Tuesday, July 16, 2024

JD Vance's relationship with Trump has evolved

 From Wikipedia (not an unbiased source):

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Vance was an outspoken critic of Republican nominee Donald Trump. In a February 2016 USA Today column, he wrote that "Trump's actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd." In the Atlantic and on the PBS show hosted by Charlie Rose, Vance called Trump "cultural heroin" and "an opioid of the masses." In October 2016, he called Trump "reprehensible" in a post on Twitter, and called himself a "never-Trump guy." In a private message on Facebook he described Trump as "a cynical asshole like Nixon" and "America's Hitler". Vance disclosed that he did not vote for Trump in the 2016 election, but instead voted for a third-party candidate.

By February 2018, Vance began changing his opinion, saying Trump "is one of the few political leaders in America that recognizes the frustration that exists in large parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, eastern Kentucky and so forth".

Vance supported Trump in 2020. In July 2021, he apologized for calling Trump "reprehensible" and deleted posts from 2016 from his Twitter account that were critical of him. Vance said that he now thought Trump was a good president and expressed regret about his criticism during the 2016 election. Vance visited Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump and Peter Thiel ahead of an official announcement regarding his U.S. Senate campaign.

In October 2021, Vance reiterated Trump's false claims of election fraud, saying that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election because of widespread voter fraud. On April 15, 2022, Trump endorsed Vance for U.S. Senate.

I think I'm learning about Vance along with the rest of you. His personal story arc, based on the above, sounds a lot like that of Ted Cruz—the enemy who became an ally.



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