#sen. j.d. vance

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Surveying the reactions of top Republicans after Donald Trump’s indictment on charges of mishandling classified information, you’d think the country was in the midst of a coup.

“It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted. “The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed. “There is no limit to what these people will do to protect their power & destroy those who threaten it, even if it means ripping our country apart,” Sen. Marco Rubio declared.

These are extraordinary claims — and all made on Thursday night before the indictment or the evidence behind it was made public. On Friday morning, we learned thanks to CNN that Trump is literally on tape in 2021 discussing having documents in his possession that he knew were still classified. “As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” he reportedly said.

The tape may or may not prove dispositive in a court of law; there’s certainly room for good-faith disagreement on the strength of the case against Trump. But the tape is at least very strong evidence that these charges are not some kind of Biden-mandated witch hunt but instead based on very serious allegations of wrongdoing.

Yet top Republicans — including Trump’s leading rival for the 2024 election — have shown no signs of changing their tune, and instead are lining up behind Trump’s conspiracy theory that special counsel Jack Smith is leading Joe Biden’s personal Stasi.

This paranoid reaction to Trump’s indictment is not a surprise. Over the past several years, the political right has been captured by a worldview that sees the entirety of mainstream society arranged against it. According to this thinking, America’s “woke” power elite, including ostensibly neutral institutions of governance like the Justice Department, is determined to stamp out the conservative way of life. You are either with us or against us — and attempting to send Trump to jail, whatever the reason, puts you on the wrong side.

Such once-fringe thinking now dominates the Republican Party at the very highest levels. Whether people like McCarthy and DeSantis actually believe it is immaterial: The fact that they feel the need to say such wild things indicates just how central anti-institutional paranoia has become in Republican politics.

The dangers of this going forward, as Trump faces trial and America faces an election where he is the GOP’s most likely presidential candidate, should not be underestimated. A democracy whose basic institutional functions come under attack is a democracy in mortal peril.

THE PARANOID STYLE IN REPUBLICAN POLITICS

The entire Trump phenomenon was, from the very beginning, about conservative fear of losing America. Study after study after study has found that Trump voters in the GOP primary and electorate are motivated by a concern that the United States is becoming literally unrecognizable: populated by people who look different and think differently than they do.

The fears of the base were reflected in the language of the elite. In 2016, the most famous intellectual case for Trump in 2016 was Michael Anton’s “Flight 93” essay — which argued that these changes were transforming the government in ways that handed more and more control over American government to the left. Anton spoke of a “bipartisan junta” that controlled the centers of power and wielded it against conservative institutions, a kind of soft coup against ordinary Americans backstopped by demographic change.

“Our side has been losing consistently since 1988,” Anton wrote. “The ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty means that the electorate grows more left, more Democratic, less Republican, less republican, and less traditionally American with every cycle.”

Anton’s essay, seen as fringe at the time, captured an essential linkage of the Trump era: between the traditional conservative sense of alienation from mainstream American culture and growing hostility to its governing institutions. The general conservative sense that they were losing America demographically and spiritually could easily be translated into a case that the government itself was hostile to their interests.

So when Trump began facing legal trouble during his presidency, at first over his campaign’s ties to Russia, he ran a version of the Anton playbook (Anton was, at the time, serving in Trump’s White House). He argued, in now-familiar but then-novel terms, that the investigation was a “deep state” plot against Trump — that special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigators were Democrats who sought only to destroy his presidency.

Faced with this challenge, the rest of the Republican Party had a choice: They could defend the underlying integrity of the Justice Department, even while remaining skeptical of the merits of this specific investigation, or fully accede to the Trumpist “witch hunt” narrative. We know which one they chose, and we know why they chose it: Trump had built such a powerful following on the basis of his paranoid critique of America that any Republican who challenged it risked career suicide.

The Russia investigation set a pattern that would endure for the entire Trump presidency. Again and again, when faced with credible allegations of wrongdoing, Republicans indulged Trump’s wildest fantasies out of either fear or genuine belief. The Anton worldview, once the province of cranks, evolved into the official narrative of the Republican Party — an evolution cemented when Trump attempted to overthrow the 2020 election and the party elite permitted him to do so.

In the Biden years, with Republicans out of power, the narrative of an entire government arranged against them only became more credible in the eyes of the base. Surveys consistently showed that a large majority of Republicans believed his claims of voter fraud; political scientists have shown that this belief is likely genuine and that Republican politicians who parrot Trump’s lies improve their standings in the eyes of the base.

The result is a party that has, in the past several years, grown increasingly radicalized against the core institutions of America. They believe that everything in America is turning against them: not just the traditional enemies like the media and Hollywood, but also the military, big business, and even the US Olympic team. If you express agreement with the left on anything from LGBTQ issues to Trump’s fitness for office, you are an enemy of the right.

The dangers of this shift cannot be overestimated. Republicans are already vowing to “bring accountability to the DOJ” (DeSantis) and “hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable” (McCarthy). If Republicans do win the White House in 2024, the chances of an attempt to turn the Justice Department into an actually political institution are very high. If Trump is their candidate, it’s basically a certainty.

And if they lose — well, January 6 showed us what could happen when Republicans believe they’ve lost illegitimately. And we’re already seeing paranoia about this indictment bleed over into paranoia about the upcoming election.

“Biden is attacking his most likely 2024 opponent. He’s using the justice system to preemptively steal the 2024 election. This is what’s happening, plain and simple,” writes Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH).

Democracy depends on both sides respecting the rules of the game. But one side has decided, without any real evidence, that the rules are rigged against them — and have demonstrated a willingness to disregard them as a result.

#us politics #news #vox #classified documents #classified documents probe #donald trump #republicans #conservatives #2023 #department of justice #jack smith #ag merrick garland #rep. kevin mccarthy #gov. ron desantis #Sen. Marco Rubio #sen. j.d. vance #Michael Anton #conspiracy theorists

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

#us politics #republicans #conservatives #gop #gop policy #gop platform #donald trump #ohio #east palestine #train derailment #high hazard flammable train #electronically controlled pneumatic brakes #hazardous flammable materials #hazardous chemical spill #gov. mike dewine #ohio senate #ohio house of representatives #ohio legislature #ohio house district 6 #sen. j.d. vance #deregulations #deregulate deez nutz #memes #shitpost #twitter #tweet #@FrankMikeDavis1 #2023

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

Republicans are working for Putin.

#jd vance #Marjorie Trailer Queen #republican assholes #traitor trump #crooked donald #traitor #maga morons #never trump #resist

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Well...this seems promising. Maybe "The Media" are waking up just a tad and beginning to do their fucking jobs for the first time since 1980.

[nodynasty4us]

From the February 27, 2024 story:

It is a sign of how very much the country has become acclimated to the extremes of the Donald Trump-led Republican Party that a bunch of Nazis showed up to this weekend's CPAC conference, and it barely got any attention. Nobody who was present this weekend could possibly have been unaware of the Nazi presence. They showed up at panel discussions to share their views on "race science" and how Jews are secretly behind everything. They goose-stepped around in the lobby of the hotel where the conference was held, greeting each other with "Sieg Heil."... Meanwhile, it is not like the conference was only attended by fringy elements of the GOP. Donald Trump spoke there, as did a whole bunch of wannabe running mates, along with Sens. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), and a host of other high-profile Republicans. Not one of them raised a word of objection to the Nazis in their midst, as far as we can discover. CPAC organizers denied yesterday that any Nazis were present, but... there's video.

#nazis #republicans #donald trump

[meret118]

"Stand where he tells you to stand, wear what he tells you to wear, and do what he tells you to do."

This is the wedding night advice offered to brides by Josh Howerton, a senior pastor at Lakepointe Church in Dallas, Texas. Lakepointe, according to the Dallas Morning News, is one of the biggest megachurches in Texas, with over 13,000 people a week attending its main location. The church itself cites a number over 40,000 a week, between its six campuses and online services.

. . .

The Republican gubernatorial nominee, Mark Robinson, is a good example. He loudly proclaims himself an evangelical Christian and occasionally is invited to preach at conservative churches. He also prefers a shock jock vibe when attacking women being sexual or demanding equality. He declared that women are to be "led by men" and, "I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote."

. . .

Robinson's ascendance shows there's a major appetite for grossly misogynist talk among Republican voters, including those who clutch their Bibles while claiming they're doing it all for Jesus. A likelier explanation, of course, is that religion is just an increasingly thin pretext for resentment of women for getting education and jobs and more independence from men. That's why, even though it's hurting Republicans at the polls, Christian conservatives keep pushing for ever more draconian restrictions on abortion and contraception. It's even turning into a growing chorus of Christian leaders attacking no-fault divorce, which makes it easier for women to end bad or even abusive marriages.

. . .

Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, recently decried divorce, even to escape domestic violence. The Texas Republican platform, additionally, calls for the state legislature to "rescind unilateral no-fault divorce laws and support covenant marriage." A "covenant marriage," which makes it extremely difficult to file for divorce, happens to be what Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., has with his baby-voiced wife.

#Trigger warning #Rape #Abuse #Misogyny

[1americanconservative]

[seymour-butz-stuff]

On Tuesday, Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz and honorary “Florida man” Rep. Elise Stefanik, and 64 House Republicans presented a resolution to declare that Donald Trump “did not engage in insurrection or rebellion” related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Gaetz began the press conference by saying “We are here today to authoritatively express that President Trump did not commit an insurrection,” More importantly, Gaetz made it clear that he plans to use this as a MAGA purity test. After thanking Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio for filing a companion bill in the Senate, Gaetz said, “And now it's time for members of the House and Senate to show where they stand on this question.” And just like that, Gaetz’s remarks were followed by a series of Republicans praising dear leader Trump and saying how the insurrection on Jan. 6 was a concoction by “leftists.” 

Butthead must be trying to cover up another one of his international sex trafficking of minors acts

#save our children #save the children #SaveOurChildren #SaveTheChildren #from matt gaetz

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Following the Supreme Court’s elimination of the federal right to abortion in June, conservatives have taken aim at other fundamental protections, such as same-sex marriage and access to contraception. But some on the right are resurfacing a different, long-simmering project: stigmatizing divorce, including, in some instances, attacking no-fault divorce laws.

No-fault divorce in the U.S. was first adopted in California in 1969, and New York was the last state in the country to pass a no-fault divorce law, which it did in 2010. Although state laws differ, in general no-fault divorce means that one party can successfully dissolve a marriage without needing to first prove wrongdoing by the other partner – including adultery, abuse, or desertion.

Ohio Republican Senate nominee J.D. Vance praised the idea of staying in violent marriages in remarks to high school students in southern California last September. Vance argued “all of us should be honest” about how “making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear” by leaving marriages that were “maybe even violent” had negative effects on the children, according to Vice, which first reported the comments.

Although Vance’s comments were made before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, they’ve taken on a new salience amid a conservative movement that sees formerly out-of-reach goals as newly attainable. And Vance has lots of company in right-wing media.

Reactionary YouTuber Tim Pool recently discussed no-fault divorce laws on his show, titling the clipped segment: “No-Fault Divorce Has DESTROYED Men's Confidence In Marriage, Men Don't Want To Get Married Anymore.” The discussion focused on how no-fault divorce laws were to blame for what the panel perceived to be a rise in prenuptial agreements, which segued into a meandering discussion lamenting divorce in general.

“The courts are heavily biased in favor of women to an insane degree, especially with children,” Pool said, parroting a cliche often espoused by so-called men’s rights activists, an anti-feminist movement that claims men are structurally disadvantaged in divorce proceedings and family court. (Although it is true that women are generally granted sole custody more frequently than men, the reasons for that are complicated and have to do with men historically having higher incomes and sexist ideas about mothers being natural caregivers.)

Fellow conservative YouTuber Steven Crowder has also argued that no-fault divorce laws are disincentivizing young men to get married. In an unfocused June 24 rant calling for the Supreme Court to now overturn marriage equality rights conferred in Obergefell v. Hodges, Crowder said no-fault divorce laws are “a raw deal for a lot” of men.

“Oh, it’s no-fault divorce, which, by the way, means that in many of these states if a woman cheats on you, she leaves, she takes half,” Crowder said. “So it’s not no-fault, it’s the fault of the man.”

“There need to be changes to marital laws, and I’m not even talking about same-sex marriage,” he added. “Talking about divorce laws, talking about alimony laws, talking about child support laws.”

That wasn’t the first time Crowder has made the argument. After referring to “no-fault divorce states” using air quotes in an April 22 segment, he said, “It’s the only contract that I know of where one side is financially incentivized to break it.”

“If you’re a woman that comes from meager means, and you want to get wealthy – you’ve never worked, you didn’t get a degree, you have no skill set, but you’re good-looking – your best path to victory is simply to marry a man, leave him, and take half,” Crowder added. He later reiterated that “we need to reform divorce laws in this country.”

Some of the loudest anti-LGBTQ conservative voices are also the biggest critics of no-fault divorce, in both cases making an appeal to tradition and what they see as a God-given natural order while defending nakedly patriarchal power relations. Patriarchy depends on a rigid gender binary, with clearly defined roles and expectations; conservatives believe LGBTQ identities subvert this dynamic. Similarly, no-fault divorce laws upended patriarchal power, freeing women from de facto second-class status and dependence on men.

No one encapsulates this tendency more than the virulently anti-trans conservative pundit Matt Walsh. In defending Kanye West’s harassment and threatening behavior in March toward his estranged wife Kim Kardashian, who had recently filed for divorce, Walsh also argued that it should be more arduous to dissolve marriages.

Walsh has made versions of this argument dating back to at least 2015, explicitly in the context of the supposed threat that same-sex marriage posed to heterosexual couples.

Walsh’s Daily Wire colleague Michael Knowles made the same point last year.

“We see the weakening of marriage through no-fault divorce," Knowles said. “This is a very bad turn of events.”

“Do you think society has gotten much better since the social and sexual revolutions of the 1960s? Or has it gotten a little bit worse?” Knowles asked. “Are we in a period of ascendancy or a period of decline?”

Knowles’ line is increasingly common on the right. Senior writer at National Review Online Dan McLaughlin also sees the liberation movements of the second half of the 20th century as a locus of social disintegration, recently linking gay marriage rights and no-fault divorce as twin aspects of a singular problem.

Some conservatives are even more overt in their playbook. The right’s successful campaign to overturn Roe should serve as a “path by which campaigns for social change must be patterned,” Katy Faust and Stacy Manning write at The Federalist. “That’s especially true for those still willing to fight the battle for marriage.”

Faust and Manning run Them Before Us, which describes itself as “a global movement defending children’s right to their mother and father.”

In their piece, they present a hypothetical back-and-forth that activists can use to field questions, such as:

“If you really think family is so important then you must be against divorce.”

• Correct, no-fault divorce is the original re-definition of marriage and it has devastated the American family.

(The two also oppose same-sex marriage on the grounds that “children of gay couples lose maternal or paternal love and half their heritage.”)

Others on the right downplay this trend.

“As for no-fault divorce, it’s not entirely clear that the policy — while a tragic mistake, from the social-conservative perspective—actually features prominently in the mainstream Right’s priorities. (Which Republican is campaigning on repealing no-fault divorce?)” writes Nate Hochman at National Review. To answer the rhetorical question: the Texas Republican Party, for one, which includes in its 2022 platform a proposal “to rescind unilateral no-fault divorce laws and support covenant marriage and to pass legislation extending the period of time in which a divorce may occur to six months after the date of filing for divorce.”

Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in the Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe, made it clear that aspects of the right are interested in rolling back marriage equality and contraception rights. “We have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents," Thomas wrote. It’s not difficult to imagine a movement built on patriarchy targeting divorce laws next.

#us politics #news #media matter for america #2023 #republicans #conservatives #no-fault divorce #tim pool #steven crowder #matt walsh #michael knowles #sen. j.d. vance #YouTube #timcast irl #obergefell v. hodges #roe v. wade #patriarchy #Dan McLaughlin #Katy Faust #Stacy Manning #the federalist #National Review Online #Them Before Us #Nate Hochman #National Review #Texas Republican Party #tweet #twitter #justice clarence thomas #feminism

[beardedmrbean]

Lawmakers have started reacting to Google’s admitted racial and historical bias, and one Republican senator wants to see the "breakup" of one of the most well-known and profitable tech companies.

"This is one of the most dangerous companies in the world. It actively solicits and forces left-wing bias down the throats of the American nation," Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo in a "Sunday Morning Futures" exclusive interview.

The Alphabet-owned tech giant is scrambling to right the ship after pulling the plug on Gemini's image generation features, with CEO Sundar Pichai telling employees last Tuesday the company is working "around the clock" to fix the tool's bias, calling the images generated by the model "completely unacceptable."

Social media users had flagged Gemini was creating inaccurate historical images that sometimes replaced White people with images of Black, Native American and Asian people.

Fox News Digital previously tested Gemini multiple times to see what kind of responses it would offer: when the AI was asked to show a picture of a White person, Gemini said it could not fulfill the request because it "reinforces harmful stereotypes and generalizations about people based on their race."

Sen. Vance expanded on how the alleged bias can have ripple effects on other information sectors, including politics.

"Think about the effect this has on the presidential election when unbiased, non-committed voters are searching things about Donald Trump, and also about Joe Biden, right before they cast their ballots," the senator said.

"We cannot allow a company that is in bed with some of the worst people in the world to control the flow of information and to bias it in a left-wing direction," he continued. "We [have] got to break this company up and bring back some common sense standards."

Addressing the likelihood that legislative action may be taken against Google, the senator claimed there are "growing calls" across the political spectrum for a shakedown on the tech giant, noting it’s gotten "too big, too powerful."

"My friends on the left, Maria, say they feel like our democracy is under threat. The biggest way our democracy is under threat is you have these massive, international companies that are sort of controlling what we think, what we read, what information we consume," Vance said.

"That's a big problem. But I actually do think that there's going to be growing momentum to rein Google in," he added. "We saw this with the release of Gemini. This is a radically left-wing company that is trying to control how we consume information. If we let that happen, we are going to get exactly what we deserve."

On Saturday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote a letter to Google parent company Alphabet, demanding that the company explain whether the Biden administration influenced Gemini’s A.I. error.

#nunyas news

[drdougdouglass]

Sorry... No roses for either of you.

And you have BOTH been voted off the Island.

(Poor Things. They thought they were Ivankas.... when really they're realy just Huckabees, Thomas', and Pirros.)

[gusty-wind]

#the great awakening #war is real #ncswic

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

Oily MAGA trash booking an early ticket to prison.

#republican assholes #traitor trump #crooked donald #traitor #republican values #never trump #jd Vance traitor #Elise stefanik traitor

[ridenwithbiden]

Here are the 9 Republicans who voted against the continuing resolution:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio)

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)

Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.)

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.)

Sen. Eric Schmitt (Mo.)

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas)

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah)

[tomorrowusa]

If you hear Republicans claiming that Trump was just joking about being a dictator, ask them this:

What would be your reaction if Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or Gavin Newsom started talking about being dictators?

Trump's lickspittles continue to make excuses for his proposed totalitarianism and even push the envelope further.

MAGA Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio is asking the Department of Justice to investigate Robert Kagan of the Washington Post because Kagan wrote that Democratic office holders should wage legal resistance against Trump if the latter returns to power. The irony is that Kagan is a G.H.W. Bush style conservative who served in the Reagan-era State Department. Vance is helping to prove that worry about a Trump dictatorship is well placed.

Trump's dictator babblings could backfire on him in the upcoming DC prosecution where he's being charged with attempting to subvert the results of the 2020 election. Prosecutors could point to his dictator comments as an indication that he's still trying to overturn the rule of law.

#donald trump #donny the dictator #dictatorship #j.d. vance #robert kagan #ari melber #liz cheney #democracy #the rule of law #election 2024 #Youtube