J.D. Vance Comes Across as a Phony

I just finished watching J.D. Vance's address to the Republican National Convention.

Vance began his remarks at 10:47 p.m., more than an hour and 15 minutes behind schedule, and spoke for 37 minutes.

In those 37 minutes, Vance came across as a phony especially when it came to his effusive praise of Donald Trump. When you liken someone as a combination of Hitler and heroin, it is hard to take efforts to kiss up to that someone with any degree of seriousness and I think it showed. While the RNC didn't boo Vance, they weren't very enthusiastic either. I noticed many delegates scrolling through their phones as Vance spoke. In many respects, Vance spoke like a boilerplate politician and there are plenty of them to go around in both parties and in other political parties around the world. It is hard to take his "working man" and "working families" rhetoric seriously given his background as a venture capitalist. It is also hard to take Vance seriously when he said the Republican Party was the party of ideas when it worships at the altar of Trump lock, stock and barrel.

However, there were moments when Vance tapped into Trump style demagoguery as when he stated, "Democrats flooded the country with illegal aliens." From there he blamed illegal aliens for housing shortages and "Biden's inflation crisis."

Perhaps Vance isn't old enough to remember when President Reagan declared amnesty. Indeed, he would have been all of 2-years old. Vance also isn't old enough to remember that when Reagan won 49 out of 50 states, inflation was at 4%. Today, it is at 3%. It might be useful for Vance to brush up on his history. 

It is worth noting that Vance made a point of stating that President Biden had been a politician longer than he's been alive. This is certainly true. But then he said that Vice-President Harris was "not far behind." While Harris is 20 years Vance's senior, she has certainly not been an elected official his whole life. She was first elected as San Francisco DA in 2003, the same year Vance deployed to Iraq. 

As awful as Trump is, he is authentic in the sense that he believes his own bullshit. The same cannot be said for Vance and it shows.