By Diane Roberts
J.D. Vance eclipses DeSantis, but he might want to watch his back
As for the future, maybe Ronbo can land an afternoon slot on Fox
Ron DeSantis must be madder than a wet hen, sick as a parrot, fit to be tied.
His political future just got knee-capped by Donald “My Ear Took a Bullet for America” Trump when the convicted felon and Putin fan girl chose J.D. Vance as his running mate.
It’s not that Ronbo wanted the VP slot: He doesn’t do second-in-command. But he had visions of a 2028 run for the White House dancing inside his head.
If only Diaper Don had picked a sad also-ran like the once kinda sorta moderate-turned-toady Marco Rubio, the epically boring governor of North Dakota (what’s that dude’s name again?), or the embarrassment that is Tim Scott, Ronbo figured that, with his charisma and charm, he could whip any of those guys next time.
But Trump went and screwed him, elevating a brat senator who’s younger and smarter and arguably more extreme.
Ronbo’s consolation prize was a last-minute speaking slot at the convention with Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump’s other discarded concubines.
As for the future, maybe Ronbo can land an afternoon slot on Fox.
If Trump wins and somehow doesn’t declare himself president-for-life, Vance will be the nominee in 2028. Ditto if Trump loses and the country survives the violence.
Vance could end up as president before then, possibly without lifting a finger — except maybe to pass Trump the Pretzel Bacon Pub Cheeseburgers that finally tip him over into massive stroke territory.
Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and their autocracy-loving billionaire buds will see to that: Those two, along with Don Jr. (whose own cousin calls him “stupid”), pushed hard for Vance to be on the ticket.
Risibly ignorant
Vance is their kind of guy: not merely a jerk of the first order, but a democracy skeptic.
Ukraine? He says he can’t figure out why people think Putin is a threat and “really doesn’t care.”
Damn, y’all: Ukraine is white and mostly Christian: Wonder how he feels about, say, South Korea or Kenya?
Assuming he has any knowledge of those countries. He’s already proved himself risibly ignorant when he referred to Britain as “the first Islamist country” with nuclear weapons.
You may know Vance from his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” in which he congratulates himself for surviving Appalachian deprivation and his mother’s drug addiction to become a venture capital bro.
He trashes the poor people he grew up with, dismissing them as a bunch of lazy losers who failed, unlike him, to get into Yale Law School.
You may also know Vance from the insults he once heaped on the short-fingered vulgarian: “reprehensible,” “an idiot,” “a total fraud,” “a moral disaster,” “cultural heroin,” and “one of USA’s most hated, villainous, douchey celebs.”
Sounds about right, doesn’t it? But in 2021, Vance was running for U.S. Senate and needed Trump’s endorsement, so he slunk down to Mar-a-Largo, prostrated himself on the floor between the boxes of classified documents, and begged forgiveness from the man he once referred to as “America’s Hitler.”
That’s just the kind of moral fiber we want to see in the vice president of the United States.
‘Class war’
But Vance is not only a wholly owned Trumper, he’s in thrall to “Project 2025,” embracing the racism, the cruelty, the science-denial, the arrogance, the authoritarianism, and especially the misogyny.
My God, the misogyny: Vance is anti-choice (of course) and wants to ban abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest, calling a pregnancy resulting from a crime “inconvenient” while piously declaring “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
He blames the “sexual revolution” for liberating all these dang women from their God-ordained roles as incubators. He’s against no-fault divorce, once suggesting women stay in violent marriages for the sake of the family.
He disapproves of working women and has said universal day care is “class war against normal people.”
His wife, Usha Vance, a high-powered corporate litigator, has just quit her job, but you wonder who looked after their three kids while she was out making big money.
No doubt Vance would argue that his family is different. Special, even though Usha Vance, daughter of Indian immigrants, may be in for a rough campaign ride.
White supremacists are throwing little tantrums because Trump’s running mate is married to Hindu. On his podcast, Baby Nazi Nick Fuentes huffed, “Do we really expect that the guy who has an Indian wife and named their kid Vivek is going to support white identity?”
But a little hatred directed at his wife and kids won’t stop the ambitious Vance. He knows how to weaponize spite and stupidity.
Make America Hungary
For example, did you know the Democrats who run the country are “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too”?
This will come as a shock to the Bidens, Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff, Sen. and Ms. Charles Schumer, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigeig and husband Chasten, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his wife Evan Ryan, Attorney General Merrick Garland and his wife Lynn, who all together have 12 children and many, many dogs.
I didn’t trawl through the entire cabinet, but even a cursory glance reveals a distinct lack of childlessness and a sad scarcity of cats: Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has one kid and four pups, for God’s sake.
But why let reality get in the way of childish insults?
J.D. Vance certainly won’t. He’s on a mission to make America not so much great again (again) but to make America Hungary.
He’s a Viktor Orbán wannabe, and if he gets anywhere nearer the Oval Office than the VIP tour, we will soon find ourselves living in a cross between Budapest and Gilead, a land of so-called “Christian conservative governance” where LGBTQ people have few rights, women have no rights over their own bodies, and none of us are free to read and think what we like.
Orbán and Vance are agreed: Education and the arts should be instruments of state propaganda.
Of course, our own Ronbo concurs, as he demonstrated when he vetoed funding for museums, music, and theater with “sex stuff” (present only in his impoverished imagination) and destroyed the once-distinguished New College of Florida.
If he doesn’t get a Fox gig, maybe Ronbo will become Minister of Information in a Vance regime.
On the other hand, ole J.D. might want to slow down and consider whether being Trump’s vice-president is really worth the butt-kissing, boot-licking, and general humiliation.
He might consider the danger.
He might want to remember what happened with Trump’s last VP.
On Jan. 6, MAGA insurrections erected a gallows at the Capitol, determined to hang Mike Pence.
Trump had no intention of stopping them. In fact, he thought it was a fine idea.
Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times–back when that was the Tampa Bay Times’s name–and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.
Cmon man says
Kamala was the first to drop out 4 years ago because nobody supported or wanted her. Now all of a sudden Kamala will fix all of America’s problems.
If she wins America is doomed
Sherry says
@cmon man. . . . LOL! LOL! LOL! Come out from under that rock, will ya! Turn off FOX and catch up with what’s happening in the “Real World”! Kamala’s time has come in the form of over 200 Million dollars in contributions and 170,000 volunteers:
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has raised $200 million since she emerged as the likely Democratic presidential nominee last week, an eyepopping haul in her race against the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.
The campaign, which announced its latest fundraising total on Sunday, said the bulk of the donations — 66% — comes from first-time contributors in the 2024 election cycle and were made after President Joe Biden announced his exit from the race and endorsed Harris.
Over 170,000 volunteers have also signed up to help the Harris campaign with phone banking, canvassing and other get-out-the-vote efforts. Election Day is 100 days away.
Dennis C Rathsam says
Kamala is not Qualified, Tell us all what Bidens Border Czar, accomplished? All she wants to do is raise taxes, & give citizenship to illegal invaders. She has no PLAN!!!!! She speaks like a communist!
Amoc says
Haha not qualified, you are special needs aren’t you? Biden deported more people than the orange convict what’s your point. Half of the debt is from trumps tax breaks for super rich. Read a book .Dennis gets his info from fox and trumps mouth, both full of shi+.
Foresee says
Trump sure can pick ’em. JD Vance is just another bad choice in a history of bad choices. Here’s what Jared Kushner (you know, Trump’s savvy chief advisor who got 2 billion from Saudi prince Mohammad bin Salam) just did.
7/30 “(Bloomberg) — QXO Inc., a company that had boasted an implied valuation of more than $90 billion at one point last week, saw its shares extend an after-hours selloff to spiral sharply downwards on Tuesday. Shares of the investment vehicle built by Brad Jacobs sank 82% on Tuesday to $11.03 each as of 9:45 a.m. in New York. The Jared Kushner-linked firm unlocked millions of shares late Monday by registering a pair of private placements with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, sending its stock plunging in after-hours trading.” [from 130 last Wed. to 11 today 7/30.]
JimboXYZ says
Maybe Trump should’ve named Tulsi Gabbard as VPOTUS instead. Tulsi took down/out Kamala Harris in about 3 minutes in a debate 4 years ago.
Ray W. says
I have been waiting for a poorly reasoned comment like that posted by Cmon man.
This is from Victor Davis Hanson’s Ripples of Battle:
“[I]n a meeting in Louisville on October 17, 1861, with Secretary of War Simon Cameron, other Union military leaders, and unidentified newsmen, Sherman poured out his frustrations. To defend Kentucky alone he would need immediately 60,000 troops. And to mount a theater offensive to clear the Confederates from the entire Mississippi Valley at least 200,000 Union recruits would eventually be required! His hearers were astounded. The fantastic numbers bandied about made a most disheartening prognosis even worse. Later events, in fact, would prove Sherman’s realistic figures prescient.
“The general Union orthodoxy at the time was that a single rather dramatic victory in Kentucky or Tennessee — Grant’s ‘one great battle’ — might so demoralize the South as to bring on a general armistice. Now the theater commander was instead predicting years of conflict with armies in the hundreds of thousands that would cost millions to raise. Not surprisingly, within a month after Sherman’s depressing interview, gossip flew that Sherman was at best exhausted and ill, at worse delusional and insane — and either way liable through his defeatist rantings to lose northern Kentucky if not southern Ohio. By December 11, 1861, the Cincinnati Commercial printed the alarming headline about their native son: ‘General William T. Sherman Insane.’ and then further pontificated about his removal:
“‘The harsh criticisms that have been lavished on this gentleman, provoked by his strange conduct, will now give way to feelings of deepest sympathy for him in his great calamity. It seems providential that the country has not to mourn the loss of an army through the loss of mind of a great general into whose hands was committed the vast responsibility of the command of Kentucky.'”
Four years later, the country lauded Sherman as the nation’s second greatest general, a general who crafted an entirely new form of warfare and broke the backbone of the Confederacy to such an extent that he became the most hated man in the post-bellum South as it busied itself with rewriting the history of their treason.
Does every FlaglerLive reader see the failed reasoning behind Cmon man’s comment? Is it possible that 2020 candidate Harris could accurately see that 2020 was not her time and that she should be lauded as prescient for recognizing that? And that she, also, can accurately see that 2024 just might be her time?
I am not advocating for Kamala Harris for president. For years, I have been opposing former President Trump. If a candidate promises to slit throats, if elected, I will oppose him, governor or not. If a candidate asks just when it will be time to behead Democrats, I will oppose him. If a candidate promises to crush vermin, I will oppose him. If a candidate predicts blood in our streets, in he is not elected, I will oppose him. If a candidate tells followers to strap on a Glock before leaving to vote, I will oppose her. If a candidate announces at a rally that “some people need killing”, I will oppose him. This is just healthy political thinking. Always oppose the vengeful among us who seek political power by exhorting followers to hate the “other.” Always. There is no other viable choice.
Only the “pestilential” partisan members of faction think that exhorting followers to visit political violence on opponents is healthy.
DaleL says
William Tecumseh Sherman was the greatest general who has ever commanded troops. Not the second best. He was uncommonly brave and honorable. At the battle of Shiloh he calmly rallied the American troops along the front lines while having three horses shot out from under him. His brilliant Atlanta campaign and the subsequent march to the sea tore the heart out of the treasonous Confederacy. Then his troops marched north, unstoppable, through the Carolinas. One key to Sherman’s victories was his reliance on maneuver. Early in the Civil War, Sherman observed the futility of frontal assaults.
As for the future election, American elections are never about the “best” versus the “best”. It is frequently who is less bad. In this case though, it is a pretty good candidate in Kamala Harris and an awful one in Donald Trump. Harris was knocked out of the 2020 primaries partially because her DA background made her less acceptable to the left wing progressive Democrats. This makes her better positioned to run against Trump. Trump liked her enough that when she was running for California DA, he contributed to her campaign twice. Once in 2011 and a second time in 2013.
Ray W. says
Hello DaleL.
I wrote that in his day, in 1865, as the two great Union armies paraded through D.C., Grant went first. Sherman, years later, was eventually and is now recognized as the greatest general of the war. German officers attached to Sherman’s army as observers, brought home to Germany Sherman’s idea of total war and of living off the land, untethered to supply lines.
What Sherman saw at Shiloh greatly affected him. Never again, he thought. He seldom attacked head on from then on, though he was the one surprised by the Confederate attack at Shiloh. He feinted from then on. He flanked wherever possible. He looked for advantage. He was the first to untether his army from his supply lines, as if they were a great mass of cavalry. He lived off the land and destroyed whatever he couldn’t use. His methodical approach to capture Atlanta preserved his troops and led to the Confederate leadership removing their best general and putting in an aggressive general who promptly and rashly attacked and attacked, losing the majority of his army in short order.
DaleL says
Both Grant, Sherman’s commanding officer, and Sherman were surprised by the Confederate attack at Shiloh. Sherman had drilled his raw troops relentlessly the day before the Confederate attack. Just prior to the attack, Sherman rode out to the front and was nearly killed. His orderly was shot dead. He had just enough time to deploy his troops into battle formation. Many of his and other commanders’ raw new recruits ran away in the face of the Confederate assault. Most stayed and fought, grimly giving ground. (To paraphrase the account in “Fierce Patriot” by Robert L. O’Connell.)
No says
What kind of editorial garbage is this.
Sherry says
@ no. . . Ever hear of satire? I guess you don’t get much of “that there intellecshal stuff” on FOX, “rIt”?
Dennis C Rathsam says
Funny …. When TRUMP uses satire, the Dems call him a dictator!
BillC says
@ Rathsam Trump does a great Las Vegas style lounge lizard comedy act. He’ll make a funny dictator!
Laurel says
Dennis: Do you mean by satire, Trump asked the expert if people could somehow inject bleach to cure COVID?
Trump is funny as measles.
Deborah Coffey says
Satire?
Leila says
Pure garbage. It is media who are pushing hate in this country. More unhinged threats from the left.
Pierre Tristam says
You’re so right Leila. When Trump and a Vance speak it’s like listening to Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela speak though in fairness Trump and Vance—these paragons of truth, of love, of compassion, these gentle souls of sainthood incarnate—make Theresa and Mandela look like Little League dust. What are we thinking, we dust mites of media, we media whores and garbage peddlers? Thank you Lord Jesus for giving us Leilas so we can see the light. Thank you. Just: thank you.
Sherry says
Priceless Pierre! LOL! LOL! LOL!
Dennis C Rathsam says
Poppycock! Everyone knows you dispise TRUMP….Nothing new. Tell us all what’s Kamala,s platform? What’s her idea,s for the future? She failed as Border Czar, now the lying Dems are saying she was never the CZAR….Too bad it came out of Bidens mouth, & in print throughout the past few years! She needs to be investigated for high treason to America! Covering up Bidens failed mental state! She lied to America, along with thousands of of Dems who kept saying how sharp Biden was! Its another democrat cover up. Worse than Watergate! What else is she lying about? Simply shes a failed VP, for a failed president! The cost of living has doubled under the Biden/Harris. It took them 3 3/4 years & an ellection for them to do something about the southern border. WHY???? Bash Trump all you want… that’s all you Dems got. You cant run on the economy, you cant run on interest rates, you cant run of the price of gas doubling. All you can do is badmouth Trump. The man with the greatest economy the world had ever seen, before Xi sent us the China flu. Ya,LL have a short memory, of how good it was.
Nephew Of Uncle Sam says
“She needs to be investigated for high treason to America!”
The only one in this country that should be held accountable for “high treason” is that orange messiah of yours, you know the one who led an insurrection against the United States of America on January 6th.
“She lied to America,”
Your messiah never did, 30,000+ documented lies during his four years of playing golf.
“The cost of living has doubled under the Biden/Harris.”
Attach facts please, then explain the record corporate profits.
“you cant run of the price of gas doubling. ”
The President doesn’t set gas prices, no matter who is President.
Now do share with us the GOP platform for this election, facts only.
The dude says
Jesus… too much to unpack here…
Fell out of the MAGA tree and hit every branch on the way down.
President Biden currently enjoys the best stock market EVER.
Hottest housing market EVER.
It’s a crazy job market (for those who work to support the pyramid scheme that is boomers retirement.). If you want a job, you can get a job. If you don’t want a job, and you’d prefer to pick saw palmetto berries, well you’re a florida man and there isn’t much hope for you anyway.
trump’s inflation from his inept mishandling of COVID is finally starting to ease. (thanks President Biden)
And all Dennis and his cohort can do is yell about cat ladies or something… weird.
Laurel says
Dude: I want you to look up something, not for me but for your understanding of recent history. Putting blame on seniors is just another way to divide us up. It’s intentional, and is used to deflect what’s really going on. Go to YouTube and look for “Why do so many Americans support a neo fascist” Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich. Don’t jump to conclusions and assume it’s about boomers. It’s a short history lesson you might enjoy.
Laurel says
Leila: Please explain how any woman can back a rapist, misogynist, pussy grabbing braggart, adulterer man, because it absolutely blows my mind. Tell me, please, how you rationalize this felon’s sexist behavior because, as a woman, you not only betray American women, but betray yourself as well.
Jane says
The truth about old JD is frightening! You’ve been warned. Vote smarter!
Sherry says
JD Vance also is a fan of horrific Alex Jones who called the tragic murder of school children at Sandy Hook a “hoax”!!!
This From ProPublica
Vance drew criticism when he tweeted that “Alex Jones is a far more reputable source of information than Rachel Maddow.” Jones, founder of the online show Infowars, gained a following with his promotion of conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. More recently, judges in several states ordered him to pay $1.5 billion to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, which Jones had called a hoax.
Vance told Teneo members that he was “just trolling” with his defense of Jones, but added “that doesn’t mean what I said is in any way untrue.”
Bill says
Drivel like this is why FlaglerLive is nothing more than part of the problem and not even worth reading. At least Vance didn’t declare we have an alliance with North Korea as Kamala did or speak constant nonsensical word salad as she always does. Musk’s X video the other day was on point and hilarious! Kamala is completely unqualified to run a Taco Bell. You know what’s really immoral? We are $35T in debt (and growing ~$2T each year) with time running out, and not one Dem will discuss cuts to anything, and they falsely claim it can be fixed by “taxing the rich”. They have no plan other than keep spending until we default. Our kids will be poorer than us. We have millions of illegal immigrants crossing our border, of which she was assigned to manage, and failed miserably adding to the debt problem. Of course, all the liberal media is gaslighting hard trying to rewrite history now claiming she wasn’t the “border czar” as they know how vulnerable she is, lmfao. That’s rich.
It’s like Piers Morgan said, if your ship just sank and the last lifeboat is gone, you will cling to any boat passing by. This is how you have KH, and she wasn’t even voted in…your queen was nominated for you, as a last resort, and a DEI hire to begin with, stated by Biden himself at his rally on May 29th. How’s that for Democracy for you? No one wanted her before, and you only want her now due to your TDS and lack of other options due to senile Biden and Kamala’s and the Dem’s lies about his competency. Dems love DEI, but how dare you point out when someone was hired due to it, even if the one doing the hiring said so… If you start with “I will hire a person based on [some immutable characteristic] first, and not merit first, then you will be rightfully called out. If you don’t want conservatives to point it out, then stop using it. You can’t defeat racism with racism anyway.
Democrats are the “cool parents” that say yes to anything and everything, and then their kid dies from a drug OD. We need people in charge who will responsibly say no. We can do without the Dem party of up is down and down is up, and sex and race don’t matter, at least until they want to use it as a weapon anyway or hire based upon it. I listened to a CNN anchor the other day state that you can’t call Kamala incompetent, that it’s racist to call a black woman incompetent lmfao. Trump 2024!
Laurel says
Bill: So is that you just assume a black woman is a DEI hire, or do you have actual proof, backed up by actual facts?
Funny how you focus on her gender and race. Predictable.
Maybe you prefer Trump’s comment on how you won’t have to vote again.
DaleL says
Bill, yes Kamala had a verbal gaff in 2022 and said North Korea instead of South Korea. However, I believe that Mr. Trump has excelled in that area also. He famously confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi.
Trump will have a harder time deporting more illegal immigrants than Biden has done. Our country has a debt problem partially because of Trump’s tax cuts have added 2.3 trillion dollars to the deficit. On the plus side, the super wealthy can afford even larger mega yachts for Clarence Thomas to ride along on.
Don’t worry though, if Trump gets reelected, he says he will fix it so we don’t have to ever vote again.
The dude says
Speaking of… Rooms to Go is having a huge end of summer sofa sale…
Jackson says
I think a genuine blue wave just became possible. Something that changes the whole paradigm. The shift in energy and intensity in the last 24 hours has been palpable.
Trump told a group of Christians that they should Vote this one time. He said that they wouldn’t need to Vote again because Trump and his Cult would fix it.
Danny says
GOP hates gays, but their VP candidate is the prodigy of Peter Thiel, a gay man who gave JD Vance every single job he’s ever had. The two must be real close. He also funded his senate campaign.
He’s never worked a real job a day in his life and was handed everything by the San Francisco tech elite(even before his phony book). How is this the republicans candidate lol?
Joseph Barand says
Don’t be surprised if JD (Brutus) Vance puts dagger in Trumps back during the first Cabinet meeting. To spare Trump, we must vote BLUE.
Laurel says
OMG, Dude, that’s a good one!
What Else Is New says
Ah me. There is no convincing the Bill’s, et al. Don’t even try, as they are in the cult having no way out unless with acceptance for their freedom. Terrible Trump and Vile Vance have cooked their goose. They know of the brilliance of V.P Kamala Harris and her march to the Oval is imminent.
Lee says
To Bill —-
Your ridiculous comments are hilarious!
The only reason Musk isn’t for Biden or Harris is because Biden forbid to give him Federal monies for Tesla unless he opened nationwide dealerships to create millions of jobs..
If you ever read his biography, he’s just a good investor business man that wishes to stand alone & knows Trump & dump will kiss his butt a long with all the wealth in the country and not the People !!
Now we need to get rid of the OLD white guy running for office, just another Dumb & Dumber duo, that being nothing to the table .
Endless dark money says
Here’s a racist moron who doesn’t think women should vote. You know the gop will love him.
Sherry says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV5DwUEuC5g&ab_channel=SatyenK.Bordoloi
Cat Lady extraordinaire from Chelsea Handler . . . we could all use a great laugh today. . . LOL!