By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
AmextaFinanceAmextaFinance
  • Home
  • News
  • Banking
  • Credit Cards
  • Loans
  • Mortgage
  • Investing
  • Markets
    • Stocks
    • Commodities
    • Crypto
    • Forex
  • Videos
  • More
    • Finance
    • Dept Management
    • Small Business
Notification Show More
Aa
AmextaFinanceAmextaFinance
Aa
  • Banking
  • Credit Cards
  • Loans
  • Dept Management
  • Mortgage
  • Markets
  • Investing
  • Small Business
  • Videos
  • Home
  • News
  • Banking
  • Credit Cards
  • Loans
  • Mortgage
  • Investing
  • Markets
    • Stocks
    • Commodities
    • Crypto
    • Forex
  • Videos
  • More
    • Finance
    • Dept Management
    • Small Business
Follow US
AmextaFinance > News > Vance’s trolling audition to be Trump’s heir
News

Vance’s trolling audition to be Trump’s heir

News Room
Last updated: 2025/04/22 at 1:25 PM
By News Room
Share
6 Min Read
SHARE

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free

Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world

It was inevitable that memes about JD Vance would surface the moment Pope Francis passed away. “It’s good to see you in better health,” the US vice-president told the pope on Sunday. The pontiff died on Monday.

As Donald Trump’s chief attack dog — though not yet his heir apparent — Vance is a prime target of ridicule on liberal social media. But he is also a master troller himself. Vance knows that the surest path to Maga hearts and Trump’s approval is to enrage liberals. The question is whether he means anything by it.

The answer is unclear. Vance has gone from being a never-Trumper who saw Trump as “America’s Hitler” to an arch-Trumper who sees his boss as part of God’s plan. That is as dramatic a political conversion as can happen. Rather than search for an intellectual key, Vance’s shift can be put down to ambition. The better question is whether there are any limits to his ambition. Judging by his performance so far, the answer is not really.

To say that Vance is disliked by liberals — European and American alike — would be an understatement. Of all the dates and venues, the vice-president set out his loathing for European liberal democracy on Valentine’s Day in Munich. His message was that multiculturalism and censorship were a bigger danger to Europe than Russia or China were. Since then, he has needled Europe on a weekly basis.

Whether it is deriding the continent’s defence capacity — a point with merit — or visiting Greenland uninvited and mocking Denmark, Vance has found his foreign foil of choice. Europeans play the same role in Maga’s worldview as virtue-signalling globalists do at home. What most enrages people is that Vance is quite good at it. He cannot be dismissed as stupid, like Pete Hegseth, Trump’s cartoonishly incompetent secretary of defence. Nor, like Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary, can he be viewed as a prisoner of decisions he does not like. Throughout the 2024 campaign, Vance was the most articulate explainer of Trumpism — tariffs and all.

Unlike Elon Musk, who allows neo-Nazis to surface regularly on his X platform, Vance observes some rules of hygiene. His weakness with the Republican base is that he cannot escape the trappings of being an intellectual — the self-confessed frequenter of “a lot of weird rightwing subcultures”. His justification for xenophobia is to cite the Catholic ordo amoris (order of loves). It holds that you should first love God, then yourself, your family and neighbours. People from far away, especially immigrants, come last. An ailing Pope Francis felt strongly enough to implicitly rebuke Vance by citing the parable of the Good Samaritan, who helped a stranger in need.

A clear sign of a rightwing intellectual in the US is a conversion to Catholicism, which Vance did in 2019. But it offers little guidance to his thinking. Vance is the Trump administration’s main cheerleader for breaking up Big Tech companies like Meta. Yet he owes much of his wealth and political rise to Peter Thiel, one of the original “PayPal mafia” and the Silicon Valley right’s self-appointed thinker. Presumably Vance’s trustbusting does not extend to companies owned by Thiel or Musk.

The vice-president is married to a second-generation immigrant from India, Usha. Yet he stands for blood-and-soil nationalism. He is Trump’s chief scourge of supposed liberal virtue-signalling over the deportation battle and has falsely claimed that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the 29-year-old man who is contesting his banishment to an El Salvadoran jail, was “convicted” of being a gang member. Likewise, Vance is a champion of anti-elitism who graduated from Yale and worked in private equity. Few of these contradictions are easily resolved. But they are a distraction from his most salient quality. Vance will say and do what it takes to be Trump’s successor.

It is also misleading to compare him to Dick Cheney, as many are doing. Cheney was de facto co-president during George W Bush’s first term. He set the agenda. Trump, on the other hand, makes policy alone and on the fly. Vance then rationalises it. Yet he clearly relishes playing his worst self. The moment European dislike turned into loathing was when Vance tore into Volodymyr Zelenskyy in their Oval Office encounter in late February. “Have you said thank you once?” Vance asked Ukraine’s leader. There was a zeal to Vance’s manner that triggered a lot of people. As trolling, Vance’s tactics work. In terms of governing, they are pure vandalism.

edward.luce@ft.com

Read the full article here

News Room April 22, 2025 April 22, 2025
Share this Article
Facebook Twitter Copy Link Print
Leave a comment Leave a comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Finance Weekly Newsletter

Join now for the latest news, tips, and analysis about personal finance, credit cards, dept management, and many more from our experts.
Join Now
Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia must agree to ceasefire before holding peace talks

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has welcomed Vladimir Putin’s call for direct peace…

Internal trade barriers are as stifling as tariffs

Welcome back. It's a busy time for trade negotiators. Nations are trying…

Tariff-fuelled tumult could dent appeal of US assets, watchdog warns

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s…

Life is too important not to laugh at it

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Life & Arts…

Energy prices push chemicals groups to explore exit from Europe

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects…

- Advertisement -
Ad imageAd image

You Might Also Like

News

Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia must agree to ceasefire before holding peace talks

By News Room
News

Internal trade barriers are as stifling as tariffs

By News Room
News

Tariff-fuelled tumult could dent appeal of US assets, watchdog warns

By News Room
News

Life is too important not to laugh at it

By News Room
News

Energy prices push chemicals groups to explore exit from Europe

By News Room
News

Why can’t more financial heavyweights write letters like Warren Buffett?

By News Room
News

Latin America wary of US trade backlash as it builds relations with China

By News Room
News

Insurers launch cover for losses caused by AI chatbot errors

By News Room
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Youtube Instagram
Company
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Press Release
  • Contact
  • Advertisement
More Info
  • Newsletter
  • Market Data
  • Credit Cards
  • Videos

Sign Up For Free

Subscribe to our newsletter and don't miss out on our programs, webinars and trainings.

I have read and agree to the terms & conditions
Join Community

2023 © Indepta.com. All Rights Reserved.

YOUR EMAIL HAS BEEN CONFIRMED.
THANK YOU!

Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?