The J.D. Vances and the Second Coming of the John F. Kennedys?

Even before he made it to the stage of the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and his family had a very carefully choreographed exit from his government airplane at Munich Airport.  

The way in which his wife Usha walked down the mobile stairs from the airplane with her three children, one in her arm, all in a little dark coat, was an early sign of what, in the Vances’ mind, lies ahead for the world.

Another global “it” couple?

The self-imagined future President of the United States is evidently very eager to create an image of the charming reappearance of the John F. Kennedy family back in the 1960s.  The young President and his wife Jackie captured the global imagination as the global “it” couple and family.

The Kennedys, with JFK’s charismatic leadership and Jackie’s grace, became a symbol of the American dream — representing an era of hope and progress.

A Kennedyesque hard right winger?

In his bottomless arrogance, J.D. Vance has no understanding that he will never enjoy anywhere near the widespread popular sympathy as Jackie and JFK had at the time. 

For starters, by sympathizing so openly with Europe’s hard proto-fascist right, wherever he finds it beyond Orban’s Hungary, Vance has already lost the sympathy of most Europeans for good. 

Or another Franklin or Jefferson?

In making his comments about Europe not embracing hard right-wing speech, Vance, in his delusion, probably fancied himself a latter-day version of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

When they visited the Old World in the 18th century, they were immensely popular. Franklin was seen as the embodiment of the Enlightenment ideals of reason, science and democracy. His simple, self-made image contrasted with the decadence of the French aristocracy, making him a hero to those who sought reform.

And Jefferson’s advocacy for republicanism and individual rights made him a respected figure among European liberals and reformers.

The two men set the tone for generations of Americans in Europe to come. The contrast to Vice President Vance could not be bigger.

Mimicking truly dark sidekicks

Indeed, given that he so pseudo-adoringly serves the current U.S. President as his hatchet man (witness his shameful treatment of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy), Vance evokes more of the feeling of a pit bull.

All anyone needs to know about the Vice President’s sense of personal integrity and ethics is to recall his assessment of Donald Trump.

No morals, no principles, just self-advancement

In the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, J.D. Vance, then a bitter critic of Donald Trump, publicly called him an “idiot” and said he was “reprehensible.” Privately, he compared him to Adolf Hitler.

Whatever Vance’s highly transparent and implausible attempts at making all of his earlier, principled comments on Trump forgotten, it tells us everything we need to know about his character.

Moreover, his disassociation move in the 2024 campaign underscores Vance’s limitless level of disingenuity. Whatever it takes to advance his career and ultimately his wealth.

Whatever it takes

This limitless disingenuity can take very different manifestations. Whether he wins by writing a book about America’s underclass (Hillbilly Elegy), in which he for the most part looks down on people, or eagerly accepts millions as a pre-payment for his services in government via the reactionary private equity class of the Thiels and others.

Vance does not even recognize that the Trumpian billionaire folks must be laughing all the way to the bank, or their crypto pools.

They are eager to use Vance as a pseudo-proletarian vehicle to advance their hyper-elitist libertarian vision of the United States.

The Musks,’ Thiels’ & Co. ultimate goal seems to be to excise the American people from the country’s territory. To them, they are nothing but a cost factor.

The substance of Vance?

As to the substance of Vance, to the extent it actually exists, let us look at his remarks in Munich. It is important to note that the very thing Vance criticized the Europeans for – in essence, being morally rotten – is obviously a deliberate distraction.

Why? Because it is precisely the thing that, at this stage, best describes the entire Republican field of politicians in the United States.

As saddening as this statement is, there is no way of denying, with very few exceptions, that the Republicans have embraced the Führerprinzip.  They accept whatever scraps Trump throws them.

This is all the more bizarre as Trump turns even the most absurd of policy ideas and prescriptions into a loyalty test.

Blame the opposition for what you are actually doing

In attacking the Europeans for what is actually occurring in the United States, Vance is following a time-tested way the Republicans have utilized domestically to attack and disable the Democrats in their own country in years past. 

They regularly criticize the Democrats for the poor performance the Republicans were actually delivering themselves. This is especially true about managing the economy. Republicans espouse to be better at creating jobs.

Yet, all Democratic presidents since 1980 ended their presidencies with lower unemployment rates. Meanwhile, all Republican Presidents, except for Ronald Reagan, managed to end their presidencies with higher unemployment rates than when they started.

Equally, job growth is higher for each Democratic President since 1980 (except Ronald Reagan) than for any single Republican President.

Finally, since 1980, all Republican presidents added a combined $13 trillion to U.S. national debt during their terms, compared to $9 trillion added by Democratic presidents.

Looking beyond the cowed domestic opposition

With the Democrats in the United States now so paralyzed, the ever-ambitious Mr. Vance must have been looking for a bigger, juicier target than the cowed domestic opposition. Hence his attack on Europe in Munich.

Thanks to their absurdly imperialist path of action that makes past bad boys like the “Big Seven” oil companies look like choir boys, the Europeans didn’t fold, but are rising to the occasion.

They are now seeing the need for Europe’s strategic autonomy, something that Emmanuel Macron had called for since 2017, during Trump’s first term.

For all their love of Russia, both Trump and Vance evidently don’t understand the principle of dialectics. Rather than submitting to a Russia-loving United States under Trump’s (mis)leadership, the Europeans are now developing the political will necessary to do what has long needed to get done.

Conclusion

As for J.D. Vance and his wannabe Kennedyesque ambitions, it applies what Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate Lloyd Bentsen once so brilliantly to his counterpart, Republican Senator Dan Quayle, retorted in the 1988 U.S. Vice Presidential debate: “I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.”