At this point I'm not sure who needs to hear this, but GOP Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance is a fascist and it's important to say that. Merely calling him Peter Thiel's puppet, or a techbro authoritarian doesn't go far enough; Vance is an out and open fascist, and there's no "crypto" about it. From my perspective, this reality is obvious when you listen to the things Vance says and the policy positions he endorses; now that the Pig Empire media has gotten interested enough to dig into his short political career however, the evidence of Vance's support for overt fascism is piling up high enough that it's literally undeniable. For a good example of what I'm talking about here, let's turn to a piece in today's edition of The Guardian talking about that time oh so long ago (you know, literally December 2023) when Vance defended noted white nationalist shitlord Douglass Mackey (aka Ricky Vaughn on Twitter) and then praised a book full of right wing extremist essays published by the minions at noted (fascist) think tank the Claremont Institute.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/22/jd-vance-speech-extremist-far-right-book
Revealed: JD Vance promoted far-right views in speech about extremists’ book
"In his speech, Vance first offered “congratulations on such a great book, and thanks for getting such a good crew together”, and then warmed to themes similar to Milikh’s.
“Republicans, conservatives, we’re still terrified of wielding power, of actually doing the job that the people sent us here to do,” Vance said, later adding: “Isn’t it just common sense that when we’re given power, we should actually do something with it?”
Brad Onishi, author of Preparing for War, a critical account of Christian nationalism and the host of the Straight White American Jesus podcast, said: “Vance, many Claremont people, including some folks in this volume, and especially the ‘post-liberal’ conservative Catholics that he hangs out with, have advocated for a form of big government that will wield its power in order to set the country right.”
He added: “And you may think, well, OK, that doesn’t sound so bad. But here the common good is rooting out queer people, making sure non-Christians don’t immigrate to the country and outlawing things like pornography that are currently a matter of personal choice.”
Despite the Guardian's inexplicable squeamishness about calling all of this what it is, fascism, I strongly encourage you to read the entire article because the more of it you read, the more obvious it becomes that Vance supports overt, bald-ass fascism. However, for purposes of summarization we can divide its contents into two major issues.
First, JD Vance expressed support for and told lies to protect a white nationalist influencer who used to post on Twitter; the aforementioned Douglas Mackey, aka "Ricky Vaughn." For those of you unfamiliar with his work, in addition to being an admitted white nationalist, Mackey was also convicted (in 2023) of "conspiracy against rights" for trying to rig the 2016 election for Trump using online disinformation.
"Prosecutors said that on 1 November 2016, Mackey as Vaughn produced an image depicting a Black woman standing in front of a sign that said “African Americans for Hillary Clinton”, with a caption falsely claiming that voters could “avoid the line” and “vote from home” via text. Another fine-print caption at the bottom of the image read “Paid for by Hillary for President 2016”.
Prosecutors say that at least 4,900 people texted the candidate’s name to the number on the image in following days, as instructed by the disinformation image."
During his speech, given after Mackey was charged but before he was convicted, Vance accused Attorney General Merrick Garland of trying to throw Mackey in prison for "posting a meme" and said the post describe above was somehow "a joke." Obviously, a federal jury did not agree, but Mackey is still appealing the conviction. Vance also suggested, I shit you not, a solution to cases like Mackey's would be stacking the judiciary with fascist loyalists, saying “maybe we should be appointing people at the Department of Justice who actually take a side in the culture war, the side of the people who elected us, and not just pretend we don’t have to take sides at all.”
(Continued)
#Fascism #JDVance #GOP #USPol #DouglasMackey #DOJ #Trump #Election2024
