Donald Trump has chosen J.D. Vance as his running mate, the former president announced on Monday.
Vance, a first-term Republican senator from Ohio, was widely expected to be Trump’s vice presidential pick as the pool of potential hopefuls narrowed earlier in the day. Just hours before the announcement, several outlets reported that Gov. Doug Burgum (R-N.D.) and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) were informed by the Trump campaign that they would not be on the 2024 ticket. Others previously thought to be on Trump’s short list included Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), U.S. House Rep. Elise Stefanink (R-N.Y.), and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
In a post on his own tech platform, Truth Social, Trump lauded Vance as the “person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States.”
“J.D. honorably served our Country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, Summa Cum Laude, and is a Yale Law School Graduate, where he was Editor of The Yale Law Journal, and President of the Yale Law Veterans Association,” he said, adding that he “will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond.”
The choice of Vance, who rose to fame as the author of the controversial memoir Hillbilly Elegy, was likely intended to help Trump shore up support among white, lower-income voters in the Midwest, where President Joe Biden is considered vulnerable in the 2024 race. According to poll averages from FiveThirtyEight, Trump leads Biden by more than nine points in Vance’s home state of Ohio, and Biden also trails in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Biden would likely need to win all three of the latter states to stave off a second Trump term, with swing states like Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada also looking vulnerable in 2024.
A former critic of Trump who recast himself as a politician in the MAGA model, Vance’s LGBTQ+ record differs very little from the man at the top of his ticket. During his two years in the U.S. Senate, Vance opposed the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified federal same-sex marriage rights in the event that Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2004 ruling legalizing marriage equality, is repealed by the Supreme Court. He also authored the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, which would make it a class C felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, to provide gender-affirming surgery to trans minors. (This despite the fact that transition surgeries are rarely offered to patients under the age of 18 and only in cases of extreme medical need.)
Additionally, Vance is a supporter of the so-called “parent’s rights” movement, which advocates that LGBTQ+ students be outed to their parents and seeks to remove queer-affirming resources from classrooms. He has repeatedly referred to opponents of those actions as “groomers,” such as in an April 2022 post on X. “I’ll stop calling people ‘groomers’ when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children,” he wrote at the time.
The 39-year-old politician has also opposed diversity and inclusion in the U.S. armed forces, suggesting that he is likely to support re-banning trans servicemembers from the military should Trump be elected. “American political leaders should stop using America’s military as a social justice side project,” his 2022 campaign site reads. “Troops don’t need to focus on diversity or equity or any other progressive buzzword; they need to focus on fighting and winning America’s wars.” The removal of trans troops from the military is a major component of Project 2025, a set of far-right policy proposals shaped and promoted by the anti-LGBTQ+ Heritage Foundation, which Trump has sought to distance himself from in recent days.
Vance’s anti-LGBTQ+ background also includes claiming that Biden supports Ukraine because Russian President Vladimir Putin is anti-trans and blaming the “childless left” for America’s decline, specifically citing U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. Furthermore, he once accused U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) of making up the term “Two-Spirit,” which is broadly embraced by LGBTQ+ Native Americans to describe their identities. “Would love if progressives just stopped inventing words,” Vance posted on X in February 2021.
In repeatedly opposing LGBTQ+ equality, Vance has found a perfect match in Trump, whose administration was responsible for more than 200 attacks on queer rights in four years, according to GLAAD. These assaults included repealing protections for trans students, removing resources for LGBTQ+ Americans from federal websites, decimating funding for global HIV/AIDS prevention, and appointing a record-number of judges opposed to LGBTQ+ equality. His administration also made it harder for marginally housed people to find safe shelter and opposed workplace protections for LGBTQ+ employees.
Trump, whose own supporters threatened to kill his last vice president for refusing to support Trump’s 2020 bid to remain in office, is likely to resume many of those policies if reelected in November.
I want to thank Ten Bears for the link, his link I will post below. Please read the article, and see how the news media has tried to mislead and lead the public to accept the candidate that will make them the most income. Grand read. Please do. It explains the totally unequal reporting on Biden and tRump, and other elections, and explains we must ignore it, and vote for democracy and that means vote for Biden. Hugs. Scottie.
Some quotes from the article.
How else to explain the manner in which the people who reflexively insist there are “two sides” to every issue have completely dispensed with reporting in full dimensions the issues around Biden’s performance? The press has chosen a lane, best exemplified by the New York Times loading up their front page and home page with anti-Biden narratives. The debate within the Democratic Party and liberalism is being reported as a one-sided affair, despite prominent leaders in the party making the argument for Biden’s continued candidacy. In the media pack, that storyline effectively has ceased to exist. They want Biden out, and they want him out now.
Why is the press doing this? While I think that there is some truth to the fact that the ownership of most of these media outlets has a conservative world view and that they are happy to pillory the Democratic Party at every opportunity they get, I think the reasoning is simpler.
The Biden administration has been competently boring, passing a roster of better than anticipated legislative achievements that have led to low unemployment, low fuel prices, massive infrastructure investment and now-declining inflation. This is great for America but it sucks for the bank accounts of most journalists.
During the Trump presidency they didn’t have to bother covering things like replacing lead pipes in Black communities or attempts to forgive billions in student debt. No, under Trump they had a never ending stream of feuds instigated by Trump, ranging from childish insults thrown at Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, NATO, and random people on social media. They had Trump insiders leaking office gossip about Omarosa, Diet Pepsi and other nonsense to stenographers like the New York Times’ resident Regina George, Maggie Haberman.
This led to massive online traffic, a bump in television ratings and book deals, so many book deals. ABC News’ Jonathan Karl has somehow squeezed out three Trump books, and the title of his first bestselling tome gives the game away: “Front Row at the Trump Show.”
Faced with the choice of another four years of Biden/Harris or the gravy train of Trump, the press has openly picked Trump. Even before the debate, the media studiously minimized Trump’s criminal convictions, fascist rantings, verbal diarrhea and his use of language literally out of Adolf Hitler’s playbook. Instead, they decided that the most important story in this race was Biden’s age.
See the point of the article. The media makes big money off tRump and loses money on Biden. They don’t give a flying F**k about democracy, in the US profit is king! So please read the article and don’t fall for it. Hugs. Scottie.
President Joe Biden’s performance in the first presidential debate was abysmal. Regardless of the reason for what occurred it was a betrayal of the trust millions of Americans have put in him over the last four years, not just as a partisan party leader, but as the head of the American government. The debate over how he and the Democrats should proceed from here is a legitimate discussion worth having.
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This is completely separate from the media feeding frenzy that has raged nonstop since before the end of the debate.
What is happening in the mainstream American media in outlets like the New York Times, CNN, the Associated Press and beyond is disgraceful and beyond contempt. The free flow of disdain for Biden, Democratic voters, and the sanctity of public discourse is obvious to even the most casual observer.
I have not seen worse behavior since the same press aided and abetted George W. Bush in selling a pack of lies about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction from 2001-2004. It isn’t even worth saying the press should be ashamed because they have shown us time and time again, they have no shame.
As a longtime critic of political reporting, a frequent fig leaf often offered in defense as outlets circle the wagons against liberal criticism, is that it is unfair to assess them as a herd. We are individuals, they protest, and the worst of us should not be lumped in with exemplary moments of reporting.
But to appropriate Bette Davis in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane: Media, you are in that pack.
How else to explain the manner in which the people who reflexively insist there are “two sides” to every issue have completely dispensed with reporting in full dimensions the issues around Biden’s performance? The press has chosen a lane, best exemplified by the New York Times loading up their front page and home page with anti-Biden narratives. The debate within the Democratic Party and liberalism is being reported as a one-sided affair, despite prominent leaders in the party making the argument for Biden’s continued candidacy. In the media pack, that storyline effectively has ceased to exist. They want Biden out, and they want him out now.
We’ve seen this kind of thing again and again from this pack of jackals. We saw it in the withdrawal from Afghanistan, when the press all but ignored successful operations to evacuate personnel and instead hyped up problems and misfires. We had purportedly nonpartisan reporters at outlets like CNN sounding like sock puppets for the Lindsey Grahams and Ted Cruzes of the world in expressing exasperation at Biden’s operation.
We also of course saw it in the 2016 election, when a collective shrug was made at Trump after he mocked the disabled and called Mexicans rapists, in favor of what was the single most important national security issue in American history: Hillary Clinton’s emails.
This deranged behavior also popped up when the press complained incessantly that President Barack Obama needed to go out and play golf with then-Speaker John Boehner, and again when the media decided the Clintons were too bumpkin to be a part of official Washington in the early 1990s, and their behavior helped pave the way for one of the most disastrous presidencies in American history because they spent the entire 2000 election cycle calling Al Gore a liar. Ever notice how even though Bush knowingly lied about WMDs, the press has never elevated that to the same level of scandal as Gore (accurately) describing his key role in contributing to the early internet? Yeah.
Why is the press doing this? While I think that there is some truth to the fact that the ownership of most of these media outlets has a conservative world view and that they are happy to pillory the Democratic Party at every opportunity they get, I think the reasoning is simpler.
The media misses Donald Trump. And they would like him to win.
The members of the mainstream media are human beings (despite frequent appearances to the contrary) and human beings respond to incentives. There is an enormous personal financial incentive to another four years of Trump in the White House, and a disincentive for the press pack if Biden (or any other Democrat) is in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Biden administration has been competently boring, passing a roster of better than anticipated legislative achievements that have led to low unemployment, low fuel prices, massive infrastructure investment and now-declining inflation. This is great for America but it sucks for the bank accounts of most journalists.
During the Trump presidency they didn’t have to bother covering things like replacing lead pipes in Black communities or attempts to forgive billions in student debt. No, under Trump they had a never ending stream of feuds instigated by Trump, ranging from childish insults thrown at Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, NATO, and random people on social media. They had Trump insiders leaking office gossip about Omarosa, Diet Pepsi and other nonsense to stenographers like the New York Times’ resident Regina George, Maggie Haberman.
This led to massive online traffic, a bump in television ratings and book deals, so many book deals. ABC News’ Jonathan Karl has somehow squeezed out three Trump books, and the title of his first bestselling tome gives the game away: “Front Row at the Trump Show.”
Faced with the choice of another four years of Biden/Harris or the gravy train of Trump, the press has openly picked Trump. Even before the debate, the media studiously minimized Trump’s criminal convictions, fascist rantings, verbal diarrhea and his use of language literally out of Adolf Hitler’s playbook. Instead, they decided that the most important story in this race was Biden’s age.
When responding to criticism of this coverage choice, they resort to that tired old defense, insisting that they merely cover the news and that liberals are upset because it paints their candidate in a poor light.
But what they chose to do was put their entire body (not just a thumb) on the scales. The same way in which they minimized Russian interference in the election to focus on Clinton’s staffers sharing food recipes and the national security implications of risotto, they elevated Biden’s age above all else.
The press has long ago thrown away the veneer of plausible deniability in this practice and where I would fault fellow liberals is giving the press the benefit of the doubt. Surely, the thought process goes, they are as afraid of how a second Trump term would crack down on their ability to do their jobs and exercise their freedom as the rest of us.
This is unfortunately naive. These people do not care. They are far more interested in their personal financial gain and professional standing than the future of the country. Just like they didn’t care about what Bush would do to the citizens of Iraq and the American military as they rushed to publish and broadcast “scoops” about nonexistent weapons. They don’t care. A cursory study of the history of Germany shows far too many were quite happy to either turn a blind eye to Hitler’s ascent because after all, currency from Nazis is still currency.
We are in a bad place in this country and we have been for some time. The political system has been in near-constant upheaval, the party tasked with providing adult leadership (the Democrats) has shown a compulsive disinterest in adapting to the politics and communications strategies of the modern era, and the press stinks.
What is needed is constant pressure on these people, in nonviolent and legal ways, to blunt the ill effects of their zealotry on the country. The press went off into the deep end decades ago, now they are trying to drag the rest of us even further into deep, dark trenches that we may never be able to claw our way out of.
“The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it – and rather successfully. Cassius was right. ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.’
Good night and good luck.” – Edward R. Murrow, 1954
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Russia launched a barrage of missiles on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in a rare daytime attack, killing at least 20 people across the country and hitting a key children’s hospital
There have been several recent incidents where far-right, white supremacist groups have targeted LGBTQ people, including last weekend at a pride event in Idaho and a during a drag story hour at a library in California. J.M. Berger, a writer and researcher who focuses on extremist ideologies and has written four books on the topic, joins William Brangham to discuss.
Some Pride month events across the country, like Drag Queen Story Hours, have been targeted by far-right protestors.
Check out our Pride Store: https://professorpride.com/ 55 Years ago today was the Stonewall Riots, leading to LGBTQ freedom and Pride Month so we wanted to check in to see how this Pride month went
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump has been outlining what he plans to do if elected in November. That includes rolling back the rights of millions of LGBTQ+ people. It’s part of a wider playbook to undo many modern civil rights advances for minority groups. White House Correspondent Laura Barrón-López reports.
While a lot of the people that follow Mock Paper Sissors follow me, I still loved this post so much and the way TG wrote it, I am reposting it here. Hugs. Scottie
