Special Repost: J. D. Vance - The Next Ayatollah of MAGA

Special Note to My Readers:

On June 14, 2024, I wrote this column about J.D. Vance being the natural successor to Trump’s MAGA movement. I was one of the first journalists to preview the possibility of J.D.Vance as Trump’s Vice-Presidential running mate. With yesterday’s announcement, I wanted to share it again with all of you.

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One of the purported four leading contenders for Donald Trump’s vice-presidential running mate is Republican US Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio.  Vance was first elected to the Senate in 2022.  He initially came into national prominence as the author of Hillbilly Elegy, published in 2016.  

I used to favorably recommend Hillbilly Elegy to my college students as a masterful work, articulating, in a totally non-racist way, the discontent in white, rural America in which Vance lived as a child, adolescent, and young adult.  He also described vividly the Appalachian values in which he was raised.

Prior to announcing his Senate candidacy in 2021, Vance was a definite anti-Trumper.  He described Trump as “cultural heroin” and suggested that Trump may be “America’s Hitler.”

By the time Vance announced his Senate candidacy, he had transformed himself from an anti-Trumper into a Trump acolyte.    He now described Trump as “the best president of my lifetime.”

I cannot predict whether Trump will select Vance as his running mate.  In my view, it will not matter.  All signs now point to a clear and decisive Joe Biden reelection victory.

Trump’s recent New York State criminal conviction in the “hush money” case, the civil court finding of his rape of E. Jean Carroll, his long irrefutable record as a racist, including his defamation of the Central Park Five, his documented discriminations against people of color as a Brooklyn landlord in the 1970s , and the recent report of his use of the N-word as a producer of “The Apprentice,” all prove his manifest unfitness for the presidency.  Yet what dooms him to defeat is his rapidly diminishing advantage over Biden on the management of the economy, which has been narrowed in the polls from eleven to four percent.  Consumer confidence is now up by 4.5 points, further signifying the end of the public perception of Trump as a more effective economy manager.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

And yesterday, Trump proved himself to be politically unfit for the presidency as well.  He established himself as a political dunce by trashing the GOP convention city of Milwaukee as a “horrible city.” This guarantees his loss in the vital swing state of Wisconsin.

Photo by Joshua Woroniecki on Unsplash

Trump’s defamation of Milwaukee is reminiscent of the arrogance of New York City sportswriters prior to the 1957 World Series between the New York Yankees and the then Milwaukee Braves.  Like Trump, they trashed Milwaukee as “Bush League.” Thanks to Lew Burdette, Henry Aaron, and Ed Mathews, the Braves won the Series in seven games.  The headline in the Milwaukee Journal read, “Bushville Wins!”

One must wonder why Trump would consider Vance for the vice presidency, given the likelihood of his being undercut by the untrustworthy Ohio Senator while in office. Unlike Trump, the Yale Law School graduate Vance is extremely intelligent and even intellectual - and dangerously crafty. 

Trump is physically grossly unfit.  If he were to suffer a rapid diminishment of health while in office, Vice President Vance would likely use his not unsubstantial Machiavellian skills to engineer a 25th Amendment proceeding to remove Trump from office to be replaced by none other than J.D. Vance.

Photo by Anthony Garand on Unsplash

And Vance will find that not even his prodigious intellect and intelligence will enable him to provide an acceptable rationalization for his embrace of Trump.  Yesterday, in an interview with Ross Douthat in the New York Times ,  he attempted to provide an explanation for his Trump adulation. The result was a journalistic disaster - a mélange of incoherent sophistry, discrediting not only Vance, but Douthat as well in his vaunted quest to become the next George Will.

Yet. a Trump defeat will be a political godsend to J.D. Vance.  Whether or not he serves as Trump’s running mate, he will go on to become the Ayatollah of MAGA.  To explain this, it is necessary to explain both the meaning of MAGA and its cult leadership feature.

MAGA stands for “Make America Great Again.”  It is the grassroots core of the Trump base, with a principal theme of white anti-African-American grievance.

Photo by Natilyn Photography on Unsplash

Northwestern University history professor Kathleen Belew best described the history of the White Power movement in America in her landmark book, Bring the War Home.  To observers of the White Power movement history, MAGA constitutes the political mainstreaming of White Nationalism, soft-pedaling both the movement’s violence and the doctrine of genetic White Supremacy while continuing to loudly espouse its racist anti-African-American views.

Photo by Liza Pooor on Unsplash

Basically, MAGA is a cult, whose leader, Donald Trump is given the status of a virtual deity, similar to the Ayatollah in Iran.  Trump himself explained the fanaticism of his MAGA cult followers in the following quote:

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" 

Trump is in physical decline, and after he loses the 2024 election, he will relinquish his status as the Ayatollah of MAGA.  And J.D.Vance will be ideally situated to become the next MAGA Ayatollah.

Vance grew from childhood to manhood in the Appalachian culture, which was a principal spawning ground of the MAGA movement.  He knows exactly the language and rhetoric that MAGA members venerate and respond to with unbridled fanaticism.

Now there is a major difference between Trump and Vance in that the racism of Trump is virulent and unmistakable, while Vance thus far has not overtly revealed racism on his part.

Yet Vance has displayed, however, by his shameless conversation about Trumpism, that he is a man of unconstrained ambition and a transactional nature, willing to do anything to achieve his goals. There is an uncanny resemblance in the character of Vance and that of Otto von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of the unified German Empire in the late 19th century.  

Bismarck was known by intimates to be devoid of any personal antisemitism.  Yet to preserve and expand his power as Chancellor, he enabled the worst wave of German antisemitism before the Holocaust.

Similarly, before this week, Vance did not indicate any personal animosity towards People of Color. Yet by his introduction Wednesday of the Dismantle DEI Act, Vance has demonstrated most graphically his willingness to embrace the most harmful features of MAGA racism to secure his status as the heir apparent to Trump as the next MAGA Ayatollah.

Vance’s Dismantle DEI Act would eliminate all federal DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs and end DEI-related funding for agencies, contractors, organizations, and educational accreditation agencies that receive federal funding.  This legislation constitutes the most anti-people of Color measure introduced in Congress in recent decades.

The end of the Era of MAGA Ayatollah Trump will soon come, but the Era of MAGA Ayatollah Vance will be far more dangerous.

Alan J. Steinberg of Highland Park served as regional administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as executive director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission. He graduated from Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin Law School.