What We All Need to Know About J.D. Vance

He matters.

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Back in March, Joe Biden signed a federal ban on mask mandates into law. He did it to avoid a government shutdown. The ban prevents any federal funds from being used to enforce mask mandates on airlines, rails, and buses. That essentially means that no government employee can make anyone wear a mask.

That ban was introduced by J.D. Vance.

"The era of health panic is over," Vance said. "This is a massive victory for common sense. Mask mandates were an outrageous overstep by the public health establishment. We cannot allow this mistake to be repeated."

He describes mask mandates as "unscientific."

While pushing the ban, he criticized Democrats for being "Chicken Little about every single respiratory pandemic."

In the middle of a major bird flu outbreak, those words carry a dark echo. It's one thing to have an administration that ignores masks. It's another to have one that specifically targets them. Vance has invested heavily in pharmaceutical companies that make drugs and treatments for everything from diabetes to Parkinson's and dementia, along with a range of different infectious diseases. He's very much in the "we want them infected" crowd that Jonathan Howard has written about.

Back in 2021, Vance strongly opposed vaccine mandates. He wrote a guest column for The Columbus Dispatch describing them as an "outrageous invasion of medical privacy." It was a real piece of work. As Vance wrote, "current research suggests immunity from Covid infections last longer than from Covid mRNA vaccines." He even had the audacity to cite "bodily autonomy and family choice."

The type of politician who knowingly appropriates arguments from women and human rights movements to attack public health is not someone you want in office.

If you're wondering what's going to happen to funding for Long Covid research under a Trump/Vance presidency, it's not hard to imagine. Trump himself might've been too busy playing golf and chugging Diet Coke to pay it much attention. That's not the case with Vance. His views and record indicate he's more likely to blame Long Covid on vaccine injury. He could look for ways to ban NIH funding for anything he doesn't like, simply because it plays well with his base.

It's true that NIH money so far has gone to "broader, observational research that won't directly bring relief to patients." And it's true that "there's no sense of urgency to do more." As of late March, the $1.6 billion effort has been seen largely as a failure. At least now, there's space for advocacy. Even the failing NIH initiative managed to squeeze out $500 mil for better studies. The director made promises to "charge ahead as best we can." In April, Bernie Sanders promised a "Long Covid moonshot" with $10 billion in initial funding for the NIH.

That space likely vanishes under Vance.

Listen to what Vance says about the fentanyl crisis, something he's expressed active interest in.

As his efforts failed, he blamed liberals:

According to Politico, Vance has criticized the Biden administration for allowing fentanyl to cross the border "as part of a deliberate strategy to kill Republican voters. In his own words, "If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl? It does look intentional."

In 2021, Vance blamed pornography and women's rights for the nation's mental health crisis. He told a Catholic magazine that "the combination of porn, abortion have basically created a lonely, isolated generation that isn't getting married, they're not having families, and they're actually not even totally sure how to interact with each other." He said he wants to ban pornography outright.

Maybe you don't care about these particular issues, but you have to admit: There's a pattern. Vance is the kind of politician who will pass vindictive laws to take away what little rights, protections, pleasures, and creature comforts we have left. He'll do it while claiming it's good for you, he's protecting your health. That's scary.

There's a saying:

"If you don't do politics, politics will do you." As much as we doomers would like to say nothing matters anymore, it's just not true, not quite yet. It really does matter who we have in the White House. It could mean the difference between fighting mask bans at the city and state level versus fighting a federal, nationwide ban on masks. It could mean the difference between fighting tepid ignorance versus emboldened, righteous ignorance.

Vance has friends in high places. He gets along well with the likes of Peter Thiel, who funded his Senate race. As a populist politician and venture capitalist with a working-class background steeped in rustbelt bootstrapping, Vance won't be the kind of vice president who sits on the sidelines. He pursued the vice president nomination hard. He very much wants on the ticket. He has plans. Oh, and he went to Yale. He was editor of the Yale Law Review. Even the so-called liberal media ascribes him with "articulate charisma." He ticks all the right boxes.

He's a young, ambitious fascist.

Vance's record and views matter, because he's going to hit the ground running. He's going to be Trump's executioner.

What else does Vance believe?

Like Trump, Vance has waffled on abortion. According to a recent piece in STAT News, he previously opposed exceptions for rape and incest, saying a child's right to life trumps a woman's rights in every case, even when it's "inconvenient or a problem to that society." It takes a certain maliciousness to describe rape as an inconvenience. If Vance minimizes rape, imagine what he'll do with diseases.

Both Trump and Vance have walked back their positions on abortion during campaign season, saying they support access to abortion under certain circumstances, saying it's a state issue. We all know how tenuous campaign promises are. There's another saying many of us live by, via Maya Angelou: Once someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. She's right.

Vance has also introduced a bill to make gender-affirming care to minors a felony, while banning the use of tax money for any kind of gender-affirming care at any age. He also wants to deny healthcare to illegal immigrants, even those who arrived as children.

According to Time, Vance became close friends with Donald Trump Jr. after loudly criticizing U.S. assistance to Ukraine, saying the country should learn how to defend itself. Trump Jr. brought Vance on his podcast. They got along like peanut butter and jelly. It was Jr. who pushed to get Vance the nomination.

Just recently, Vance was able to blame Biden supporters for the recent Trump assassination attempt, saying "The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all cost. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination."

So, that's J.D. Vance in a nutshell.

He's anti-mask. He's anti-vaccine. He's anti-public health. He's all of these things, while investing heavily in pharmaceutical companies that treat infectious diseases and chronic health conditions. He's a venture capitalist with a law degree, a writer who preaches the same kind of bootstrapping grit that drips off the internet's self-help websites. He's friends with bunker-building billionaires like Peter Thiel.

It's no accident that on the same day as Vance's nomination, Thiel's longtime pal Elon Musk has promised Trump $45 million a month.

Thiel has said, "I no longer believe freedom and democracy are compatible." That sentiment goes for every single one of the tech billionaires, from Musk to Zuck. What they mean is their freedom isn't compatible with our democracy. None of them believe in democracy now. None of them believe in public health. None of them care what happens to us during this pandemic, or the next one.

They probably never did.

Earlier this year, Musk and Thiel held "a secret billionaire dinner party" in Hollywood. Guests included Rupert Murdoch, Michael Milken, and Steven Mnuchin, Trump's treasury guy.

I'm not writing this dossier to give anyone a "vote blue" speech. It could just as easily be used as reasoning for Biden to step aside, something he has adamantly refused to do even as his own party resigns itself to a second Trump term.

I'm just outlining the stakes.

There's no room for complacency here. Some people have said, "we've had Trump before." Well, we haven't had him like this before, and not with a vice president with this background or level of ambition. He's exactly what we feared.

So, whatever you do, just know the facts. Vance has plans. He's not working for Trump. He's working directly for guys like Thiel and Musk. This isn't an election.

It's a hostile takeover.

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