On Wednesday morning, the Vice President of the United States stood at a podium inside the FBI’s field office in Cincinnati. Later that day, he’d head to a rally with Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican running for governor of Ohio.
Then a reporter from the BBC asked him about the ad. You know, the one where Ramaswamy’s campaign weaponizes the fact that his female opponent was sexually abused as a child?
JD Vance didn’t say the ad was wrong. He didn’t say it was right, either. “Whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern,” he said. What did concern him, it turned out, were the Republicans who had spoken out against it.
“I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America,” he said.
“Politics is a tough business, and my message to my fellow elected Republicans is if you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days.”
Disgusted. Not by the ad, mind you. But by the people who objected to it.
Changing How You Read the News: Here’s Why It Matters
Americans aren’t just disagreeing; we’re being shown completely different stories.
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If It’s Indefensible, Call JD Vance
None of this should surprise anyone who’s watched JD Vance over the last few years. In a party full of people willing to look the other way, he has carved out a very particular role. When something is too ugly for most Republicans to defend, he’s the one who steps up to the microphone. It’s become his specialty, and it’s a big part of how he got where he is.
But Vance, always too clever for his own good, almost never defends the thing itself. He goes after the people who object to it.
Go back to September of 2024, when Vance was spreading the false claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s pets. Springfield’s Republican mayor said there was no evidence. City hall was evacuated over a bomb threat. Schools were evacuated. Hospitals went into lockdown. And when CNN‘s Dana Bash pressed Vance about it, he said this: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” Bash pointed out that he had just admitted to creating a story. “Yes,” he said, before trying to walk it back by insisting the stories came from his constituents.
A few weeks later, at the vice presidential debate, Tim Walz asked him the simplest question in American politics. “Did he lose the 2020 election?” Vance had once called himself a Never Trump guy. Now he was Trump’s running mate, and he gave the answer that came with the job. “Tim, I’m focused on the future.”
And last October, when Politico exposed thousands of messages from leaders of the Young Republicans joking about gas chambers, slavery, and rape, and saying “I love Hitler,” Vance waved it away. He called the outrage “pearl clutching.” He told critics to “grow up.” “Kids do stupid things,” he said. “Especially young boys, they tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that’s what kids do.” Most of the “kids” in question were in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties. One was a state senator.
Pearl clutching. Grow up. Stop whining. It’s always the same move from the second most shameless man in American politics.
The Ones With a Conscience Left
The people Vance is calling whiners are the ones who still have a conscience. They looked at a mother calling the daughter her husband abused a liar to win a governor’s race, and something in them said no. That instinct is fundamental to a society that would ultimately reject Vance’s style of ugly politics.
Vance isn’t trying to win an argument with those people. He’s trying to shame them out of having any decency at all.
JD Vance knows you can’t sell half your soul. The Republicans who spoke up this week have held on to part of theirs. He’s telling them to go ahead and sell the rest, because that’s what it takes to win. He would know. He made that deal a long time ago, and it got him the vice presidency.
So here’s what I’d say to everyone reading this: if objecting to an ad that attacks a survivor of child sexual abuse counts as whining, then whine loudly.
Keep objecting. Keep saying no. Don’t let anyone convince you that decency is a weakness, or that the people who notice cruelty are the real problem. That’s what people say when they’ve run out of ways to defend the cruelty itself.
Vance told Republicans to go win the race in 12 days.
In 12 days, Ohio voters get to decide whether defending the indefensible is a winning strategy. I have faith they’ll know exactly what to do.
— Adam
REALLY????Not your concern. You are just second in line to be commander and chief. You see nothing to concern yourself about that video🤬 Well, you need to leave, do not collect $200 do not pass GO just leave!!!!Go back to the hills.
Vance’s true colors have come through. He has no moral compass and no integrity!!! He is a phony. He talks out of both ends of his mouth. I feel sorry for his children. His wife seems to be caught up in the craziness as well.