JD Vance, Handpicked Leader Anti-Democracy Mvmt in US, RW Tech Lords' Pick Pres 2028: R Reich [View all]

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'JD Vance is the handpicked leader of the anti-democracy movement in the US,' by Robert Reich. The Guardian, Oct. 3, 2023. - Ed.

Rightwing tech lords are betting that Vance will be the Republican presidential pick in 2028. They’re probably right.
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JD Vance, the Republican candidate for vice-president, will almost certainly be the Republican presidential candidate in 2028, regardless of whether Donald Trump wins in November. But who is JD Vance, really? An opportunist chameleon who once viewed Donald Trump as “Hitler” and is now his pit bull?Or does Vance have an agenda over and above mere political ambition? In one of the most important exchanges of Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, Vance refused to say that the former president lost the 2020 election, and he downplayed the violent events of Jan. 6.

Vance also declined to rule out challenging the outcome of the upcoming election even if votes were certified by every state leader as legitimate. Trump picked Vance as his running mate because Vance publicly stated he’d do what Mike Pence refused to do – overturn democracy and place the US under Maga control. In response to a question ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Vance last Feb. – “Had you been vice-president on Jan. 6th, would you have certified the election results?” – Vance said: “If I had been vice-president, I would have told the states, like PA, GA, and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the US Congress should have fought over it from there.”

In 2020, Vance alleged that the 2020 election was stolen and that Biden’s immigration policy meant “more Democrat voters pouring into this country”.

In 2022, he suggested that Democrats were attempting to “transform the electorate” amid an immigrant “invasion”. Echoing the so-called “great replacement theory”, Vance told voters, “You’re talking about a shift in the democratic makeup of this country that would mean we never win, meaning Republicans would never win a national election in this country ever again.” In contrast to Trump, who has no ideology except accumulating power and wealth for himself and taking revenge on those who would deny these to him, Vance does have an ideology.

He’s the emerging leader of the anti-democracy movement in the US.

Vance would never have become a senator from Ohio in 2022 were it not for the billionaire tech financier Peter Thiel, who staked $15m on Vance’s election – a major portion of all the funds that went into Vance’s race. Thiel knew what he was buying. Vance had worked for Thiel’s California venture capital firm before running for the Senate and was part of Thiel’s libertarian community of rich crypto bros, tech executives, back-to-the-landers and disaffected far-right intellectuals..Thiel is a self-styled libertarian who once wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/03/jd-vance-anti-democracy-movement-leader