Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, arrives on the floor during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum, Monday, July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Vance has compared abortion to murder and slavery, has criticized divorce, and has suggested people in “violent” marriages should try to work things out. He’s additionally said he wants to ban pornography, and has blamed a school shooting on “fatherlessness.”
Former president Donald Trump has picked his running mate—Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
In a post shared to his social media platform, Truth Social, on Monday, Trump said that “after lengthy deliberation and thought” he has decided that Vance is “the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States.”
So, who is J.D. Vance?
J.D. Vance’s far-right social agenda for the United States
Vance rose to prominence with his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which depicted his childhood growing up surrounded by poverty and addiction in Jackson, Kentucky and Middletown, Ohio. At that time, Vance was a “Never Trump” conservative who once referred to Trump as “reprehensible” and “noxious,” and suggested he “might be America’s Hitler.”
But ahead of his successful 2022 run for US Senate, Vance refashioned himself as one of Trump’s most outspoken defenders. Since that reversal, Vance has become one of the most extreme politicians in the country, particularly on social issues.
He has compared abortion to murder and slavery, has said women should be “forced to bring a children to term” in cases of rape and incest, opposes exceptions to abortion bans in cases of rape and incest, and has expressed support for a nationwide abortion ban.
Vance has also railed against divorce. While speaking at Pacifica Christian High School in California in 2021, Vance spoke of his grandparents who raised him, applauding the fact that they never separated, even though they had an “incredibly chaotic marriage.” He even suggested that people in “violent” marriages should try to work things out.
Vance further told a Catholic magazine in 2021 that he wants to ban pornography, stating: “I think the combination of porn, abortion have basically created a really lonely, isolated generation that isn’t getting married, they’re not having families, and they’re actually not even totally sure how to interact with each other.”
Gillian Branstetter, a communications strategist at the ACLU, highlighted what Vance’s stances on these issues say about him.
“There is no part of your life, your body, or your family that J.D. Vance doesn’t want to control—especially if, when, or how you have children and how you raise them,” Branstetter wrote on X, previously known as Twitter. “Your marriage, your sex life, the books you read, and the media you consume—he wants it all.”
Vance further suggested the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas was partly due to “fatherlessness,” blamed America’s issues on the “childless left,” and referred to Democrats as “childless cat ladies.”
He has also said in the past that it’s the government’s job to encourage Americans to have more children. At multiple forums in 2021, Vance touted a program in Hungary that awards loans to couples who get married before the bride’s 41st birthday—with a third of the loans becoming forgivable if the couple goes on to have two children, and the whole debt wiped out if they have three. Vance has said that the US should consider implementing a similar program.
In order to achieve his desired future for the country, Vance has been open about being willing to override democracy and the popular will of Americans.
He’s said he would have refused to certify the 2020 presidential election results, suggested Trump should ignore Supreme Court rulings that he disagrees with, and has called for an authoritarian takeover of American universities to control what is taught in classrooms.
An economic populist or a clever politician?
On economic issues, Vance—a former venture capitalist—has similarly reinvented himself in recent years, working to portray himself as a populist who supports tariffs on trade, backs efforts to claw back pay from executives of failed banks, and opposes cuts to Social Security.
But before his reinvention, Vance wrote in 2010 that Social Security and Medicare were among the biggest drivers of federal budget deficits and lamented that neither Democrats nor Republicans were willing to make deep cuts to the programs. He also helped lobbyists weaken his own rail safety bill after last year’s train derailment and chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio.
Notably, Vance also owes his political career to Big Tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who spent $15 million to help elect him in 2022 and once wrote that he “no longer believe[s] that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Vance also has close ties to Big Pharma, Big Oil, and has the support of countless corporate CEOs.
Vance accepts Trump’s selection
In the post announcing Vance as his running mate, Trump said that Vance “honorably served our country in the Marine Corps” and that he “graduated from Ohio State University in two years” before attending Yale Law School.
Trump also referenced Vance’s memoir, saying that it “championed the hardworking men and women of our country” and said that Vance has had a “successful business career in technology and finance.”
Trump added that during this campaign, Vance will be “strongly focused” on “American workers and farmers.”
“As Vice President, J.D. will continue to fight for our Constitution, stand with our Troops, and will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” the former president said on Truth Social.
Vance accepted his party’s formal nomination Monday at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where he walked out to Merle Haggard’s “America First.”
