Vacation Planner of the United States J.D. Vance

My goal, mostly achieved, is to post on Substack twice weekly, pulling threads on political events to reveal less-seen but essential concepts activists may find useful.

Today was difficult to begin—not from writer’s block, but a political tinnitus. Fascism’s bell rings as if struck by a jackhammer. This horrible noise makes organized thought a challenge and even taking a simple inventory of sins against our democracy an undertaking. The static of events overwhelmed the signal and words were difficult for me to come by.

What does Vance know?

Then, I thought of J.D. Vance, our national vacation planner. He is getting out of town—a lot. No one misses a vice-president, but his vacations are oddly public. Granted, he cannot sneak the family away; the nuclear code turnkey needs an understudy. Ducking work is easy when the job is breaking ties and waiting for death. Still—so many, so soon.

So I began to wonder what he hears.

Now, Vance is likely just a jerk who has privilege and is using it. Power reveals character, after all. And Vance has the constitutional immunity idol—Trump cannot fire him, so why not do what he wants? This is the simple answer. He does not care and does not need to care.

J.D.’s hopes

But, what if there is a subtext to this? The less J.D. is in DC and, instead, out with his family roaming the world, the less connected he is to Trump’s Rolling Fascism. So Vance flies the flag and gets booed periodically to look loyal, but he really wants to avoid any shit-show. My sense is J.D. has a strong survival interest and a striking absence of loyalty to anyone except his creator, Peter Thiel.

The only hope for a vice-president is the end of a presidency. If Trump does not die soon, he is term-limited by the clearest amendment in the Constitution. Trump cares little for the future and will rob and pillage while he can. Vance has measured the Oval Office curtains. He wants the job. And extricating himself from Trump—perhaps by being out of the country at the right moment—can only help put daylight between them.

Conjectures are plausible, but unproven. I have no evidence to spread across the table and say “told you so” concerning Vance. This is simply an angle on the Vance Vacations to consider. Stupidity is often mistaken for strategy, but sometimes the reverse is true. Appearances are often tricks in politics. Vance’s Vacations are, deservedly, fodder for news and late-night hosts. Yet pause and consider something else may lurk behind Vance’s Vacations. That is my conjecture. It is for someone else to settle.