What the Media Hate About J.D. Vance
Hint: It's not the economic populism.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio), the GOP's vice presidential nominee, made his speaking debut at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night, hitting themes of economic populism and remembering the forgotten American worker.
For many reasons, Donald Trump's selection of Vance should come as something of a disappointment for libertarians. Of all the people Trump was reportedly considering for the job—North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, and others—Vance is the least inspired option. He favors a bevy of progressive policies: He wants higher tariffs, has praised the minimum wage, and is enthralled by Federal Trade Commissioner Lina Khan, a Biden appointee who is currently at war with the American consumer. Vance's selection is all the more depressing given that Trump nearly picked the more liberty-friendly Burgum but was talked out of it by his sons.
While Vance's big-government economic views should make him few friends among libertarians, he is getting very little credit from people who might ostensibly agree with him on those issues. Many progressives on MSNBC and CNN, for instance, barely noticed that Vance's expressed economic views frequently align with President Joe Biden's. Their coverage was almost entirely focused on his hard-right social views and his embrace of Trump's 2020 election revisionism. CNN's Van Jones, for instance, expressed horror at the choice of the "nationalist" Vance, largely because he feared Vance would urge Trump to abandon NATO and end U.S. funding of the increasingly doomed Ukrainian resistance against Russia. Vance is being portrayed as a down-the-line far-right extremist, but many of his economic policies (and aspects of his foreign policies) are in keeping with what progressives want.
A particularly curious attack came from ProPublica, which made note of a private speech Vance gave to a conservative group in 2021. One can certainly take issue with Vance designating Alex Jones as a more credible source than Rachel Maddow, although his overall point was clearly that both Jones and Maddow have spread false information (about Russiagate, Hunter Biden's laptop, and more) but only one of them paid a penalty. Of course, the most salacious aspect of his speech, according to ProPublica, was that he said he believes "the devil is real"—this was, after all, the aspect highlighted in the headline. While this may be a minority view among media elites, the majority of Americans also think Satan and hell are real.
MSNBC's Alex Wagner upped the ante, referring to Vance's desire to be buried in his family plot in Kentucky as "Easter eggs of white nationalism."
"It reveals someone who believes that the history that the family should inherit, and indeed the history that should be determinative in the story of the Vance family, is the history of the eastern Kentucky Vances and not the Vances from San Diego, which is where his wife is from and where her Indian parents are from," she said.
There's nothing racist about having an appreciation for one's own family and roots, of course. This is the kind of commentary from progressive elites that is maximally off-putting to normal people. Love of familial heritage is not political extremism.
In any case, expect mainstream coverage of Vance to frequently omit his moderate—and here I use that word pejoratively—stances on economic issues; it's harder to portray him as an extremist if they are forced to concede that substantial aspects of the Biden-Harris agenda are identical to the Trump-Vance agenda. (More's the pity.)
This Week on Free Media
I'm joined by Ryan Grim of Drop Site to discuss the chaos over at Morning Joe, Biden's frustration with his own media coverage, big labor's presence at the Republican National Convention, Secret Service screw-ups, and more.
Worth Watching
I have taken a break from Agatha Christie/Hercule Poirot marathon in order to read Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Two years ago I participated in a discussion of Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress for Geek's Guide to the Galaxy, and I'm looking forward to repeating the experience once I finish Stranger.
So far I'm struck by how funny the book is. The titular character, Michael Valentine Smith, is a human being who was raised by Martians and struggles to understand Earth customs and concepts when brought back to our world. This is very much a fish-out-of-water story, and Smith's well-meaning attempts to understand us—to grok, as the Martians would say—make for compelling comedy. The book also takes a fascinating dark turn once Smith's superhuman abilities are exposed.
