Nina-Bytes: The People and Ideas JD Vance Applauds
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How I Know JD Vance Is A Fascist
At this point I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but GOP Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance is a fascist, and it’s important to state that loudly and clearly. Merely calling him “Peter Thiel’s puppet” or a “techbro authoritarian” doesn’t go far enough; Vance is an out and open fascist, and there’s no “crypto” about it. From my perspective, this reality is obvious when you listen to the things Vance says, examine the people and ideas he exhorts, and hear the policy positions he endorses. Unfortunately, until recently, very few people outside of Ohio and right wing reactionary circles have spent much time looking into those associations, ideals, and positions. Now that the Pig Empire media has gotten interested enough to dig into his short political career however, the evidence of Vance’s support for overt, naked fascism is piling up high enough that it’s literally impossible to ignore.
For a good example of what I’m talking about, let’s turn to this August 22nd, 2024 article by Jason Wilson in The Guardian talking about that time in the distant past of literally this past December 2023, when JD Vance defended known white nationalist shitlord Douglass Mackey (formerly known as Ricky Vaughn on Twitter) and then praised a book full of right wing extremist essays published by the minions at noted fascist think tank The Claremont Institute.
Revealed: JD Vance promoted far-right views in speech about extremists’ book
“In his speech, Vance first offered “congratulations on such a great book, and thanks for getting such a good crew together”, and then warmed to themes similar to Milikh’s.
“Republicans, conservatives, we’re still terrified of wielding power, of actually doing the job that the people sent us here to do,” Vance said, later adding: “Isn’t it just common sense that when we’re given power, we should actually do something with it?”
Brad Onishi, author of Preparing for War, a critical account of Christian nationalism and the host of the Straight White American Jesus podcast, said: “Vance, many Claremont people, including some folks in this volume, and especially the ‘post-liberal’ conservative Catholics that he hangs out with, have advocated for a form of big government that will wield its power in order to set the country right.”
He added: “And you may think, well, OK, that doesn’t sound so bad. But here the “common good” is rooting out queer people, making sure non-Christians don’t immigrate to the country, and outlawing things like pornography that are currently a matter of personal choice.”
Despite the Guardian’s inexplicable squeamishness about calling all of this what it is – fascism – I strongly encourage you to read the entire article because the more of it you read, the more obvious it becomes that Vance supports overt, bald-ass fascism. However, for purposes of summarization we can divide its contents into two major revelations, which I’ll explore below.
First, JD Vance expressed support for and told lies to protect a white nationalist influencer who used to post on Twitter, the aforementioned Douglas Mackey aka “Ricky Vaughn.” For those of you unfamiliar with Mackey’s rancid opinions it should suffice to say that in addition to being an exposed white nationalist, Mackey was also convicted in March of 2023 of “conspiracy against rights” for trying to rig the 2016 election for Trump using online disinformation likely intended to target minority voters who supported Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
“Prosecutors said that on 1 November 2016, Mackey as Vaughn produced an image depicting a Black woman standing in front of a sign that said “African Americans for Hillary Clinton”, with a caption falsely claiming that voters could “avoid the line” and “vote from home” via text. Another fine-print caption at the bottom of the image read “Paid for by Hillary for President 2016”.
Prosecutors say that at least 4,900 people texted the candidate’s name to the number on the image in following days, as instructed by the disinformation image.”
During his speech, given after Mackey was charged but before he was convicted, Vance accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of trying to throw Mackey in prison for “posting a meme” and said the post describe above was somehow “a joke.” Obviously, a federal jury did not agree, but Mackey is still appealing the conviction. Vance also suggested, I shit you not, a solution to cases like Mackey’s would be to stack the judiciary with fascist loyalists, saying “maybe we should be appointing people at the Department of Justice who actually take a side in the culture war, the side of the people who elected us, and not just pretend we don’t have to take sides at all.”
The second issue here is that JD Vance was speaking at the release party for a book titled “Up from Conservatism,” which he glowingly commended. The book, written mostly by minions from fascist think tank The Claremont Institute, argues among other things that “conservatives” need to “free their minds from the fear” of being called racists, while the author of this section, David Azerrad, repeats white nationalist talking points about African Americans, crime, and intelligence. A second author, Helen Andrews, promotes ending education subsidies, promoting male-dominated careers, and cutting assistance for child care as a method of coercing women to leave the workforce and essentially become tradwife mothers. A third writer, Scott Yenor, accuses the U.S. of operating under a “Queer Constitution” and advocates for drastic intervention by the state in everybody’s sex lives: “in the states, new obscenity laws for a more obscene world should be adopted. Pornography companies and websites should be investigated for their myriad public ills like sex trafficking, addictions, and ruined lives. The justice of anti-discrimination must be revisited.” The book’s editor, Arthur Milikh, also calls for the complete destruction of the American education system, the militarization (no I’m not kidding) of childhood education, including teaching students to build and operate firearms, and the abolishment of sociology and social studies programs at public universities.
I should also mention that many of the people writing in Up from Conservatism have a track record of endorsing even more openly white nationalist views and activities. Examples offered in this piece include Andrews’ support for white supremacist apartheid regimes like the former governments of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, and that time Yenor, a political science professor at Boise State University, founded a secretive far right “fraternal order” while running a fascist conspiracy website in Idaho that demonized LGBTQ people and went after Republicans deemed not extremist enough for this brave new world order (of nazis.)
These are the people Vance is happy to support, and the ideas he thinks are commendable. All of which would be a serious problem if he were only just a Senator from Ohio, but reaches the level of impending catastrophe when you realize that Vance is on the cusp of entering the White House as a vital part of a Trump administration – an administration that through proposals like those found in Up from Conservatism, or Project 2025, would invest Trump’s administration with the power to stack the government full of loyal revanchists, override our checks and balances on presidential power, and install deeply unpopular fascist policies like the ones detailed in this book that JD Vance loves so much.
Look folks, I’m not just tossing around scary words here, nor have I ever deployed the word fascism as a purely rhetorical political smear. If supporting all of the monstrous bullshit we’ve talked about in this blog doesn’t make Vance a fascist, then we should just do away with the word entirely because it would no longer have any meaning. I happen to think the word fascist does still have a meaning, and calling out fascism when you see it is an important part of opposing fascism and the fascists that support it. Which is why I think it’s long past time the media and the political class started being honest about what guys like JD Vance represent. Vance is a fascist, and there’s no responsible way to keep silent about it any longer.
– Nina Illingworth
Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.
You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, and on Mastodon.
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