Former Ohio lawmaker: J.D. Vance a 'craven shapeshifter' regurgitating MAGA speak
Joan W. Lawrence served in the Ohio House of Representatives as a Republican from 1983 to 1999 and was director of the Ohio Department of Aging under Gov. Bob Taft from 1999 to 2006.
If you don’t know who J.D. Vance is, you’re not alone. Neither does J.D. Vance.
He’s running for the U.S. Senate as a hardcore MAGA Republican and a diehard Trump fan, never mind that he used to be a Never-Trumper. In fact, he’d love nothing more than for you to forget that inconvenient fact.
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But that’s the J.D. Vance I could’ve seen myself supporting.
In 2016, Vance said Trump was “reprehensible” and “cultural heroin” and wondered whether Trump might be “America’s Hitler.” But when Vance decided to run for the Senate, he went full MAGA, complimenting Trump at every opportunity.
The screenshot below is @JDVance1’s unfiltered explanation from 2016 of the breakdown in Republican politics that he now personally is trying to exploit.
The “America’s Hitler” bit is at the end.
The public deserves to know the magnitude of this guy’s bad faith. pic.twitter.com/79Z0qSWFWF— Josh McLaurin (@JoshforGeorgia) April 18, 2022
Even Trump knows it. “J.D. is kissing my a**. He wants my support so bad!” the former president said at a rally in Ohio recently.
More:Trump mocks J.D. Vance, saying the Ohio GOP candidate is trying to get on his good side
His opposition to Trump isn’t the only thing he has backtracked on.
Vance has flip-flopped on issue after issue. During the 2016 campaign, Vance wrote in USA Today, “Trump’s actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd.” That year, he said that building a wall was “a simple solution” to a “complex problem.” But in April, he said at a rally, “Can we please, for the love of God, finish Donald Trump’s border wall on the southern border?”
One of Vance’s favorite issues is the opioid crisis. He discussed it in his memoir, and he’s talked about it for several years. But here too, Vance’s record isn’t as good as it seems. Vance founded a group called Our Ohio Renewal to fight opioid addiction.
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Not only did it not achieve much success, but Vance hired someone who questioned the role of prescription painkillers in the opioid crisis. Most of the money the nonprofit raised was spent on staff salaries. None was spent on charitable activities. So much for Vance’s concern about opioid addicts.
Vance used to call for a more moderate GOP. A little more than a decade ago, he wrote a series of articles where he endorsed affirmative action, savaged Republicans as anti-science, and rejected partisan vitriol. “Of all the things I can’t stand about politics,” he wrote, “the tendency to emotionalize a difficult topic is probably the worst.” He wanted a more measured and moderate Republican Party, one that was more socially inclusive.
But now Vance is anything but moderate. He opposes same-sex marriage and wants to ban abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest. He said people in “violent” marriages shouldn’t get divorced. He said that rape and incest were “inconvenient.” That’s certainly putting it mildly.
Instead of distancing himself from extremists in his party, he welcomes them.
He said he was “proud” to have Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s endorsement. Greene, in case you don’t know, blamed wildfires on space lasers funded by “Rothschild Inc.” and said there’s no evidence that a plane crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11. She is, in other words, a lunatic. But rather than denounce her, Vance embraces her.
These flip-flops and contortions aren’t just embarrassing. They show exactly the kind of person J.D. Vance is—a craven shapeshifter who will say whatever he needs to say to get elected.
More:Don't fall for fake 'outsider.' Vance using Ohio to make himself bigger |former Republican
I have a hard time believing that he actually cares about border security or even the opioid crisis.
He simply regurgitates MAGA talking points because that’s what it takes to get MAGA votes. But here’s my question: Once he has their votes, what will he do next? Who knows? Vance surely doesn’t.
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He’s a chameleon who will do anything to get elected. That’s why we shouldn’t elect him.
Joan W. Lawrence served in the Ohio House of Representatives as a Republican from 1983 to 1999 and was director of the Ohio Department of Aging under Gov. Bob Taft from 1999 to 2006.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Joan W. Lawrence: J.D. Vance can't be trusted, changed story on Trump
