While many politicians fear that their old, controversial social media posts might resurface during election years, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) appeared to have a different concern — that his past criticism of the Republican Party would come back to haunt him.
According to CNN’s KFILE, in 2016, Vance, already considering a run for office, pressured an old professor to remove a blog post he had written as a Yale Law student in 2012, shortly after former President Barack Obama’s re-election. In this post, Vance argued that the Republican Party was sabotaging its future by pursuing “racist fantasies” about deporting nonwhite people.
“A significant part of Republican immigration policy centers on the possibility of deporting 12 million people (or ‘self-deporting’ them),” Vance wrote in the post, which can still be accessed through internet archives. “Think about it: we conservatives (rightly) mistrust the government to efficiently administer business loans and regulate our food supply, yet we allegedly believe that it can deport millions of unregistered aliens.
The notion fails to pass the laugh test. The same can be said for too much of the party’s platform.” Vance went on to criticize the GOP for being “openly hostile to non-whites” and for alienating “Blacks, Latinos, [and] the youth.”
Fast forward to 2022, and Vance, now a senator and running mate of former President Donald Trump, has come under fire for his dramatic reversal on issues of race and Trumpism. Once a staunch “Never Trump” conservative who compared Trump to Hitler, Vance has now fully embraced Trump’s platform, including his hostile stance toward even legal immigrants.
Vance’s transformation has drawn sharp criticism, particularly after he promoted a viral hoax claiming that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people’s pets. Despite the hoax being debunked, Vance has refused to apologize, even as the false claims have sparked bomb threats and death threats against schools and community centers in the small Ohio town.
The contrast between Vance’s earlier critique of the GOP and his current political stance continues to fuel controversy, highlighting the extent of his shift in ideology as he navigates his role in Trump’s political circle.