The Future of the GOP

[Rob]

Just listened to an interview with Vance. He sounds like a reasonable direction for the GOP. Thought leader and anti-woke. Appeals to a lot of the working class sect of Trumpism.

Sounds like I'm trolling but I'm not.

Like 2-3 years ago, yea. He’s full on Trumpster now.

[Mickey]

JD Vance certainly has some interesting ideas, alright!

A couple of hours later I found Vance standing up by the bar, surrounded by a circle of young and identical-looking fanboys. I went over. He asked what I’d thought of the speech, and he suggested we find somewhere to talk.

He asked me to turn my recorder off so we could speak candidly. I agreed, with regret, because the conversation revealed someone who I think will be hugely influential in our politics in the coming years, even if he loses his Senate primary, as both of us thought was possible.

It also revealed someone who is in a dark place, with a view that we are at an ominous turning point in America’s history. He didn’t want to describe this to me on the record. But I can show it anyway, because he already says it publicly, and you can hear it too.

That night, I went up to my hotel room and listened to a podcast interview Vance had conducted with Jack Murphy, the big, bearded head of the Liminal Order men’s group. Murphy asked how it was that Vance proposed to rip out America’s leadership class.

Vance described two possibilities that many on the New Right imagine—that our system will either fall apart naturally, or that a great leader will assume semi-dictatorial powers.

“So there’s this guy Curtis Yarvin, who has written about some of these things,” Vance said. Murphy chortled knowingly. “So one [option] is to basically accept that this entire thing is going to fall in on itself,” Vance went on. “And so the task of conservatives right now is to preserve as much as can be preserved,” waiting for the “inevitable collapse” of the current order.

He said he thought this was pessimistic. “I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left,” he said. “And turn them against the left. We need like a de-Baathification program, a de-woke-ification program.”

“I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,” he said. “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”

“And when the courts stop you,” he went on, “stand before the country, and say—” he quoted Andrew Jackson, giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order—“the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”

This is a description, essentially, of a coup.

“We are in a late republican period,” Vance said later, evoking the common New Right view of America as Rome awaiting its Caesar. “If we’re going to push back against it, we’re going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04 ... ggest-bets

[BurtReynolds]

Based

[elliseamos]

Yes, they're so uncomfortable with it that they do whatever this new right wants... *eye roll*

[BurtReynolds]

This is a description, essentially, of a coup.

Funniest part of that article.

[Rob]

This is a description, essentially, of a coup.

Funniest part of that article.

Funny because they don’t really have to try with this guy. Habits, I guess.

[washing machine]

JD Vance certainly has some interesting ideas, alright!

General Chuck Krulak, a former commandant of the Marine Corps, once said that the most important thing the Corps does for the country is “win wars and make Marines.” I didn’t understand that statement the first time I heard it, but for a kid like me, the Marine Corps was basically a four-year education in character and self-management. The challenges start small–running two miles, then three, and more. But they build on each other. If you have good mentors (and I certainly did), you are constantly given tasks, yelled at for failing, advised on how not to fail next time, and then given another try. You learn, through sheer repetition, that you can do difficult things. And that was quite revelatory for me. It gave me a lot of self-confidence. If I had learned helplessness from my environment back home, four years in the Marine Corps taught me something quite different.

The other thing the Marine Corps did is hold our hands and prevent us from making stupid decisions. It didn’t work on everyone, of course, but I remember telling my senior noncommissioned officer that I was going to buy a car, probably a BMW. “Stop being an idiot and go get a Honda.” Then I told him that I had been approved for a new Honda, at the dealer’s low interest rate of 21.9 percent. “Stop being an idiot and go to the credit union.” He then ordered another Marine to take me to the credit union, open an account, and apply for a loan (the interest rate, despite my awful credit, was around 8 percent). A lot of elites rely on parents or other networks the first time they made these decisions, but I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. The Marine Corps ensured that I learned.

[Mickey]

Marines also kill themselves at nearly three times the rate of US civilians, but I'm glad to hear that they learn to spend within their means along the way.

[Mickey]

Not really clear what that has to do with Vance's belief that we need a new Caesar though.

[washing machine]

You shared Vanity Fair commentary about a snippet of a podcast interview. I felt it was only fair to share a snippet from another interview that suggests there's more to this public figure than what you are willing to engage.

The comment about marine suicide in the context of a quote about overcoming learned helplessness seems weird. What is the connection you are trying to make?

[Norah]

reid wtf

[Rob]

The “there’s more to him” point is already reality. He WAS a reasonably sounding guy, popular book, good podcast interviewee…. This election season flipped some kind of switch that apparently made him go full maga.

[BurtReynolds]

March through the institutions

[washing machine]

Hot take: somewhere between the media's version of JD Vance and the reasoned writer/interviewee of old is the truth, and that balance is the future of the GOP.

Regardless, he wants to be a politician so of course he's going to say what he needs to get elected. I believe every single Trump backed candidate won in Ohio on Tuesday. What does that say about the GOP?

[BurtReynolds]

Btw I posted that very article a few pages ago, trying to tell you what the future of the GOP actually is, but like Cassandra I was ignored.

Ignore me at your peril!

[Rob]

Hot take: somewhere between the media's version of JD Vance and the reasoned writer/interviewee of old is the truth, and that balance is the future of the GOP.

Regardless, he wants to be a politician so of course he's going to say what he needs to get elected. I believe every single Trump backed candidate won in Ohio on Tuesday. What does that say about the GOP?

I hear ya, but listen to his podcast/interview with David Axelrod some years back. He was a genuine guy and that was a pleasant interview. That’s not him anymore.

[verb_to_trust]

Conform or die reid

[washing machine]

Conform or die reid

wrongthink elegy

[Mickey]

I'm certain that the truth about JD Vance does lie somewhere in-between dreaming of an American Caesar who will replace every civil servant with party functionaries and passing off some recruitment pablum about how joining the Marines will teach you about compound interest.

[Mickey]

But he's not the future of fucking shit. He was DOA before he got the Trump endorsement. Until further notice, Trump is the only game in town.