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“‘Hillbilly Elegy’ author JD Vance won Ohio’s contentious and hyper-competitive GOP Senate primary on Tuesday, buoyed by Donald Trump’s endorsement in a race that was an early test of the former president’s hold on his party as the midterm season kicks into high gear.” AP News
The right praises Vance and argues that his victory shows the strength of the America-first faction of the Republican party.
“Vance has taken a lot of heat for his views on foreign policy. He’s been willing to point out that the Beltway establishment cares much more about Ukraine’s eastern border than it does about America’s southern border, and to condemn that. The border he cares about is in Texas, not the Donbas, because Mexican fentanyl is killing his neighbors in Ohio. Vance joined the Marines to defend his home, and defend his home is what he seeks to do still…
“What Vance understands is that the American leadership class is bad at multitasking and filled with greed. While they’ve been preoccupied with spreading democracy abroad and cashing in on the global financial system, they’ve forgotten about the American middle class, especially the workers of the industrial heartland like in Ohio. Vance spoke out against nuclear-armed war with Russia because he cares about the Ohioans who too often bear the brunt of the Beltway’s reckless policies.”
Emile Doak, American Conservative
“Much has been made of Vance’s supposed transformation from the author of Hillbilly Elegy to the Senate candidate endorsed by Marjorie Taylor Greene. He shifted his assessment of Trump, absolutely, but his politics have remained much the same…
“Even Vance’s vengeful former roommate — who tried to harm his campaign by sharing a text showing that, years ago, Vance made an overheated comparison of Trump to Hitler — ended up proving the point. In that text exchange, Vance was saying that the Republican Party needed to deliver tangible benefits to working-class white people who have migrated into the party. That’s the message he had three years ago, too.”
Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review
“Republican turnout was more than double [Democratic turnout], with nearly 1.1 million Ohioans choosing a GOP ballot compared with only 500,000 who voted in the Democratic primary. Overall turnout was nearly identical in 2018, but Republicans held only a 55-45 edge. Ohio voters do not register by party and can choose either ballot when they vote. I’m sure the big disparity was at least partly because of the more closely contested races on the GOP side, but it well could also be an indicator that independent voters are leaning Republican…
“The signs are unmistakable: stormy weather ahead for business Republicans and Team Blue, full speed ahead for the MAGA express.”
Henry Olsen, Washington Post
“The [Republican] Old Guard and the Never Trumpers hoped that all that talk of immigration, trade protectionism, and America First would go away. But it hasn’t gone away, and for good reason: the problems Trump identified, the crises he was willing to name when few others would, haven’t gone away either. They have gotten worse, because the Old Guard doesn’t have solutions to them…
“It makes no sense to recite old Reagan-era slogans about the ‘free market’ when Chinese oligarchs have colluded with tech billionaires to drain the marrow out of America’s working class. Invocations of ‘private enterprise’ ring hollow when Disney, a vast corporation with its own county government, declares allegiance to a new sexual theology…
“The new Right’s message is simply that Americans will not stand to see their productive capacities eroded, the wealth of their nation leeched away in foreign lands, and their children’s psyches compromised by invasive digital and ideological catechesis. That is the way forward for this country.”
The Editors, American Mind
The left criticizes Vance and argues that focusing on Donald Trump may be a successful midterm strategy for Democrats.
The left criticizes Vance and argues that focusing on Donald Trump may be a successful midterm strategy for Democrats.
“Vance, in addition to being the author of the hit memoir Hillbilly Elegy, is a multimillionaire investor in tech startups whose personal associations are such that he once hosted a fundraiser for a private school on the grounds of the estate owned by fashion-industry CEO Les Wexner, who is known for his longtime professional and financial relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. (Wexner has never been accused of involvement in sexual abuse.) Vance’s campaign was backed by a super PAC supported by $15 million in donations from Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, for whom Vance once worked…
“Somehow, within this set of facts, Vance ran on the premise that someone ought to stick it to wealthy ‘elites,’ particularly technology executives, because they are decadent creeps…
“The Democrats’ nominee to run against Vance is avowedly working-class Rep. Tim Ryan, who’s already at work portraying Vance as a carpetbagging rich phony, but he’ll be fighting uphill against a MAGA movement whose leader just demonstrated his continuing relevance. As J.D. Vance might say at a private-school fundraiser, but probably not in public (anymore), c’est la vie!”
Ben Mathis-Lilley, Slate
"Vance has aligned himself with the ‘post-liberal’ right and its longing for an iron fist to smash their enemies. Vance has asserted the 2020 election was stolen and lionized those charged with storming the Capitol on January 6 as political prisoners…
“‘I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,’ he said. ‘I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.’ ‘And when the courts stop you,’ he went on, ‘stand before the country, and say —’ he quoted Andrew Jackson, giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order — ‘the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’…
“Bear in mind that, at this very moment, the Republican Party is united in outrage against the threat to norms posed by a leak of a draft ruling… Yet here they have a candidate for office openly longing to ignore the Court’s authority — he is imagining a scenario where Trump has abused his power clearly enough that at least one Republican-appointed justice calls the act illegal — and none of them have raised even a peep of complaint.”
Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
“The media is framing this month’s big Republican primaries as all about Trump – which is exactly as Trump wants them framed. But this framing is disastrous for Republicans… By making these races all about him, Trump and the media are casting the midterms as a whole as a referendum on Trump’s continuing power and influence. This is exactly what the Democrats need…
"I’m not suggesting Democrats seeking election or re-election center their campaigns around Trump. To the contrary, Democrats need to show voters their continuing commitment to improving voters’ lives. Between now and November, Democrats should enact laws to help Americans afford childcare, cut the costs of prescription drugs, and stop oil companies from price gouging, for example…
"But Democrats can also count on Americans’ reawakened awareness of the hatefulness and chaos Trump and his Republican enablers have unleashed. And it’s this combination… that could well reverse conventional wisdom about midterms, and keep Democrats in control."
Robert Reich, The Guardian
