JD Vance covered quite a bit of ground during his remarks at Turning Point USA’s “AmericaFest” event, including an unsettling moment in which the vice president boasted, “In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.”
It was the kind of comment one might expect to hear from a fringe activist at a white nationalist gathering, not a national elected official who’s one heartbeat from the American presidency.
But as my MS NOW colleague Erum Salam noted, that wasn’t the only quote of note:
The vice president also said that ‘the only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God we always will be, a Christian nation’ — a remark met with raucous applause.
Indeed, Vance received an exceedingly warm welcome from the far-right crowd, but his “Christian nation” comment appeared to be the rhetoric the audience liked the most.
The obvious problem with the Ohio Republican’s assertion, which is popular within the Republican Party’s theocratic wing, is that the claim is offensive, ahistorical nonsense.
The United States is based on a secular Constitution — the nation’s actual “anchor” — which in turn created a secular government. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1802 that our First Amendment built “a wall of separation between church and state.” In 1797, John Adams agreed: “The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”
Americans unsure what to believe have a straightforward choice: They can listen to Vance, or they can read the Constitution and honor the declarations of actual Founding Fathers. This doesn’t seem like an especially tough call.
But just as notable is the sentiment behind the rhetoric: Those who espouse the idea that the United States is a “Christian nation” appear eager to those of minority faiths, as well as those who’ve chosen no religious path, “You’ll be tolerated, but you’re still The Other, relegated to second-class status.” It’s a sentiment at odds with our most basic principles, rooted in the idea that those who think as Vance does are entitled to dominance over those who do not. Our incumbent vice president delivered the rhetoric anyway, with apparent pride. For good measure, the Ohio Republican went on to insist that those on the left are “drones who take their orders from George Soros,” referring to the progressive philanthropist and financier whose name is often used in antisemitic attacks. It’s no secret that Vance is positioning himself as Donald Trump’s heir apparent and the incoming leader of the so-called MAGA “movement.” We continue to learn how, exactly, the vice president intends to claim that mantle. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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