JD Vance
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PJF
Well-Known Member
PJF
Well-Known Member
So grateful the adults are back in charge.
View: https://x.com/GabeZZOZZ/status/1889395692759658520?t=a08ut5V6lKig-s4GflE0OA&s=19
View: https://x.com/GabeZZOZZ/status/1889395692759658520?t=a08ut5V6lKig-s4GflE0OA&s=19
PJF
Well-Known Member
Oh no! More freedom of speech. Just like a fascist...
View: https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1890405262940598537?t=nqjp3Hs18CvzoQGjCWoKbA&s=19
View: https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1890405262940598537?t=nqjp3Hs18CvzoQGjCWoKbA&s=19
Red
Well-Known Member
The jaw dropping hypocracy of a man, who steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the results of the free and fairly run American election of 2020. Just wanted to add a dash of truth to all the asinine lying spins contained within this thread….Its not personal, PJF. It’s just that all you do is look for tweets that provide you with confirmation bias. And really, you gotta expect pushback to such nonsense….
They assembled to hear clarification on Trump’s Ukraine plans. They were lectured instead, by one of the most stunning displays of bald face lying hypocrisy imaginable! Vance cannot ever, admit, without suffering the wrath of Trump, that Biden won the 2020 election. But he, and Trump, feel entitled to lecture others on the dangers to democratic values!!!
Really, all of Trump’s lackeys are aware their authoritarian leader will not, under any circumstances, tolerate truthful statements regarding the 2020 elections. Truth is anathema, largely, throughout the MAGA movement. Truth is the enemy of MAGA. So, adding some context to this “Ode to J.D.Vance” thread. He’s is a liar and hypocrite. And we deserve better than a flood of unexamined tweets…..
www.independent.co.uk
JD Vance has sparked a furious backlash for delivering an anti-immigration speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he attacked European leaders and backed those who voted for Brexit.
The US vice-president was accused of “hypocrisy” and his speech described as “bizarre and dangerous” as he departed from the usual defence focus of speeches at the conference to lash out at the UK and EUover migration and free speech.
Vance stunned gathered delegates as he lashed out at governments across the continent and accused Europe of “retreating from some of its most fundamental values”, claiming that freedom is in danger across the continent.
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Calum Miller told The Independent: “Britain will not take lectures about political freedoms from the acolyte of a president who tried to undermine American democracy and now praises Putin. The British people will see straight through this hypocrisy."
And the Green Party described Mr Vance’s speech as “bizarre and dangerous”.
Ellie Chowns, the party’s parliamentary spokesperson on foreign affairs said: “US vice-president JD Vance's use of the Munich Security Conference to lambast allies rather than focus on the real chaos-makers in the world is sadly predictable but no less bizarre and dangerous for that.
“President Trump's administration seems determined to usher in a new world where old friends are discarded and new friends made of dangerous autocrats.
“The UK should have no part of that and should work with others to protect international frameworks and institutions that support co-operation and the rule of law.”
They assembled to hear clarification on Trump’s Ukraine plans. They were lectured instead, by one of the most stunning displays of bald face lying hypocrisy imaginable! Vance cannot ever, admit, without suffering the wrath of Trump, that Biden won the 2020 election. But he, and Trump, feel entitled to lecture others on the dangers to democratic values!!!
Really, all of Trump’s lackeys are aware their authoritarian leader will not, under any circumstances, tolerate truthful statements regarding the 2020 elections. Truth is anathema, largely, throughout the MAGA movement. Truth is the enemy of MAGA. So, adding some context to this “Ode to J.D.Vance” thread. He’s is a liar and hypocrite. And we deserve better than a flood of unexamined tweets…..
Fury as JD Vance attacks European leaders in anti-immigration Munich conference rant
US vice-president lashes out at governments across Europe over migration and free speech
www.independent.co.uk
JD Vance has sparked a furious backlash for delivering an anti-immigration speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he attacked European leaders and backed those who voted for Brexit.
The US vice-president was accused of “hypocrisy” and his speech described as “bizarre and dangerous” as he departed from the usual defence focus of speeches at the conference to lash out at the UK and EUover migration and free speech.
Vance stunned gathered delegates as he lashed out at governments across the continent and accused Europe of “retreating from some of its most fundamental values”, claiming that freedom is in danger across the continent.
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Calum Miller told The Independent: “Britain will not take lectures about political freedoms from the acolyte of a president who tried to undermine American democracy and now praises Putin. The British people will see straight through this hypocrisy."
And the Green Party described Mr Vance’s speech as “bizarre and dangerous”.
Ellie Chowns, the party’s parliamentary spokesperson on foreign affairs said: “US vice-president JD Vance's use of the Munich Security Conference to lambast allies rather than focus on the real chaos-makers in the world is sadly predictable but no less bizarre and dangerous for that.
“President Trump's administration seems determined to usher in a new world where old friends are discarded and new friends made of dangerous autocrats.
“The UK should have no part of that and should work with others to protect international frameworks and institutions that support co-operation and the rule of law.”
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LogGrad98
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Great post. Of course I've had PJF on ignore for months now so for me much of this that is just empty, which means it's exactly the same impact as seeing PJF's posts. A bunch of nothing.The jaw dropping hypocracy of a man, who steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the results of the free and fairly run American election of 2020. Just wanted to add a dash of truth to all the asinine lying spins contained within this thread….Its not personal, PJF. It’s just that all you do is look for tweets that provide you with confirmation bias. And really, you gotta expect pushback to such nonsense….
They assembled to hear clarification on Trump’s Ukraine plans. They were lectured instead, by one of the most stunning displays of bald face lying hypocrisy imaginable! Vance cannot ever, admit, without suffering the wrath of Trump, that Biden won the 2020 election. But he, and Trump, feel entitled to lecture others on the dangers to democratic values!!!
Really, all of Trump’s lackeys are aware their authoritarian leader will not, under any circumstances, tolerate truthful statements regarding the 2020 elections. Truth is anathema, largely, throughout the MAGA movement. Truth is the enemy of MAGA. So, adding some context to this “Ode to J.D.Vance” thread. He’s is a liar and hypocrite. And we deserve better than a flood of unexamined tweets…..
Fury as JD Vance attacks European leaders in anti-immigration Munich conference rant
US vice-president lashes out at governments across Europe over migration and free speech
JD Vance has sparked a furious backlash for delivering an anti-immigration speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he attacked European leaders and backed those who voted for Brexit.
The US vice-president was accused of “hypocrisy” and his speech described as “bizarre and dangerous” as he departed from the usual defence focus of speeches at the conference to lash out at the UK and EUover migration and free speech.
Vance stunned gathered delegates as he lashed out at governments across the continent and accused Europe of “retreating from some of its most fundamental values”, claiming that freedom is in danger across the continent.
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Calum Miller told The Independent: “Britain will not take lectures about political freedoms from the acolyte of a president who tried to undermine American democracy and now praises Putin. The British people will see straight through this hypocrisy."
And the Green Party described Mr Vance’s speech as “bizarre and dangerous”.
Ellie Chowns, the party’s parliamentary spokesperson on foreign affairs said: “US vice-president JD Vance's use of the Munich Security Conference to lambast allies rather than focus on the real chaos-makers in the world is sadly predictable but no less bizarre and dangerous for that.
“President Trump's administration seems determined to usher in a new world where old friends are discarded and new friends made of dangerous autocrats.
“The UK should have no part of that and should work with others to protect international frameworks and institutions that support co-operation and the rule of law.”
PJF
Well-Known Member
You guys have never taken opposing views well.
Red
Well-Known Member
I don’t blame you. Thinking deeply on a subject is not everyone’s approach. From here, it seems Trump and Vance are encouraging the rise of Far Right parties in Europe. Vance’s address was appalling. But I’m sure Putin loved it, as I’m sure he enjoyed major concessions offered ahead of peace negotiations, by Defense Secretary Hegseth!! Incredible stupidity by Hegseth, but I swear, I will always suspect Trump and Putin are in cahoots, lol. I swear Putin must have some great stuff on the Don. Well, not funny. Here’s how Occupy Democrats described one reaction to Vance’s incredible arrogant “lecture”:
BREAKING: German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius brutally shreds J.D. Vance for his utterly shameful speech attacking Europe at the Munich Security Conference: "This is unacceptable."
This is a historic takedown of an American vice president...
"We fight for your right to be against us, that is one of the mottos of the Bundeswehr and it stands for our democracy, this democracy that was just called into question by the U.S. Vice President — and not just the German democracy but Europe as a whole," said Pistorius.
In a vile MAGA-coded speech, Vance attacked our European allies for allegedly ignoring the will of their people and failing to curtail illegal migration. He ranted about abortion rights and religious freedom, and avoided talking about the security issues that the conference was designed to address.
It was part of a concerted effort by Trump, Musk, and the rest of the MAGA movement to export their fascism around the globe.
Pistorius didn't hold back in his rebuttal—
"He has spoke of the annulment of democracy and if I understood him correctly, he compares the condition of Europe to the condition that prevails in some authoritarian regimes," he said.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is not acceptable," he added, to a round of applause.
"This is not acceptable. This is not the Europe, not the democracy where I live and where I conduct my election campaign right now and this is not the democracy that I witness every day in our parliament," he continued.
"In our democracy, every opinion has a voice and it makes it possible for parties that are partly extremist such as the AFD and they can campaign just as any other parties. This is democracy," he said.
"And if the vice president had the opportunity to switch on his TV set when he arrived yesterday he would have seen one of those candidates in primetime TV," he went on.
"By the way, we even admit media that spread Russian propaganda and the representatives of the federal government answer their questions. Nobody is excluded," he said.
"But democracy does not mean that a vociferous minority will automatically be right and they cannot decide what truth is. It does not mean that anyone can say anything and democracy must be able to defend itself against extremists that try to destroy it," said Pistorius.
"I am happy to live in Europe where this democracy is defended every day against its internal and external enemies," he continued. "And therefore I would like to explicitly contradict and oppose the impression that Vice President Vance suggested here that our democracies oppress and silence minorities."
"We not only know against whom we defend our countries but what we defend it for. It's for democracy, for freedom of opinion, for the rule of law and the dignity of each and everyone, ladies and gentleman," he said.
Pistorius then switched to English to hammer home some final criticisms—
"Ladies and gentlemen, but unlike the vice president I would also like to focus my speech on the most pressing questions of European and Transatlantic security," he said.
"The last few days have confirmed what many have speculated for months. The United States are pushing for a quick peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine and they expect Europe to take the lead in securing any agreement that follows," he said.
This is what electing Donald Trump has done for America. We have alienated our allies, weakened our security, and made ourselves a laughingstock on the world stage.
Thankfully, world leaders are not afraid to stand up for the incompetent bullies working to destroy America.
Please like and share! (Which I am happy to do here).
Trump and Vance are courting Europe’s far right to spread their political gospel
US vice-president’s speech and meeting with Germany’s AfD chief signal administration’s wider plans for continent
www.theguardian.com
Hate to think we are establishing conditions that will one day lead to a third World War, but I believe that should be a concern. I doubt Putin hates being emboldened, and he certainly seems to have good friends in Trump and Vance:
JD Vance’s Munich speech laid bare the collapse of the transatlantic alliance
The US vice-president was hypocritical and insensitive, but bracingly clear in his resetting of relationships
www.theguardian.com
I still remember my junior high History classes. We were always taught how Americans were the good guys. We were the ones wearing the white hats. The Vietnam war, and the domestic turmoil it launched; Watergate, and the idealism in America that it severely wounded, did quite a bit, for myself, and many of my generation, to soil the pure whiteness of those hats(which symbolized our “goodness”, the reason we stood out). Myself, I became apolitical for decades. But, apparently, whatever idealism in America I had once been taught, still lingered, and reacted in outrage at Trump’s selfishness, meanness, intolerance of others, cynical demagoguery, and lie after lie after lie. The Big Lie.
They lecture Europe on free speech, and throw the AP out of the WH, because the AP prefers the Gulf of Mexico! A splendid example of both hypocrisy and stunning laughable PETTINESS. I don’t know how my idealism survived so many years of political apathy, or why Trump/Vance would not just be the last straw. We’re not the good guys anymore. We’re one of the world’s bad guys now. But that’s how Trump sees the world, broken up into spheres controlled by Strongmen, and he is determined to stand among them, democracy is for chumps…..
What has my country become?:
This? I pray not…..
Trump apologists: this is not TDS. Nor do I suffer from your non existent illness. Not anyone’s fault that you are sleepwalking through history.
German Chancellor Rebukes Vance for Supporting Party That Downplays Nazis
Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany on Saturday accused Vice President JD Vance of unacceptably interfering in his country’s imminent elections
dnyuz.com
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LogGrad98
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Contributor
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Tell us you're a Nazi-sympathizer without telling us you're a Nazi-sympathetizer.I don’t blame you. Thinking deeply on a subject is not everyone’s approach. From here, it seems Trump and Vance are encouraging the rise of Far Right parties in Europe. Vance’s address was appalling. But I’m sure Putin loved it, as I’m sure he enjoyed major concessions offered ahead of peace negotiations, by Defense Secretary Hegseth!! Incredible stupidity by Hegseth, but I swear, I will always suspect Trump and Putin are in cahoots, lol. I swear Putin must have some great stuff on the Don. Well, not funny. Here’s how Occupy Democrats described one reaction to Vance’s incredible arrogant “lecture”:
BREAKING: German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius brutally shreds J.D. Vance for his utterly shameful speech attacking Europe at the Munich Security Conference: "This is unacceptable."
This is a historic takedown of an American vice president...
"We fight for your right to be against us, that is one of the mottos of the Bundeswehr and it stands for our democracy, this democracy that was just called into question by the U.S. Vice President — and not just the German democracy but Europe as a whole," said Pistorius.
In a vile MAGA-coded speech, Vance attacked our European allies for allegedly ignoring the will of their people and failing to curtail illegal migration. He ranted about abortion rights and religious freedom, and avoided talking about the security issues that the conference was designed to address.
It was part of a concerted effort by Trump, Musk, and the rest of the MAGA movement to export their fascism around the globe.
Pistorius didn't hold back in his rebuttal—
"He has spoke of the annulment of democracy and if I understood him correctly, he compares the condition of Europe to the condition that prevails in some authoritarian regimes," he said.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is not acceptable," he added, to a round of applause.
"This is not acceptable. This is not the Europe, not the democracy where I live and where I conduct my election campaign right now and this is not the democracy that I witness every day in our parliament," he continued.
"In our democracy, every opinion has a voice and it makes it possible for parties that are partly extremist such as the AFD and they can campaign just as any other parties. This is democracy," he said.
"And if the vice president had the opportunity to switch on his TV set when he arrived yesterday he would have seen one of those candidates in primetime TV," he went on.
"By the way, we even admit media that spread Russian propaganda and the representatives of the federal government answer their questions. Nobody is excluded," he said.
"But democracy does not mean that a vociferous minority will automatically be right and they cannot decide what truth is. It does not mean that anyone can say anything and democracy must be able to defend itself against extremists that try to destroy it," said Pistorius.
"I am happy to live in Europe where this democracy is defended every day against its internal and external enemies," he continued. "And therefore I would like to explicitly contradict and oppose the impression that Vice President Vance suggested here that our democracies oppress and silence minorities."
"We not only know against whom we defend our countries but what we defend it for. It's for democracy, for freedom of opinion, for the rule of law and the dignity of each and everyone, ladies and gentleman," he said.
Pistorius then switched to English to hammer home some final criticisms—
"Ladies and gentlemen, but unlike the vice president I would also like to focus my speech on the most pressing questions of European and Transatlantic security," he said.
"The last few days have confirmed what many have speculated for months. The United States are pushing for a quick peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine and they expect Europe to take the lead in securing any agreement that follows," he said.
This is what electing Donald Trump has done for America. We have alienated our allies, weakened our security, and made ourselves a laughingstock on the world stage.
Thankfully, world leaders are not afraid to stand up for the incompetent bullies working to destroy America.
Please like and share! (Which I am happy to do here).
Trump and Vance are courting Europe’s far right to spread their political gospel
US vice-president’s speech and meeting with Germany’s AfD chief signal administration’s wider plans for continent
Hate to think we are establishing conditions that will one day lead to a third World War, but I believe that should be a concern. I doubt Putin hates being emboldened, and he certainly seems to have good friends in Trump and Vance:
JD Vance’s Munich speech laid bare the collapse of the transatlantic alliance
The US vice-president was hypocritical and insensitive, but bracingly clear in his resetting of relationships
I still remember my junior high History classes. We were always taught how Americans were the good guys. We were the ones wearing the white hats. The Vietnam war, and the domestic turmoil it launched; Watergate, and the idealism in America that it severely wounded, did quite a bit, for myself, and many of my generation, to soil the pure whiteness of those hats(which symbolized our “goodness”, the reason we stood out). Myself, I became apolitical for decades. But, apparently, whatever idealism in America I had once been taught, still lingered, and reacted in outrage at Trump’s selfishness, meanness, intolerance of others, cynical demagoguery, and lie after lie after lie. The Big Lie.
They lecture Europe on free speech, and throw the AP out of the WH, because the AP prefers the Gulf of Mexico! A splendid example of both hypocrisy and stunning laughable PETTINESS. I don’t know how my idealism survived so many years of political apathy, or why Trump/Vance would not just be the last straw. We’re not the good guys anymore. We’re one of the world’s bad guys now. But that’s how Trump sees the world, broken up into spheres controlled by Strongmen, and he is determined to stand among them, democracy is for chumps…..
What has my country become?:
This? I pray not…..
Trump apologists: this is not TDS. Nor do I suffer from your non existent illness. Not anyone’s fault that you are sleepwalking through history.
German Chancellor Rebukes Vance for Supporting Party That Downplays Nazis
Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany on Saturday accused Vice President JD Vance of unacceptably interfering in his country’s imminent elections
Red
Well-Known Member
Very sad, and troubling, that unwavering support of Trump is actually willing to ignore and dismiss such obvious sympathies, and dismiss concern that such sympathies are right out in the open, with Musk in particular.
The Thriller
Well-Known Member
Never.
The same incentives that existed in 2015 that incentivized Trump to take over the GOP exist today. These are:
1. Base voters love Trump. He feeds them racism and misogyny. They feed him adoration. If you cross Trump? You’ll be primaried at best and threatened or killed at worse (just ask Romney and Pence).
2. Billionaires love Trump. He’s their useful idiot. Through Trump they can keep working class rubes distracted while killing the social safety net and funneling public funds into their private hands. Cross Trump? They’ll finance a primary campaign against ya. Musk has already promised to finance campaigns against republicans who don’t toe the line.
The sooner people realize that republicans in congress merely serve dear leader out of fear/true believing in Trump, the better. Please understand that the only way to correct this is to sweep republicans out of power. If it becomes clear that Republicans just can’t win with Trump and Trumpism, they’ll be forced change. Or create a new and actual conservative (not fascist) party from moderates in the Democratic party. At any rate, there’s no saving the current GOP. They are owned completely by Trump and the crazy kooks who run their primaries.
Unfortunately, this isn’t likely to happen anytime soon. The world’s richest and most powerful men finance the GOP. Those with the largest newspapers, tv networks, podcasts, and social media platforms, are all in the bag for Trump and Trumpism. So giving the GOP repeated electoral losses so much so that they’ll be compelled to reform, just isn’t going to happen. I mean, 40-45 percent of the country is already lost anyway. They’ll mindlessly parrot right wing talking pts and die on whatever stupid *** hill Trump wants them to die on.
We are in a real quagmire.
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Red
Well-Known Member
J. D. Vance and his warm embrace of Neo Nazis….Good opening question, Vance supporters: what part of “Neo Nazi” appears to be going over J.D.’s head? As for Musk, he is certainly also very much a Neo Nazi supporter in his appeals to German voters. I do wonder what it’s going to take for this administration’s supporters to condemn embracing Neo Nazism?
PARIS — What part of “neo-Nazi” does JD Vance not understand?
That’s one question that arises from his decision to meet with the head of a German political party so extreme, and with such a long and noxious history of sanitizing and embracing symbols and slogans of the Third Reich, that even other radical right-wing parties in Europe have ostracized it.
The other question is: If Vance does grasp the party’s track record, which includes recent eruptions of Nazi-inspired chants at its rallies, why would he embrace it anyway?
This is the man who in 2016 worried that Donald Trump was “America’s Hitler.” Nothing indicated he regarded that as a net plus.
In a trip to Germany last week, the vice president doubled down on his decision to hold a tête-à-tête with Alice Weidel, leader of Alternative for Germany, known as AfD, with a speech excoriating mainstream European leaders gathered at a conference in Munich. He accused themof nurturing a “threat from within” by excluding and persecuting far-right groups, which he called a “retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.”
The obvious point is Vance’s hypocrisy in accusing European allies of spurning their values — this from an administration suggesting it will ignore court rulings, exacting revenge against political rivals and purging nonpartisan career prosecutors and civil servants who enforced duly enacted laws.
But he might have done more lasting damage by his interference in the internal politics of a major ally — in this case nine days before German elections, in which Weidel is the AfD candidate for chancellor. By meeting with her — and none of the mainstream German candidates, including incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz — Vance shattered a taboo that he would consider outrageous if the tables were turned. Imagine Germany’s No. 2 elected official swanning around with a leftist presidential candidate — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, say, who is hardly as radical the AfD — on the eve of U.S. elections in 2028.
That Vance took up the cause of the AfD, a party polling at around 20 percent which many Germans regard as beyond the pale, is heedless of history and contemptuous of the transatlantic alliance. In doing so, he managed to transform Europe’s old stereotype of the Ugly American into something more grotesque: the Malicious American.
That leaves the question of why.
The superficial answer is that the Trump-Vance worldview dovetails with AfD-Weidel’s. Both have established brands, and appealed to base voters, largely in opposition to what they regard as out-of-control immigration. Both reject the idea that multiculturalism is socially and economically desirable.
Equally important, both revile wokeness and its elite champions in politics, culture and education. And both are hostile to the power wielded by mainstream liberal democrats in the European Union, a sprawling bureaucracy they see as a regulatory menace and an impediment to the propaganda that propels their movements. In addition, both are sympathetic to Vladimir Putin and indifferent, at best, to Ukraine’s struggle for sovereignty and a place in the club of Western nations.
Beyond their overlapping policies, there is something more sinister at work in Vance’s decision to meet with Weidel — whose party, it’s worth noting, has long had an anti-American streak.
Unlike some other hard-right parties in Europe, such as Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France, the AfD has made no attempt to rebrand itself as a mainstream movement within the traditional parameters of postwar German politics. With all the AfD’s neo-Nazi eruptions, there have been no apologies, no contrition, no retreats. Those eruptions including Weidel’s own recent rallies, where she has basked in chants of “Alice für Deutschland,” a homophonic play on the banned Nazi slogan “Alles für Deutschland.”
It’s one thing to oppose unbridled and illegal immigration, which has inspired anger and despair in the United States and Europe. It’s another to traffic in symbols and slogans that were proscribed by postwar German lawmakers specifically because they feared a revival of Nazism in its birthplace, and were determined that Germany would forbid it.
“A commitment to ‘never again’ is … incompatible with support for the AfD,” Scholz said Saturday in rebuking Vance. “Never again fascism, never again racism, never again war of aggression.”
By meeting with Weidel, and thereby lending the AfD a measure of legitimacy it could not previously have imagined, Vance broadcast the message that Trump’s United States will pay any soft-power price, and bear any reputational burden, to promote its most cherished goal: namely, ridding Western countries of immigration’s scourge.
With his Yale law degree, Vance is often extolled in Republican circles as an intellectual, a trait no one would attribute to Trump. But it is the rare intellectual who would be so blind to the lessons of history.
Loading…
wapo.st
PARIS — What part of “neo-Nazi” does JD Vance not understand?
That’s one question that arises from his decision to meet with the head of a German political party so extreme, and with such a long and noxious history of sanitizing and embracing symbols and slogans of the Third Reich, that even other radical right-wing parties in Europe have ostracized it.
The other question is: If Vance does grasp the party’s track record, which includes recent eruptions of Nazi-inspired chants at its rallies, why would he embrace it anyway?
This is the man who in 2016 worried that Donald Trump was “America’s Hitler.” Nothing indicated he regarded that as a net plus.
In a trip to Germany last week, the vice president doubled down on his decision to hold a tête-à-tête with Alice Weidel, leader of Alternative for Germany, known as AfD, with a speech excoriating mainstream European leaders gathered at a conference in Munich. He accused themof nurturing a “threat from within” by excluding and persecuting far-right groups, which he called a “retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.”
The obvious point is Vance’s hypocrisy in accusing European allies of spurning their values — this from an administration suggesting it will ignore court rulings, exacting revenge against political rivals and purging nonpartisan career prosecutors and civil servants who enforced duly enacted laws.
But he might have done more lasting damage by his interference in the internal politics of a major ally — in this case nine days before German elections, in which Weidel is the AfD candidate for chancellor. By meeting with her — and none of the mainstream German candidates, including incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz — Vance shattered a taboo that he would consider outrageous if the tables were turned. Imagine Germany’s No. 2 elected official swanning around with a leftist presidential candidate — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, say, who is hardly as radical the AfD — on the eve of U.S. elections in 2028.
That Vance took up the cause of the AfD, a party polling at around 20 percent which many Germans regard as beyond the pale, is heedless of history and contemptuous of the transatlantic alliance. In doing so, he managed to transform Europe’s old stereotype of the Ugly American into something more grotesque: the Malicious American.
That leaves the question of why.
The superficial answer is that the Trump-Vance worldview dovetails with AfD-Weidel’s. Both have established brands, and appealed to base voters, largely in opposition to what they regard as out-of-control immigration. Both reject the idea that multiculturalism is socially and economically desirable.
Equally important, both revile wokeness and its elite champions in politics, culture and education. And both are hostile to the power wielded by mainstream liberal democrats in the European Union, a sprawling bureaucracy they see as a regulatory menace and an impediment to the propaganda that propels their movements. In addition, both are sympathetic to Vladimir Putin and indifferent, at best, to Ukraine’s struggle for sovereignty and a place in the club of Western nations.
Beyond their overlapping policies, there is something more sinister at work in Vance’s decision to meet with Weidel — whose party, it’s worth noting, has long had an anti-American streak.
Unlike some other hard-right parties in Europe, such as Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France, the AfD has made no attempt to rebrand itself as a mainstream movement within the traditional parameters of postwar German politics. With all the AfD’s neo-Nazi eruptions, there have been no apologies, no contrition, no retreats. Those eruptions including Weidel’s own recent rallies, where she has basked in chants of “Alice für Deutschland,” a homophonic play on the banned Nazi slogan “Alles für Deutschland.”
It’s one thing to oppose unbridled and illegal immigration, which has inspired anger and despair in the United States and Europe. It’s another to traffic in symbols and slogans that were proscribed by postwar German lawmakers specifically because they feared a revival of Nazism in its birthplace, and were determined that Germany would forbid it.
“A commitment to ‘never again’ is … incompatible with support for the AfD,” Scholz said Saturday in rebuking Vance. “Never again fascism, never again racism, never again war of aggression.”
By meeting with Weidel, and thereby lending the AfD a measure of legitimacy it could not previously have imagined, Vance broadcast the message that Trump’s United States will pay any soft-power price, and bear any reputational burden, to promote its most cherished goal: namely, ridding Western countries of immigration’s scourge.
With his Yale law degree, Vance is often extolled in Republican circles as an intellectual, a trait no one would attribute to Trump. But it is the rare intellectual who would be so blind to the lessons of history.
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