A LONG TIME AGO in what feels like a galaxy far, far away, I used to compare JD Vance to Anakin Skywalker: Once a hardscrabble hero with an angry streak, he succumbed to the lure of the dark side, becoming the vicious and strangely religious enforcer of an evil emperor.
asserted
he → feel → emperor
If the emperor were gone, perhaps Vance would reveal he wasn’t beyond saving.
asserted
he → go → saving
As Luke Skywalker says about his father, “There is still good in him.”
asserted
Skywalker → say → him
It all seems so long ago now, but Vance once appeared to be a beacon of a reform-oriented center right.
asserted
Vance → seem → right
He wrote for David Frum in 2010 and 2011, praised people like Jon Huntsman, and talked about softening the edges of conservatism to make it work for the working class.
asserted
it → write → class
He grew close with the group of “reform conservative” (“reformicon”) think tankers who, in the late Obama years, sought to bend the Republican party toward policy wonkery and away from culture-war fights.
asserted
who → grow → fights
He was a Never Trumper who once compared Trump to cultural heroin.
asserted
who → compare → heroin
He even reportedly attempted to advise Hillary Clinton’s campaign on ways to defeat Trump.
uncertain
He → attempt → Trump
But over the past seven years, Vance systematically remade himself into a darling of the MAGA New Right—that coterie of intellectuals and think tanks seeking to transform Donald Trump’s political instincts into a meaningful ideology and ride his populist coattails to settle their own grievances.
asserted
Vance → remake → grievances
Each of the different sub-ideologies and factions within the MAGA New Right sees Vance as their preferred successor to Trump.
asserted
Each → see → Trump
From Silicon Valley rightists to Catholic postliberals to national conservatives, Vance has flattered each of these groups’ prejudices and assumptions, presenting himself as the man to enact their specific agenda in the White House.
asserted
Vance → flatter → House
From a soft-faced purveyor of a gentle conservatism, he’s remade himself into the ironhearted would-be successor to Trumpism with a bleak vision for the republic.
asserted
he → remade → republic
Between now and November 2028, the questions facing American democracy won’t be getting any smaller.
asserted
questions → face → democracy
That makes independent journalism more important than ever: reporting that follows the facts wherever they lead, and commentary that’s unafraid of inconvenient truths.
asserted
that → make → truths
Membership isn’t just how you can access our locked content; it’s what’s makes all our work possible.
asserted
work → access → content
THE REASON RIGHT-WING INTELLECTUALS see themselves in Vance is because in many ways he is one of them.
asserted
he → see → them
Vance first broke through in mid-2016 as a word-pusher—the author of Hillbilly Elegy, a conservative but only slightly heterodox memoir about growing up in the Appalachian white working class.
asserted
Vance → break → class
Vance says it was his interview on the conservative blogger Rod Dreher’s site that changed his life (and sparked a friendship turned frenemyship turned friendship again).
asserted
that → say → friendship
Vance did the conservative podcast circuit; he wrote for magazines and websites; he went on TV.
asserted
he → do → TV
Trump smashed virtually every assumption possessed by conservative thinkers and writers about how conservatism represented the real America or how a true conservative would finally drag an overwhelming silent majority to the polls.
asserted
conservative → smash → polls
The “reformicon” movement winked out of existence basically the moment he won in 2016.
asserted
he → wink → 2016
Trump pantsed the idea that Americans wanted free markets or global leadership or even constitutional norms.
asserted
Americans → pantse → markets
What they wanted was destruction.
asserted
wanted → want → What
Faced with the new Trumpian reality, the denizens of the conservative intellectual world—the one the right had spent five decades building—faced three choices.
asserted
right → face → choices
Either (1) commit to democracy and liberalism and oppose Trump unequivocally; (2) put their heads in the sand and hope that when it all goes away Ronald Reagan and Frank Meyer will still be there; or (3) wholeheartedly embrace Trump and MAGA.
asserted
Reagan → commit → Trump
A handful of individuals chose the first option.
asserted
handful → choose → option
Most of conservative intellectual world split between the second and third options.
asserted
Most → split → options
Vance picked the third option.
asserted
Vance → pick → option
The Heritage Foundation, which convened and published the work of Project 2025, is reportedly “investing heavily in its relationship with Vance.”
uncertain
which → convene → Vance
Meanwhile, Vance has shown up for and boosted the program of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a think tank regularly criticized by one of its former presidents for embracing illiberal principles under Trump.
asserted
Vance → show → Trump
One thing that distinguishes Heritage and ISI from the old-fashioned conservative think tanks is their desire to use state power to bring “woke” organizations to heel.
asserted
that → distinguish → heel
Meanwhile, Vance has hired staff from American Compass, the think tank trying to formulate America First trade policy, whose leadership sees Vance as a potentially historic leader.
asserted
leadership → hire → leader
Each of these outfits sees Vance as aligned with the versions of intellectualized Trumpism they have been trying to build: restrictionist on immigration; deeply conservative on culture and social issues; hostile to the federal government and to federal workers; and determined to destroy the administrative state.
asserted
they → see → state
VANCE HAS ALSO MADE HIMSELF the great hope of what we might think of as the interlinked “five families” of the New Right.
uncertain
we → make → Right
Vance has wooed the thinkers and intellectual entrepreneurs who have attempted to reorient the right toward nationalism.
asserted
who → woo → nationalism
He hits their major themes and has keynoted their major conferences: In 2021, he declared “The Universities Are the Enemy” at their big annual conference; in 2024 he returned to assert “America Is a Nation.”
asserted
America → hit → 2024
Besides Trump himself, Vance has been the most prominent politician articulating a blood-and-soil type of nationalism at odds with the “creedal” conception previously expressed by conservatives like Ronald Reagan.
Claremonsters.
asserted
Vance → articulate → Reagan
Vance expressed some of his most nationalistic shibboleths while speaking at the Claremont Institute, a California-based think tank once known for its gauzy celebration of the Founding and particularly the Declaration of Independence.
asserted
Vance → express → Independence
Home of the “West Coast Straussian” school of MAGA intellectuals, the Claremonsters warped the ideas of their original lodestar, Harry Jaffa, and became a hardline Trumpy outfit, preaching immigration restriction and calling for a restoration of the nineteenth-century constitutional order.
asserted
Claremonsters → warp → order
They’re the ones who gave us Michael Anton.
asserted
who → ’re → Anton
…and 44 more, not listed.
The Aporia
