” is somehow sinisterly weird. 

 

You get this kind of thinking in bigotries of all kinds. Did you know that Jews like to make money? You know, unlike Asians, Episcopalians, Rotarians, left-handed people, and dudes named Todd. “Blacks love fried chicken!” declare the racists, as they pull out of the KFC drive-thru. 

 

You also see this kind of thing in highly partisan punditry, which is often indistinguishable logically from bigotry. “Those Republicans just want to win the election!”—as if the Democrats would be perfectly happy to lose so long as they made friends along the way.

 

Last night, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow observed that “Lord of the Rings is sort of a favorite cosmos for naming things, cultural references for a lot of far-right, alt-right figures within Europe and the United States.”

 

Now, it’s true that Peter Thiel and fellow Silicon Valley investor Joe Lonsdale have a bunch of companies named after Lord of the Rings stuff. And when Thiel’s protégé J.D. Vance created his own firm, he followed the practice and called it Narya, one of the three rings of power made for Elves. 

 

I’m not aware of this fad extending much farther into the “right.” “Far right” is a subjective term, and given Maddow’s politics Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan probably qualify as “far right” in her eyes. But “alt-right”—a term properly applied only to racist and antisemitic incels like Nick Fuentes—is unfair to Thiel, Lonsdale, and Vance. 

 

But that’s not the point. You know who loves Lord of the Rings? Hundreds of millions of people, chief among them this category of human known as “nerds.” It is the seventh-bestselling book of all time, beaten out by the Bible, the Quran, and Mao’s Little Red book—which, I think, all belong in different categories. It is by most accounts the bestselling commercial book of the 20th century. 

 

Tolkien nerds have been giving things LOTR-inspired names for decades. The practice is huge in astronomy. Indeed, in 2016, The Atlantic ran a piece, “Science’s Love Affair with The Lord of the Rings” about all of the animals, dinosaurs, proteins, etc. with Tolkien-inspired names. The author quotes from Henry Gee’s book The Science of Middle Earth:

 

Given Tolkien’s passion for nomenclature, his coinage, over decades, of enormous numbers of euphonious names—not to mention scientists’ fondness for Tolkien—it is perhaps inevitable that Tolkien has been accorded formal taxonomic commemoration like no other author.

 

Now, here’s Maddow:

 

Mr. Vance, also when he founded his own venture capital firm, with help from Peter Thiel, named it after a Lord of the Rings thing. He called it “Narya”— N-A-R-Y-A—which you can remember because it’s “Aryan” but you move the “N” to the front.

 

As political analysis, this insinuation is the equivalent of numerology. It’s no more sophisticated than Marjorie Taylor Greene’s speculation about Jew-owned space lasers. 

 

Another MSNBC host, Alex Wagner, explained that Vance’s desire to be laid to rest in his family’s ancestral burial plot was an “Easter egg”—i.e. a coded dog-whistle—for “white nationalism.” 

 

You know who likes to be buried in their families’ burial plots? White nationalists. You know who else does? Nearly everyone with ancestral burial plots. 

 

I have many problems with, and criticisms of, Donald Trump’s VP pick—which I’ll get to—but if progressives want to convince normal Americans he’s bad news, this is not the way. This kind of lefty fan service is a great way to convince people that his critics are weirdos and freaks. 

 

And speaking of weirdos and freaks, I am loving the actual alt-right’s outrage and confusion over the fact Trump picked a “white nationalist” with an Indian American wife. Their bedwetting about Harmeet Dhillon, an Indian American and a Republican Party official, offering a Sikh prayer is simultaneously hilariously stupid and conventionally evil, with heavy doses of pathetic. 

 

Vance refrigeration.

The alt-right’s bilious blather is a small illustration of why I think a lot of the hype about Vance—both on the left and the right—won’t pan out. To paraphrase the great Walter Sobchak, say what you will about the tenets of finger-sniffing, basement-dwelling, Very Online neo-Nazis, at least it’s an ethos. The racists believe something. They may be stupid trolls, but they’re committed to the bit. This coprophagic phylum was attracted to Trump because he’s popular, and, more importantly, a battering ram against a rival and long dominant ethos that sought to keep the trolls living under rocks and bridges.  

 

Trump helped bring them out into the open, but he’s not one of them. I mean, I don’t think Trump has particularly enlightened views on race, but he’s not a neo-Nazi. But many neo-Nazis confused Trump’s utility for ideological affinity. So, it was inevitable that he would prove inconvenient for ideologically consistent Nazis. (I remember an interview with some peckerwood at the Unite the Right rally explaining how furious he was when he learned that Trump let his blonde daughter marry a Jew.)

 

There’s something analogous going on with a lot of Vance superfans, who—let me be very clear—are not Nazis. This is a point a lot of lefties really struggle with. Yes, Nazis are nationalists, but most nationalists are not Nazis. The old adage, “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras,” is one lots of folks would do well to keep to heart. It’s simply an illustration of Occam’s razor, which basically means the simplest explanation is most likely to be the most accurate. If you don’t live near the savannas of Africa, and you hear what sounds like a herd of horses running by, don’t assume it’s a herd of zebras. And if an American conservative, even an American nationalist, says he wants to be buried with seven generations of his family in their burial plot—along with his Indian American wife—don’t leap to the conclusion you found the American Goebbels.

 

Anyway, Vance’s superfans and superfoes alike are convinced that if Trump-Vance is elected, the GOP—and maybe the American government—will be captured by MAGA nationalism, post-liberalism, and neo-isolationism for decades.

 

Color me skeptical. 

 

For starters, being Donald Trump’s vice president has not historically been a stepping stone to political success. Small sample size, I know. But still. 

 

I mean, even if you assume January 6 never happened, it doesn’t seem obvious to me that Mike Pence would have been the natural heir to Trump and Trumpism under any scenario. Of course, Pence was a unity-ticket choice, a sop to the socially conservative and Reaganite faction that had real—and well-founded—misgivings about Trump. 

 

Many of Vance’s defenders concede this point. They celebrate Trump’s role in shattering the old establishment and beheading “Zombie Reaganism.” But if Trump never ran again, or if he was reelected, few of them would have supported a Pence candidacy—in 2020 or in 2024—and what would be, in effect, a Reaganite restoration with some Trumpian flourishes. 

 

Ah, but Vance is pure MAGA. He puts intellectual meat on the bones of Trumpism and he will be the heir to Trump’s legacy in 2028.  To use more nerd terms that have nothing to do with white supremacy, Vance is the Kwizatz Haderach on the Golden Path to natcon victory.

 

Maybe. 

 

When I ask Vance boosters whether he would go along with something like January 6 in the next Trump administration—as he says he would have—they tend to roll their eyes. Vance won’t defy or betray the Constitution, regardless of his regrettable pandering to Trump these days, they insist. That’s paranoia. Maybe they’re right. If so, and Trump does something like another January 6 and Vance refuses to enable him, Trump will give Vance the Pence treatment and he’ll be dead to MAGA world.  We may even hear chants of “Hang J.D. Vance!” If they’re wrong, Vance will be dead to a lot of other people, including at least some of the people currently putting their faith in him. 

 

Now I don’t know what another January 6 moment would look like, and neither does anyone else. But I certainly believe Trump is capable of one—or more than one. But to believe the Vance Golden Path scenario, you have to believe there won’t be one. In other words, regardless of how much faith his fans have in Vance, Vance’s success hinges on a parlay bet that Trump will never put Vance in a situation where he has to choose between doing the obviously right thing and being blindly loyal to Trump. 

 

But the Vance Golden Path looks muddy to me even if no such event occurs. Because the guaranteed dilemma for Vance is choosing between loyalty to Trump and loyalty to his own ambition. Let’s say Trump actually follows through on a serious campaign of mass deportation of illegal immigrants. The only way to do that is with force—a lot of force. I think that will be politically fraught. A lot of voters like it in theory, but how will they feel when they see people being dragged out of their homes at gunpoint, screaming kids and all, and loaded on trucks? Vance would in all likelihood be the “serious” and “intellectual” face of that policy. If it turns out to be as unpopular as I think it would, the Golden Path starts to look like a steep climb.

 

Simply working for Trump in any capacity has a very mixed record. Sure, a handful of people came out of the Trump White House, Trump campaigns, or even Trump’s businesses with their careers, reputations, or political fortunes enhanced. But far more of them surely regret it at this point. You might go in hoping to emulate Mike Pompeo, but it’s quite possible, or even quite likely, you’ll go out like Pence, Jeff Sessions, or John Bolton. 

 

Of course, Vance can’t be fired. But he can be neutered. Indeed, he already has been in many respects. Two months ago, Vance opposed a corporate tax cut. Vance has long been a forthright opponent of abortion rights. Going forward, his positions will be whatever Trump’s will be. 

 

Or consider Ukraine. Vance says he doesn’t care about Ukraine and opposes further aid. I think his arguments are hot garbage. But Trump’s position is more opaque. He might embrace Vance’s approach entirely. But given the politics of watching Ukraine gobbled up, in whole or in part by Russia, I suspect Trump won’t simply give away the store to Putin on day one (never mind “end the war on day one,” which is an idiotic talking point no one should take literally or seriously). Regardless, once Trump makes a decision, Vance will support it. 

 

If Trump takes some middle course, he’ll have to sell it—not merely, or even especially, to Democrats and the left, but to the Bannonites and the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world. Ambitious Republicans—Ron DeSantis, Tom Cotton, Nikki Haley, even some inside the administration, like a Pompeo—and hostile journalists who will all take bites out of him in public or in leaks to the press. Everyone will quote Vance back to him. 

 

In other words, Trump will, on a near daily basis, go into the White House mess, and make a huge platter of sh-t sandwiches, and Vance will have to eat them—with a smile on his face. He’ll go on Meet the Press and say “Mmmmm yummy” every time. 

 

This is not a criticism of Vance, per se. That’s what all vice presidents do. I mean Joe Biden put Kamala Harris in charge of fixing the border, a six-foot fecal hoagie baking in the south Texas sun if ever there was one.

 

The weirdest thing about all the Vance and Trump boosters alike is that they seem utterly convinced that a second Trump presidency is going to go fantastically well. Even if you believe that the first Trump presidency was a huge success—I don’t, obviously—you have to believe that Trump himself was largely responsible for those successes. Everyone I know who worked in the administration, or who followed it closely, knows this wasn’t the case. His biggest wins were mostly delivered by Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and the grown-ups he was forced to surround himself with in the White House.

 

Forget all the dictator scenarios: The idea that Trump, given a freehand to do what he really wants, will lead to one political and economic success after another, just strikes me as writing fan fiction on the fly. It’s as delusional as the Biden people saying that because Biden beat Trump in 2020 he can beat him in 2024, as if past performance predicts future results.  There will be many political disasters, as there are in any presidency, and some that could only happen in a Trump presidency. And J.D. Vance, who wants to be president, will have to defend all of them. 

 

For champions of Vance-ism, putting Vance in the White House is akin to putting him on ice. I don’t mean he won’t have power and influence. He will surely maneuver a lot of policies and jobs in ways they’ll like, just as Pence was instrumental in shaping policy and personnel behind the scenes. But he won’t be talking about banning abortion, or embracing Lina Khan’s agenda the way some of them hope. His largely mythical reputation as an intellectually consistent, courageous truth-teller will give way to the obvious reality all along: He’s merely an incredibly ambitious politician. And politicians always end up disappointing the true believers.