Earlier this week, former president Donald Trump announced that his running mate for this year’s election is Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. The announcement ended long speculation over who Trump would choose for his VP candidate this election cycle. Vance’s selection signals Trump’s intent to make his final stand in the Rust Belt midwestern states that previously brought him victory in 2016.
But Vance’s selection also signals to the rest of America just where the Republican party is headed over the long term and it’s not a good direction. Based on previous statements, Vance is vehemently anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ2S+ and anti-abortion. Vance, like his predecessor Mike Pence, believes he knows better than you do what’s best for your own body.
Vance, a Yale graduate, first rose to fame after his book, Hillbilly Elegy, became a bestseller and was subsequently made into a mid-tier movie that no one remembers now. He claims to be a voice for the forgotten peoples of Appalachia while ensconcing himself in the trappings of the American coastal elites and D.C. power.
Vance once called Trump “America’s Hitler” and yet he has been slowly positioning himself for this appointment by continuously sucking up to Trump and his sycophants over recent years—he even began dressing like Trump over the last year or two. Vance is perhaps best known as being the politician avatar of his most prominent financial supporter, Silicon Valley mogul Peter Thiel.
But Vance’s vision for America doesn’t at all look like the country we have now. He is opposed to no-fault divorce and once claimed that it might be better for kids if women stayed in violent marriages. Though his position statement was recently scrubbed from his official website, he previously said he favours a national ban on abortion to “prevent George Soros from flying Black women to California to get abortions.”
Last year, Vance introduced a bill that would have completely banned puberty blockers in the U.S., a measure which would have made it a Class C felony for doctors to prescribe such medication. He also proposed a bill that would have banned the non-binary gender designation “X” on U.S. passports. In 2022, he labelled LGBTQ+ advocates “groomers” for opposing the GOP anti-trans agenda.
While Vance’s views on these issues are fully in line with the Republican party as a whole, we should pause a moment and take a closer look at what kind of America we would have should Vance—and Trump—gain power, especially if they can capture both chambers of congress this fall.
The America we would have is one devoid of bodily autonomy. It’s one where the government has its grubby little hands in your most personal or private decisions. It’s the “I consent” meme featuring Vance’s unnerving, bearded little face.
Trump has been found liable for sexual abuse and is a convicted felon. And Vance would be his moral sword against gender and sexual minorities disfavoured by the right.
In the media, there’s a penchant to present midwest Yale Republicans like Vance as “real Americans,” while positioning liberals and people even of low classes living on the coasts as somehow less real, but Vance and Trump’s vision for America is just out of step for what most Americans are used to in their lives and out of step with what most of them want.
At some point it’s worth asking, can Republican politicians ever assimilate into modern American life, and why should the rest of us continue putting up with their pathological desire for controlling everyone’s bodies?
No one wants violent marriages or police showing up at your doctor’s appointments, let’s be real. We must reject the radical Republican vision for America presented in Vance’s elevation to Trump’s running mate.
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