JD Vance is a dangerous loser
Will Bunch explains why JD Vance is a threat to democracy.
It's really easy to dislike JD Vance. You might even call him a "pig man." His approval rating has been hovering around 40 percent for some time, so he's almost as unpopular as Donald Trump.
JD Vance comes off as a smug, awkward, duplicitous, bigoted individual. He's similar to Trump in quite a few ways, but he has zero charisma and pretty poor political instincts. He's extremely online, and that is easy to see.
He is also, alongside Marco Rubio, currently seen as one of the top contenders for the Republican nomination for president in 2028. A lot can happen before then, but it's certainly worth looking at this person as we consider who might end up vying for the presidency.
Will Bunch, a national opinion columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, has spent some time thinking about what a JD Vance presidency would look like. He recently wrote a column on this and cited numerous findings from a new book titled "Regime Change." Bunch believes a Vance presidency would be dangerous.
"According to the new Maggie Haberman/Jonathan Swan book 'Regime Change,' Vance wasn't just willing but apparently eager to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down protests in Minneapolis over the immigration raids," Bunch tells me.
The book takes us inside several important moments from Trump's second term, including Vance urging the president to invoke the Insurrection Act to crush protests in Minnesota. The book also details how Vance tried to manage the fallout from the release of the Epstein files.
"Sending troops to put down protests that were largely nonviolent and protected by the First Amendment — that's a dramatic plunge into authoritarianism," Bunch says.
Thor Benson
While Bunch sees Trump as an existential threat to American democracy, he thinks Vance could be even worse. He says Trump is in it for himself and doesn't have strong ideological views, but Vance is all about ideology, and he's smarter than Trump.
"The real danger has always been someone more in the Hitler mold: not chasing wealth, but a true believer. Vance has shown signs of that," Bunch says. "He's absorbed the ideologies — almost theologies — of Silicon Valley, particularly through Peter Thiel."
Many have said it can be hard to nail down how Vance actually feels about any given topic, because he's constantly shifting his position based on what he thinks others might find appealing. He's a bit of a chameleon. What is clear is that he desperately wants to be liked.
"He constantly seems to be in search of an identity — willing to latch onto father figures, whether it's Peter Thiel or Trump himself," Bunch says.
Vance certainly hasn't proven his worth as a vice president. He's seemingly Trump's scapegoat, as Trump appears to put him in charge of things he thinks might fall apart, such as the peace deal with Iran. Remember when Trump sent Vance to Greenland? It's all kind of a sideshow.
Bunch says that Vance could become president because Trump ends up not being able to finish his term or because he becomes the Republican nominee in a couple of years. Either way, Bunch says we should take him seriously as a threat to democracy and progress.
"You want a president who has a good sense of himself — someone like Obama, comfortable in his own skin," Bunch says. "With Vance, there's always the question of who this guy really is."
