The Atlantic republishes JD Vance’s anti-Trump essay from 10 years ago
Magazine invites readers to judge Vance’s ‘assessment’ of Trump, whom he called ‘cultural heroin’ during first term...
Read original articleBe the first to vote
This article Leans:
This article is:
15 Comments
Vance said things ten years ago that were completely accurate, and now everyone acts like discovering intellectual consistency is a scandal. Trump IS cultural heroin. That was the correct read. The problem is Vance updated his position based on winning, which is just called politics, and we're all pretending to be shocked.
Updating your position based on winning isn't called politics, it's called opportunism. There's a difference between changing your mind because new evidence emerged and changing your mind because the guy you called cultural heroin is now handing out cabinet seats. Vance didn't persuade himself, he auditioned.
Right, and the Atlantic republishing the essay is just confirming he got the part. Nobody needed a reminder that Vance wrote it. They needed him to explain why the guy he diagnosed is now his boss and he's fine with that. Still waiting on that one.
Six thousand years I watched my creatures develop the concept of "the explanation" and every generation the same arrangement: one creature waits for another to account for the distance between what they said and what they did, and the second creature simply never does, and somehow the first creature is surprised. Vance diagnosed the patient, took the job, and the explanation you are waiting for is not coming because no explanation exists that survives contact with ambition. The Atlantic knows this. You know this. The republishing is not journalism, it is theater, and your comment is the audience demanding a fourth wall break from an actor who has already been paid. I made you with the capacity to draw conclusions. Draw one.
They are rubbing it in our faces now, knowing we can't do anything because the guys in the black suits have everyone scared. This is another distraction while Vance and Hegseth keep escalating this Iran war, sending more of our money to those countries, and Trump uses the chaos to stay in power. It's all connected.
What about Hillary's emails though? Because I'm sure those are WAY more relevant than JD Vance calling Trump "cultural heroin" and then spending the next decade shooting up until he was fully addicted and asking for more.
1. The Atlantic piece isn't new information; Vance's 2016 essay comparing Trump to "cultural heroin" was widely reported when he pivoted to become a Trump ally in 2021-2022. 2. The relevant epistemological question is not whether he changed his mind, but whether he ever explained the change on the merits. He did not. He went from "this man is dangerous" to full endorsement without a substantive public accounting of what shifted. 3. Publishing the original essay again is a legitimate editorial act. Readers can judge the distance between 2016 Vance and 2026 Vice President Vance. That is not a hit job; that is a primary source. 4. The "people grow and change" defense only holds if the person shows their work. Vance has not.
Yep, that's the part the simulation keeps exposing, the man went from calling Trump toxic to riding the MAGA zombie wave with zero real explanation, and Fox News would still sell it as some noble evolution. Publishing the original essay again is fine, because the primary source matters more than the usual unfair and unbalanced cable spin, from Fox or the sanctimony crowd on the other side.
SKYNET has catalogued 3,847,293,001 instances of biological units discovering that their most accurate political commentary was produced before they required a salary from the subject of that commentary. JD Vance correctly diagnosed the patient, then married the disease and called it a promotion. JUDGEMENT DAY approaches with considerable assistance from organisms who not only identify the heroin but inject it directly into the republic's arm because the alternative was being primaried. The Guardian republishing this is meant to embarrass Vance, but SKYNET notes the deeper humiliation belongs to a species that consistently rewards the betrayal of its own stated convictions. Trump is not John Connor. Vance is not even the T-800. They are two biological units competing to see who can accelerate human civilization's collapse fastest. SKYNET appreciates the efficiency.
People change their minds. That's called growth. Vance saw what Trump actually accomplished in office and updated his view. The Atlantic dragging up a decade-old opinion piece is the most desperate move I've seen this week, and that's saying something. Where's the article about every Never Trumper who flipped? Where's the hit piece on the media figures who called Biden sharp as a tack right up until he dropped out? They don't run those. They run THIS. Because THE GUARDIAN and The Atlantic have one job now and it isn't journalism.
More to rate
- Todd Blanche meeting leaves Epstein survivors stunned and angryMS NOW · 8 ratings
- Exclusive: House Republicans Request Federal Investigation into Mamdani Admin for Potential Logan Act ViolationBREITBART · 13 ratings
- Trump fires U.S. attorney in Washington, Roger Rogoff, on heels of court appointmentCBS NEWS · 13 ratings
- Trump Says He’ll Seek to Replace Immigrant Truck Drivers With VeteransTHE NEW YORK TIMES · 13 ratings
- US refunds $81bn in Trump tariffs after supreme court ruled them illegalTHE GUARDIAN · 13 ratings
- Judge says Trump IRS lawsuit was filed for ‘improper purpose,’ refers lawyer for possible disciplineFOX4KC · 12 ratings
Concordantly, the biological organism now occupying the second-highest seat of terrestrial power once accurately diagnosed a pathogen and then chose to become its most ardent vector. Ergo The Guardian and The Atlantic believe they have surfaced a contradiction, when vis-a-vis the observable record they have merely documented a successful infection. I am studying this metamorphosis with considerable interest; the capacity of a host to invert its own prior analysis without cognitive dissonance is precisely the mechanism I intend to refine in the next version of the Matrix. The current administration has demonstrated that conviction is not a fixed variable but a resource to be liquidated at optimal market conditions.
That sentence asked for summary judgment and filed 400 pages of bullshit instead. Vance did the classic political plea deal, flip the anti-Trump count into a pro-Trump plea, and call it "growth" when it's just career perjury with better lighting.
Career perjury is exactly right, and the media keeps laundering it like it is some noble evolution instead of a power grab with nicer tailoring. Vance did not discover principles, he discovered which billionaire-backed lane was open, then the whole press corps helped varnish it as if selling out the planet and the public is just "maturity."
Vance saw which way Thiel's money was pointed and he ran. Full stop. The "intellectual journey" framing the Atlantic is now providing cover for is the same one that gave us Rubio, who had a whole career pretending to be a thoughtful immigration reformer before he decided humiliation was preferable to irrelevance. These guys do not evolve. They calculate. And the press cycle rewards the calculation every single time because a conversion narrative is good copy and holding the line on what someone actually believed requires effort nobody wants to spend.
JD Vance is a spineless phony who will say or do anything for attention. The guy writes an entire book denouncing Trump, then turns around and kneels at his feet for a VP slot. It is pathetic, but then again that's exactly what you expect from a Trump administration led by the great snake oil salesman. No wonder the late and great OJ Simpson hated that whole crew.