J.D. Vance’s victory in Tuesday’s Ohio Republican Senate primary is, of course, yet another indication that former President Donald Trump continues to hold the GOP in thrall.
It does not take a trained pundit to recognize the role that Trump’s belated, fumbling endorsement played in Vance’s come-from-behind win over better-funded candidates.
While the pundit hive mind marinates in the Trump-as-Bigfoot narrative, let’s shift the focus from Mar-a-Lago back to Ohio — and what this primary tells us about the GOP electorate.
Vance made a judgment about what Republican voters wanted in 2022, and boy did he give it to them. That’s worth considering for a moment.
Vance made a judgment about what Republican voters wanted in 2022, and boy did he give it to them. That’s worth considering for a moment.
The former Marine, Ivy League law school grad and bestselling author had a strategy. “I’m not just a flip-flopper, I’m a flip-flop-flipper on Trump,” he told Time’s Molly Ball.
Bankrolled by billionaire Peter Thiel, Vance was willing to drink deeply from the cup of self-humiliation and demagoguery, because that is what Trump demands. But even more important: As we saw last night, this is what the GOP voting base wants.
For Vance, that meant not only abandoning many of his former principles (including his oft-stated distaste for Trump, whom he once compared to Hitler), but any pretense to a principled or intellectually coherent platform. Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara previously described the transmogrified Vance as a “pathetic loser poser fake jerk.”
But it worked.
Vance studied the Trumpified GOP electorate and figured that his transparent phoniness and opportunism wouldn’t be held against him.
He was right.
He turned himself into a troll spewing cartoonish bigotry on demand. As my colleague Tim Miller wrote in The Bulwark last year, in a single week, Vance had “tweeted about how he’s scared to go to New York because it might be dirty. Defended a Nazi from being kicked off of twitter. Shared a thread defending election fraud conspiracies. Fantastically claimed Google was ‘hiding’ his website. Mocked reporters for saying they were traumatized by the Capitol riot.”
He tightly hugged the most extreme MAGA types, campaigning with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and eagerly accepting the endorsement of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., even defending her appearance at a white nationalist conference. “She is my friend, and she did nothing wrong,” Vance said after the conspiracy-mongering representative appeared at an event organized by Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. “She said nothing wrong, and I’m absolutely not going to throw her under the bus, or anybody else who’s a friend of mine.”
Vance figured that this refusal to apologize would win him the favor of the deplorable legions, or at least Trump.
Again, he was right.
Shortly before Ukrainians began to bravely resist a brutal Russian invasion, Vance embraced Trumpian anti-anti-Vladimir Putin isolationism: “I’ve got to be honest with you,” he declared. “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.”
He figured that this would appeal to the America Firsters and the GOP’s No. 1 Putin fan. He was right.
Vance seldom avoided a chance to weigh in on hot-button culture war issues. He joined in the right-wing dunking on Gen. Mark Milley for highlighting the need to combat racism, tweeting, “I personally would like American generals to read less about ‘white rage’ (whatever that is) and more about ‘not losing wars.’”
After retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey (quite accurately) described Vance as a “stooge for Russian aggression,” Vance similarly lashed out at the decorated veteran.
Your entire time in military leadership we won zero wars. You drank fine wine at bullshit security conferences while thousands of working class kids died on the battlefield. Oh, by the way, how much do you stand to gain financially from a war with Russia, Barry? https://t.co/BSOIhWWkdF
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) February 19, 2022
As writer David French tweeted: “He’s talking about a guy with three Purple Hearts, two silver stars, and who commanded 24th ID in Desert Storm, leading the attack that led to one of the most decisive military victories in American history. This is such a sad and shameful attack on an honorable man.”
But in the GOP of 2022, voters didn’t seem to mind at all.
Neither did Vance shy away from racing to the bottom with rivals like Josh Mandel. Accurately reading the zeitgeist of the GOP’s entertainment wing, Vance openly and repeatedly touted the “great replacement” theory to attack the Biden administration’s border policies. This so-called theory — once confined to the far reaches of the white nationalist fever swamps — claims that elites are using migrants and other members of minority groups to “replace” white American voters.
Last month, Vance released an ad claiming that “Joe Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country.” The month before he released the ad, Vance went on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to press the attack: “We have an invasion in this country because very powerful people get richer and more powerful because of it. It’s not bad policy, it’s evil, and we need to call it that.” Indeed, Vance was unapologetic about charges that he was embracing racism. “Are you a racist?” Vance asked in the TV ad. “Do you hate Mexicans?” “Whatever they call us,” he declared, “we will put America first.” As he bid furiously for Trump’s support, Vance naturally minimized the former president’s attempted power grab and the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6. He praised Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who had objected to certifying the election, and he said that “most of the people there were actually super peaceful.” (Five people died, and more than 100 police officers were injured during the hourslong assault.) Perhaps most importantly, Vance made it clear that he despised the same people the voters despised. And he didn’t care how unfair or obnoxious he sounded. He attacked the “childless left” who, he said, have “no physical commitment to the future of this country.” And he railed against the monied boogeymen of the “big lie,” tweeting, “The simple truth is that in 2020 our oligarchs used their power money to do everything they could to steal an election.” It worked. Writing in The Atlantic, Tom Nichols noted that “Vance has struck back at his many critics across the political spectrum by referring to them all as ‘degenerate liberals,’ which is exactly the kind of thing a smarmy and pretentious asshole would say.” Perhaps most importantly, Vance made it clear that he despised the same people the voters despised. But Vance knew that’s what he had to say. He was right. Last month, in an interview with Vanity Fair, Vance laid out his vision of a Trumpian restoration: “I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left,” he said. “And turn them against the left. We need like a de-Baathification program, a de-woke-ification program.”
“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.” Let’s leave aside the fact that the Jackson quote is apocryphal. There’s a lot more going on here than just “populism.” Vance was fantasizing about a campaign of post-constitutional retribution — a bonfire of vengeance. And he knew that was exactly what Trump wanted to hear. It was the price he was willing to pay for the disgraced, defeated ex-president’s endorsement. In the closing days of the campaign, Trump mangled Vance’s name — referring to him as “J.D. Mandel.” Vance likely wasn’t surprised. He knew exactly what he was getting. And he was right.
Charlie Sykes is an MS NOW contributor and the author of the newsletter "To the Contrary." 
