Sen. J.D. Vance’s (R-OH) rapid-pace transformation from a vocal critic of former President Donald Trump into a disciple desperately seeking running-mate status mirrors the Republican Party’s descent into the year’s biggest political joke, a new Washington Post editorial argues.
Columnist Matt Bai on Friday delivered a walloping take-down of the junior Republican senator from Ohio who appeared in a bright red tie this week at Trump’s criminal hush money trial.
“Vance isn’t just another wiseguy wannabe,” writes Bai. “He’s the walking embodiment of a Republican Party that has devolved into full-on farce.”
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As proof, Bai points to Vance’s book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” and the senator’s response to its immediate and widespread popularity.
“He seemed almost embarrassed by his sudden celebrity,” Bai wrote. “He wasn’t. My office shelves are full of these ‘books that miraculously explain our political moment’ from over the years…and I’ve come to understand that their success is never an accident.”
Bai argues the book does not represent a political manifesto so much as a political device meant to catapult its author into the national arena.
“Vance’s argument turned out to be mostly pretext and his convictions nonexistent,” Bai writes. “By 2022, when he ran for the open seat left by retiring Sen. Rob Portman, Vance had gone from Never Trump to Long Live the King.”
But for Bai, Vance doesn’t pass the smell test, even in the context of political opportunism that has historically and frequently seen lawmakers seek out unsavory allies in the pursuit of power.
“Richard M. Nixon shredded reputations to make himself the ultimate Cold Warrior, then repositioned himself as a moderate in the Goldwater years. Bill Clinton used conservative talking points to deflect attention from his antiwar protesting days,” writes Bai. “But there were basic lines of duplicity that neither Nixon nor Clinton nor any other American politician of the last century would cross.”
Vance’s disregard — which Bai says saw him bravely wading through “the leftist filth of Manhattan” like the self-envisioned star of “Hillbilly Vice” — represents a concerning shift in the Republican Party that the columnist sources to the weakened state of American journalism.
“Our media is too damaged and fragmented to make anyone accountable for their lies,” Bai writes. “And Vance represents the new breed of Republican charlatan — willing to see the democracy riven and its institutions reduced to rubble if it means he can be TikTok-famous."
“I can’t say from experience how you’re supposed to know when you’ve officially become part of an organized crime family,” adds Bai, “but if you feel it necessary for your professional advancement to show up at a courthouse and show respect to a patriarch charged with fraudulent payments to a porn star, chances are you check all the boxes.”
