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I Read JD Vance's Terrible New Christian Nationalist Book — Transcript

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0:00I think it's pretty clear at this point
0:01that Christian nationalism is on the
0:02rise in America.
0:04>> By the grace of God, we always will be a
0:06Christian nation.
0:07>> The separation of church and state is
0:09the biggest lie that's been told in
0:11America since our founding.
0:13>> As a practicing Christian and a leftist
0:15[music] myself, I think a lot about the
0:17intersection of faith and power. [music]
0:19About how human spirituality can be a
0:22tool of liberation or control. So, when
0:25I learned that J.D. Vance was planning
0:27to release a new memoir detailing his
0:30conversion experience and reflecting on
0:32his vision for a Christian America, I
0:35knew I had to read it.
0:36>> She She doesn't want to be on film,
0:37guys, so just cut her out of anything.
0:39Appreciate that, ma'am.
0:41Um I'm J.D. Vance, American nationalist
0:42for president. Thank you.
0:43>> Okay.
0:44>> I wanted to find out what motivates the
0:46vice president [music] and by extension
0:48this movement in their own words. It
0:51took me 3 days. I read this thing cover
0:53to cover, and what I found
0:56deeply unsettled me. As much as I wish
0:58it wasn't true, I think J.D. Vance is
1:01tapping into something powerful here.
1:02And unless we can conjure something
1:04deeper and more powerful, [music]
1:06Christian nationalism will continue to
1:08grow. So, today I want to use this book
1:11>> It doesn't have the same effect when
1:12it's on Kindle, I guess.
1:13>> Yep, here it is, folks. So, today I want
1:16to use this book as a case study to
1:17explore the psyche of J.D. Vance and the
1:20movement he represents. And I want to
1:22talk about how the left can prevail
1:24against Christian nationalism, which
1:26means we have to go deep. I started
1:28writing this video thinking it'd be a
1:30quick dunk on J.D. Vance's book, and
1:32don't worry, there will be plenty of
1:34that. But it ended up being a lot more
1:37than that, [music] so enjoy. Okay, I'm
1:39going to start by summarizing the book,
1:42and then we'll get into analysis. So,
1:45J.D. starts this this text talking about
1:48his upbringing and his religious
1:50background. As J.D. tells it,
1:52>> Our family attended church very rarely.
1:54Our faith was amorphous, tied to family
1:56and oral traditions, and not to
1:57institutional orthodoxy. The churches we
2:00attended seemed closely aligned with the
2:01Republican Party's social conservatism.
2:04We had been blue-collar, union Democrats
2:06for as long as anyone could recall. We
2:08believed Republicans were the party of
2:09the rich. You know, I began to worry
2:11that the things the Democrats had done
2:12to help us poor people weren't
2:14succeeding.
2:14>> And here we learn our first important
2:16lesson about Christian nationalism. This
2:18movement is made up, in large part, by
2:21people who would have been the left's
2:22base just a few generations ago. It's
2:25tempting to think of rural Caucasians as
2:28irredeemable hogs and to assume that
2:30this has always been the case. But,
2:32these people used to be reliable labor
2:34voters. So, what went wrong? Well,
2:36we'll get back to that. For now, keep
2:38that puzzle piece in your back pocket
2:40because J.D. Vance is plowing ahead to
2:42his time in Iraq, where he wrote
2:45articles for the Marines and read The
2:48Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which
2:49is a children's story about a lion who
2:51represents Jesus. And so, he sort of
2:53oscillates between like this
2:55philosophical mode and then also like
2:57discounting his gradual disillusionment
2:59with with the war.
3:00>> We've begun the search for hidden
3:01chemical and biological weapons
3:04and already know of hundreds of sites
3:07that will be investigated.
3:09>> I'd enlisted in the Marines thinking I'd
3:10bring Western democracy to faraway
3:12lands, but now I was here and it wasn't
3:14clear what George W. Bush had us
3:16fighting for.
3:17>> He also talks about his encounters with
3:18the Iraqi people writing,
3:20>> "What they didn't admire was our
3:21culture. I don't want my kids watching
3:23MTV," one man told me. "I encountered a
3:25fear among the population that if Iraqi
3:27culture grew too Americanized, it would
3:29become too consumerist and
3:30hypersexualized."
3:32>> Which is funny because J.D. spends the
3:34majority of the book, I would say,
3:36worrying about American society becoming
3:38too consumerist and hypersexualized.
3:40Just a few pages later, he writes,
3:42>> "I thought the war on terror would be
3:44our generation's World War II, but this
3:46was not a galvanizing national struggle.
3:48Most people back home were more
3:49interested in shopping, as President
3:51Bush was encouraging them to do. And
3:53while they supported the troops, they
3:54didn't seem to have much of a stake in
3:56the war we were fighting.
3:57>> This desire for a galvanizing national
4:00struggle is key to JD's worldview. So,
4:03definitely hang on to that. But, in the
4:05meantime, I think it's funny that a guy
4:06shipped overseas to supposedly fight
4:09Islamic extremism would come to the same
4:11conclusion as the Taliban.
4:14>> Hey ladies, where you headed, pretty
4:16girls?
4:16>> Hey. What's going on over here?
4:19Nothing. I was just saying
4:20>> Dog, this is literally Christian Sharia.
4:23>> I mean, I also agree that Western
4:25society is too consumerist, I guess, but
4:27for slightly different reasons than JD.
4:29And this isn't the only time this book
4:31will strangely rhyme with a leftist
4:33position. But, back to the book. A young
4:35JD is now out of the military. He's left
4:38his hardscrabble Protestant upbringing
4:40behind him, and now he's big man on
4:42campus at Ohio State University. And
4:44he's ready to get some play. He spends a
4:47lot of this chapter talking about the
4:48dating games and high jinks of his
4:50college career.
4:52>> They'll never try to reject you if they
4:53think you're going to leave cuz you're
4:54exiting yourself.
4:56And as they start to open up to you,
4:57then you can turn your body towards to
4:58face them more.
4:59>> Later, JD also writes
5:01>> Columbus was nothing if not a
5:02target-rich environment for a couple of
5:04bachelors.
5:05>> I'm not sure if this was self-aware, but
5:06using target-rich environment to
5:08describe
5:10a place with a lot of women is such a
5:13chilling and evocative turn of phrase.
5:15It really encapsulates the worldview of
5:17a former military guy turned amateur
5:19pickup artist.
5:21Dude, can you imagine being in a bar at
5:23Ohio State and seeing JD Vance
5:27full eyeliner walk up to you, fresh off
5:30of deployment in Iraq? Ooh, Allah. To
5:32his credit, JD laments his playerish
5:35ways, but he kind of has this like weird
5:36attitude about the dating scene where
5:39he's like, "Ah, well, at least, you
5:40know, we were doing it in bars, in
5:42person."
5:43>> Swiping, the text games, the ghosting,
5:45and the loneliness.
5:47>> In my day, we were picking up chicks
5:49properly using the mystery method.
5:51>> And she says, "Uh you asked me to
5:53dance." And you say, "No, I I I said you
5:56look fat in those pants."
5:59>> [laughter]
6:01>> Your thoughts?
6:02>> What are my thoughts on that? How's it
6:03working out for you?
6:04>> Not well.
6:05>> Which once again, I mean, for all the
6:07flak that I've given JD, I can't argue
6:09that gender relations and dating are
6:11straight-up broken. Although again, I
6:13think that our prognosis of why that's
6:16happened is probably wildly different.
6:18This is a common theme of the book. JD's
6:20diagnosis of the ills of American
6:22society are largely correct, but his
6:24prescriptions are dubious, to put it
6:27charitably. Or to be more precise, he
6:29confuses the symptom for the disease,
6:31but we'll talk about that later. Because
6:34this is the part of the book where
6:35religion really starts to take center
6:36stage. As JD leaves his Christian
6:39upbringing behind, he becomes enmeshed
6:41in a new faith, the cult of meritocracy.
6:44In his words, he becomes a striver. And
6:46this process begins when JD is
6:48introduced to proto-libertarian
6:50philosopher Ayn Rand.
6:52>> He writes,
6:53>> "Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, published
6:54in 1957, is about a group of leading
6:57industrialists who, fed up with the
6:58government regulation and popular
7:00criticism of their work, go on strike.
7:03The world, scornful of these great men
7:04and the companies they built, soon
7:06realizes how much it depends on their
7:07goods and services. Without their labor,
7:09the world descends into dystopia.
7:11Railroads stop running, store shelves
7:13are bare, and human advancement ceases
7:16altogether."
7:16>> First of all, hilarious inversion of
7:18reality. I think if the capitalists went
7:21on strike, the workers would quickly
7:23render them obsolete. But anyway, this
7:24newfound creed inspired JD to
7:27>> "Stop whining, stop praying, and start
7:29working your ass off if you want
7:31anything out of life."
7:32>> Yet as our hero matriculates to Yale
7:35Law, he starts to become disillusioned
7:37with the rat race. He writes,
7:38>> "By working hard, elite college
7:40achievers earned their social prestige
7:42and superior job prospects. Any sense of
7:44community attachment that we owe
7:46something to the people from whom we
7:47came gave way to the one-upmanship of
7:50modern meritocracy.
7:51>> He notices that in order to stay
7:52competitive, his peers needed to delay
7:55family formation and personal
7:56development, sacrificing their life on
7:58the altar of productivity. Eventually,
8:00he realized that he didn't even know why
8:03he wanted what he wanted. The pursuit of
8:05achievement had become a purpose onto
8:07itself.
8:08>> It bordered on insane. I had no idea
8:10what I wanted out of a Supreme Court
8:11clerkship. I knew that it was
8:13irrational, yet I desperately wanted to
8:15clerk for the Supreme Court anyway. I
8:18felt like I had to summit this Everest
8:19of prestige simply because it existed.
8:22>> And I have to admit, J.D.'s portrait of
8:23alienation among elite professional
8:25society is actually really striking.
8:27>> Many of my classmates were brilliant
8:29people desperately striving for a life
8:31where they'd sit at a desk and build
8:32Excel models or write deal documents. Is
8:35this honorable work? Sure, it is. So was
8:37welding steel. But where my grandfather
8:39had a healthy relationship with his job,
8:41he understood that it was a useful thing
8:42to do, that people depended on him, and
8:44that it put food on the table, my
8:46classmates had an almost religious
8:48obsession with their work. But most of
8:50us were not saving the world.
8:51>> It's very Fight Club, you know. We work
8:54jobs we hate so we can buy stuff we
8:56don't need. These are J.D.'s lost years
8:58in the secular wilderness. But
9:01things are about to change. At Yale, he
9:03meets Usha, his future wife. He starts
9:05going to therapy, but he doesn't like
9:08that because therapy makes him feel like
9:09a victim.
9:10>> The therapist framing removed the moral
9:12dimension from human conduct. Our trauma
9:14did not write us a moral blank check. I
9:16was searching for a more satisfying
9:18accounting of wrongdoing and
9:19responsibility, of temptation and
9:21willpower, of virtue and guilt.
9:24>> I think you can see where this is going.
9:25J.D. marries Usha and prepares to become
9:27a father. He spends a lot of time
9:29worrying about how to raise his kids in
9:31an environment where, and I quote,
9:33>> those sacred qualities that anchor human
9:35beings to one another, like loyalty and
9:37a sense of obligation to community,
9:38country, and family took a backseat to
9:40credentials and achievement.
9:42>> And there's another problem with the
9:43professional class that J.D. identifies.
9:46They're globalists.
9:47>> Elites in global cities often know more
9:49of their peers from around the world
9:51than they do rural Americans. An
9:52investment banker in New York will
9:54likely have more in common with a
9:55strategy consultant in Paris than with a
9:57homemaker in Middletown. I'd like my son
10:00to get along with both, but if a choice
10:01must be made, I'd like him to prefer the
10:03middle class of his own country over the
10:05rich people of another.
10:06>> So, J.D. rebels against this
10:08professional managerial hive mind.
10:10Rather than settling down on the coast,
10:12he buys a home in Ohio. And rather than
10:15giving his life over to the demands of
10:17an elite career, he embraces family and
10:19tradition. Around this time, he starts
10:21to become interested in Catholicism,
10:23writing,
10:23>> I was already drawn to Catholicism for
10:25intellectual reasons.
10:27>> This is a small detail, but I think it's
10:28significant. There's a tendency on the
10:30left to treat Christian nationalism as a
10:31monolith, but I think J.D.'s conversion
10:34beautifully illustrates the cleavage of
10:35the movement. The rural white
10:37working-class evangelical eclecticism of
10:40Vance's youth formed the base of
10:42support. These people are the foot
10:43soldiers. But as J.D., through his
10:45striving, ascends into an elite-class
10:47position, his religious affiliation also
10:50evolves, and he finds himself more
10:52closely aligned with the conservative
10:53Catholic tradition, which serves as the
10:56intellectual backbone of the movement.
10:57Armed with this newfound sense of
10:59tradition, J.D. sets out into the world
11:02of politics. And this is where the
11:03philosophical meat of the book, such as
11:05it exists, can be found. After being
11:07elected to Senate, he travels to the
11:09Munich Security Conference, which is
11:10basically Comic-Con for neoliberalism.
11:12And yet, ensconced in this bastion of
11:15globalism, J.D. writes that he did not
11:17feel hatred, but pity. Pity for the
11:20shambling boomers in those gilded
11:22ballrooms who haven't quite come to
11:24terms with the fact that the post-World
11:26War II international order is
11:28collapsing. And as J.D. tells it, this
11:30international order is not
11:31disintegrating for geopolitical reasons,
11:33but for spiritual reasons.
11:35>> The threat that I worry the most about
11:37vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not
11:40China, it's not any other external
11:42actor.
11:44And what I worry about is the threat
11:46from within.
11:47The retreat of Europe from some of its
11:50most fundamental values, values shared
11:53with the United States of America.
11:55>> The West, he writes, forgot what it
11:57stood for. Contrast that with Ewald
12:00Heinrich von Kleist.
12:04Let me just brazen it out. Ewald
12:06Heinrich von Kleist Schwaimanns, a
12:09resistance fighter and the host of the
12:11first Munich Security Conference, who
12:13J.D. explicitly identifies as a
12:15Christian nationalist.
12:16>> These were men who knew what they were
12:18defending. It wasn't just ideas, not
12:20liberalism, not freedom, not even
12:21democracy. It was Western Christian
12:24civilization and the values particular
12:26to it. The concept of natural rights,
12:28including freedom of speech, a sense of
12:30duty to one's neighbors, an obligation
12:32of the strong to protect the weak.
12:34>> Now, this part confuses me. Are these
12:36values inherently Christian? Because
12:38from what I can tell, these values are
12:39in fact liberal values advanced by
12:42enlightenment thinkers, often against
12:43the wishes of the church. As a
12:44practicing Christian, it brings me no
12:46pleasure to say that, but let's be
12:48honest with ourselves here. Also, does
12:50J.D. even believe in these values
12:52himself? Because it certainly doesn't
12:53seem like his administration is
12:54interested in things like due process,
12:56free speech, or protecting the
12:57vulnerable. It seems like him and his
12:59ilk are trying their hardest to make
13:00this country less free, less equal, and
13:03less empathetic. And this incongruence
13:05between J.D.'s professed position and
13:07his actions is a common theme throughout
13:09this book. For instance, in the next
13:11chapter, J.D. details his Easter visit
13:14to the Vatican. You might expect this to
13:15be a profound moment, but he spends much
13:18of it worrying that his kids will
13:19embarrass him on television or griping
13:22that Vatican diplomats are too coy with
13:24him, particularly on the immigration
13:25question.
13:26>> Cardinal Pietro Parolin raised the issue
13:28of migration. I'd expected this, but I
13:30still found our conversation unsettling.
13:33Not because the Vatican expressed
13:34skepticism of the Trump administration's
13:36migration policies, but because of how
13:39generic its position was. Immigration
13:41raises deep questions of identity and
13:43charity that require moral leadership.
13:45Real engagement with the immigration
13:47issue requires real engagement with the
13:49tradeoffs.
13:50>> If this was the real Vance, if I could
13:52trust that this was actually how he
13:53felt, then I might have a shred of
13:55respect for him, even if we disagree
13:57about immigration policy or frankly the
13:59idea of the nation-state. Despite all
14:01the evil and corruption and sheer
14:02buffoonery of this administration, there
14:04is still irrationally a part of me that
14:06wants to believe that at the center of
14:08this hurricane, there's a thoughtful
14:10young man who wants the best for us.
14:13But I know that's not true. The pious,
14:15well-reasoned pose that Vance strikes in
14:17his book is totally at odds with the
14:18carnival of cruelty that defines his
14:20administration. Throughout the book,
14:22Vance frequently invokes a quote from
14:24the Bible, "By their fruits you shall
14:26know them." And the Trump-Vance
14:28administration is bearing rotten fruits.
14:30Sorry, not sorry. To call people like
14:32Renee Good and Alex Preddy domestic
14:34terrorists.
14:35>> The precedent here is very simple. You
14:36have a federal law enforcement official
14:38engaging in federal law enforcement
14:40action. That's a federal issue. That guy
14:42is protected by absolute immunity.
14:43>> To make Bronze Age vitalist edits and AI
14:46slop about deporting Mexican grandmas.
14:49Mr. Vance, this is not Christian. These
14:51people so obviously take pride in the
14:53fact that they don't give a damn about
14:55the lives they're destroying. And yet
14:56I'm told all this is being done for me
15:00and I should be grateful. Makes me sick.
15:02Anyway, this is one of the great ironies
15:04of the book. Whether it's the NATO files
15:07of Munich or the white-collar slaves of
15:09the American professional class or the
15:11obsequious mandarins of the Vatican
15:13bureaucracy, J.D. is keenly attuned to
15:16groupthink and hypocrisy. It's a shame
15:18that he seems to have exempted himself
15:20and his motley crew from this surgical
15:23criticism. Plowing ahead, near the end
15:25of the book J.D. lays out his vision for
15:27a Christian economy and government. This
15:29is by no means a systematic manifesto,
15:31but I think it's worth exploring. J.D.
15:34spends a lot of this section talking
15:35about how the demands of the market are
15:37alienating us from family and community.
15:40He recalls that when he was young,
15:42Thanksgiving and other holiday
15:44celebrations would be sparsely attended
15:46because so much of the family was
15:47working, doing retail shifts, preparing
15:49for Black Friday.
15:51Genuinely heartbreaking stuff. It bears
15:53repeating, as a leftist you could squint
15:55at parts of this book and find them
15:57pretty reasonable, as hard as that may
15:59be to believe. Of course, this document
16:00is obviously an I'm running for
16:02president book. Yet another entry in the
16:04long line of memoirs that prospective
16:07candidates apparently feel they have to
16:08put out to show their human side. And
16:11this champion of the everyman image that
16:13J.D. is crafting for himself is
16:15obviously calibrated so that the maximum
16:16number of people put down this book
16:18thinking, "You know what? That's That's
16:21a thoughtful guy." After all, this is
16:22the slot playlist playbook. Occasionally
16:24give lip service to popular issues,
16:27which allows credulous people to see one
16:29clip and go like, "Yo, J.D. Vance based?
16:33Got to hand it to Tucker Carlson on this
16:34one."
16:35>> It's happening in Gaza right now.
16:37Where it's like, "We're going to kill
16:38the kids, too. We don't care. And we're
16:40going to, by the way, move everyone out
16:41because
16:43they're a people that is fundamentally
16:45opposed to us."
16:47Yeah, well, I'm not for that. Sorry.
16:49>> while continuing to govern or run flag
16:51for stock standard right-wing
16:52politicians. But even if we were to take
16:54Vance at his word, I'm still not sure
16:56that his concern for working people is a
16:58point of alignment between us. Vance may
17:01converge on certain conclusions
17:03regarding the dignity of workers and the
17:05crushing grind of competing in a
17:07hyper-capitalist economy and the
17:09alienating nature of bourgeois life.
17:11>> I'm uninterested in making people
17:13servants to the economy. The economy
17:15ought to be serving us. The economy is a
17:17means, an important one, to enable
17:19people to live good lives. The point at
17:21which we see the economy as the end in
17:23itself is the point at which we
17:24dehumanize ourselves. If you step away
17:26from the glory of economic statistics,
17:28so much of American life has gone wrong.
17:31>> However, he's coming to these
17:32conclusions from an entirely different
17:34perspective. You see, Vance doesn't
17:35believe that workers and owners have
17:37mutually exclusive and competing
17:39interests, that in order to better their
17:41conditions, workers must come together
17:43to challenge the power of capital, that
17:45there's a society beyond capitalism, one
17:47which erases the distinction between
17:48worker and owner is both possible and
17:51necessary. Vance doesn't believe any of
17:53that. Rather than viewing the tyranny of
17:55the market as the logical conclusion of
17:57a political economy that values capital
17:59accumulation above everything else, J.D.
18:01seems to believe that America and the
18:03West, more broadly, has lost its way
18:06because we've abandoned religion for
18:08some nebulous reason that J.D. never
18:10bothers to explain. Rather than class
18:12struggle, J.D. believes that workers and
18:14owners have certain duties to each
18:16other, and to the extent that J.D.
18:18criticizes the elite class in this book,
18:21it's not because he's abused their
18:22wealth and power as illegitimate, but
18:23because they've shirked their
18:25responsibilities. J.D. becomes
18:27disillusioned with the Iraq war not
18:28because it was massively destructive,
18:30illegally declared, and started under
18:32false pretenses, but because the war
18:34failed to be a galvanizing national
18:36struggle, because President Bush was
18:37encouraging people to keep shopping. He
18:39frequently criticizes elites.
18:41>> The McKenzies of the world are doing
18:42just fine. Do you know who isn't doing
18:45fine? The American family.
18:46>> But then he praises Bush Sr. writing,
18:49>> Bush was unquestionably privileged, yet
18:51that privilege imbued him with a sense
18:53of duty that our modern class of
18:55meritocrats lack.
18:56>> He criticizes the dehumanizing
18:58hyper-competitiveness of the
18:59financialized modern world, but only
19:01because he, like Peter Thiel, wishes for
19:04an economy based on hard tech.
19:06>> If technological innovation were
19:07actually driving real prosperity, our
19:09elites wouldn't feel increasingly
19:11competitive with one another over a
19:12dwindling number of prestigious
19:14outcomes. And if our smartest people
19:16were building rocket ships and finding
19:17cures for cancer instead of financial
19:19derivatives, the real economy would
19:21experience more dynamism.
19:23>> What Vance presents here is a vision of
19:24populism shorn of class analysis. Rather
19:27than placing his faith in an organized
19:29working class, J.D. gestures at a more
19:32muscular, explicitly Christian state
19:35which can mediate the relationship
19:36between capital and labor to prevent
19:38class conflict. This approach sounds
19:40nicer than labor agitation. I guess it
19:42would be cool if we could all just get
19:44along, but ultimately Vance's
19:46paternalistic vision of American society
19:49keeps common people at the mercy of
19:50elites, albeit an imagined new elite
19:53class which is for some reason more
19:55virtuous. But J.D. Vance doesn't
19:57interrogate how this fantasy elite
19:59class, to the extent that it ever
20:01existed, actually came to be. The truth
20:03is this lost mid-century WASP
20:05aristocracy that J.D. is so nostalgic
20:08for, an elite class which sees itself as
20:10having a duty towards workers and
20:12society more broadly, was a product of
20:15the New Deal. And the New Deal was a
20:16product of a highly disciplined labor
20:18movement. Elites compromised with labor
20:20not because they suddenly got religion
20:22or because they realized they had a
20:23patriotic duty to their countrymen, but
20:25because their hand was forced. Because
20:27F.D.R. could look them in the eyes and
20:29say, "It's this or revolution." J.D.'s
20:31brand of populism, by contrast, is very
20:34much in the tradition of what we could
20:35call class collaborationism. While J.D.
20:37is willing to criticize the excesses of
20:40capitalism and while he pays lip service
20:42to labor unions, his stance leaves the
20:44relationship of exploitation which
20:47perpetuates these issues totally intact.
20:50Rather than taking on privilege, it's
20:51the duty of the privileged to serve
20:53their country and the workers who toil
20:55for them. The world J.D. Vance wants is
20:57not a world without hierarchy, it's a
20:59world of just hierarchy. And of course,
21:01this hierarchy only makes sense with
21:03reference to divine and
21:05This rhetorical trick allows J.D. to
21:07define himself in opposition to the
21:09individualistic atheistic Randian
21:12conservatism that characterizes
21:14America's business elites. It allows him
21:16to cast himself as the hero of the
21:18everyman, and it allows him to do all
21:19these things without challenging any of
21:21the structures that lead to this
21:23inequality. The problem with America is
21:25not that it has elite classes, but that
21:27those elite classes, and I quote, value
21:29achievement over duty. In short, JD has
21:32no interest in challenging the supremacy
21:35of the capitalist class, even
21:36rhetorically. At most, he thinks that
21:38workers should be able to advocate for
21:40themselves, but he's totally unwilling
21:41to name enemies. Multiple times
21:43throughout this book, Vance speaks about
21:45how the church and the military are the
21:47most effective institutions for binding
21:49people together across class and racial
21:51lines and creating a national
21:52consciousness.
21:53>> Apart from the military, no institution
21:55of American life successfully brought
21:57rich and poor, black and white, working
21:59class and college-educated together,
22:01except the church. One of the best
22:03institutions at taking people of
22:05different ethnicities and customs and
22:06forming bonds between them is church.
22:09The military is another.
22:10>> So, just to recap, we've got some sort
22:12of third position that rejects the
22:14degeneracy and excesses of capitalism
22:16while maintaining a staunch
22:18anti-communist stance. We've got some
22:20kind of nationalism, but, you know,
22:22focused on everyone's social well-being.
22:24Some kind of paternalistic state that
22:26concentrates political and military
22:28power in the executive and takes an
22:30active role in managing the commanding
22:32heights of the economy for the benefit
22:34of the people.
22:36Not sure we can call this ideology, the
22:38words escape me. So, that's JD's attempt
22:40to sketch out what a Christian approach
22:42to economics could look like. What are
22:44we to make of this? Well, this goes
22:46without saying, but I don't believe this
22:48brand of populism would really be good
22:49for workers. I don't think it would be
22:51good for America, whatever that means. I
22:54certainly don't think it would be good
22:55for the billions of non-Americans
22:56subjected to my country's whims, and I'm
22:59not even sure it would be good for
22:59Christians. The separation of church and
23:01state exists to keep the church safe
23:03from the state as much as it does to
23:05keep the state safe from the church. And
23:07yet, I do think that this ideology has
23:10legs.
23:11And that's what worries me. When I say
23:12this book is terrible, I don't mean that
23:14it's poor quality. There are a couple of
23:16unintentionally funny moments, but
23:18mostly I thought J.D. is a competent
23:20enough writer, though I doubt I'd read
23:22his book all the way through if not for
23:24the sake of this video. No, this book is
23:26terrible in the biblical sense. It's
23:28terrible in the sense that it makes me
23:30feel dread for what is coming. If J.D.
23:32was just another Bible-thumping
23:34free-market Reagan conservative, I
23:35wouldn't be making this video. I
23:37wouldn't have read his book cover to
23:38cover. But Vance is different, at least
23:41stylistically. By invoking Christianity,
23:43J.D. can talk in moral, universal terms.
23:46And some people might roll their eyes at
23:48the lofty, theological, philosophical
23:50tone of this book. It's certainly rich
23:52coming from him, but I would argue that
23:54this is what makes J.D. Vance most
23:56powerful. It certainly gives him a lot
23:57more rhetorical firepower than many of
24:00his bloodless, GDP-obsessed, liberal
24:02opponents who, in J.D.'s words, pretend
24:04that there are scientific answers to
24:06questions of values. This religious
24:08language gives him license to not just
24:11technocratically, but philosophically,
24:13question the foundation of our market
24:15society. And frankly, this socially
24:17conservative, economically populist
24:19rhetoric is much better read of where
24:21the country is heading than the freaks
24:22on the right who are obsessed with white
24:24identity, in my opinion. I think this
24:26nativist, Christian-inspired national
24:28conservatism that J.D. is pushing will
24:30be a much easier pill to swallow than
24:33the sort of frothing racialism of the
24:35Groypers,
24:36even if a lot of that frothing racialism
24:38is sort of bubbling below the surface of
24:39the national conservative movement
24:41anyway, but I digress. Steve Bannon once
24:43suggested that Vance could be something
24:45like St. Paul to Trump's Jesus, the
24:48zealous convert who spreads the gospel
24:50of Trumpism further than Trump himself
24:52ever could. So, after reading this book,
24:54do I agree with Bannon? Is J.D. that
24:57guy? I'm not so sure. For one thing, the
24:59Trump administration has saddled him
25:00with enough scandals that he'll be
25:02fighting an uphill battle if his
25:03opponents are at all competent, that is.
25:06And more importantly, I just don't think
25:08J.D. is very likable.
25:10>> Thanks for joining us today, honey.
25:11>> Of [music] course. Good to see you.
25:14I don't think it's a coincidence that
25:15his defining meme is an never-ending
25:17cascade of his own face, just
25:19permutation after permutation of J.D.'s
25:22twisted visage. But seriously, this is a
25:25guy who strikes a thoughtful pose on
25:27immigration while calling protesters
25:29that his administration just murdered
25:31domestic terrorists. This is a guy who
25:33criticizes tech billionaires and then
25:35fills his inauguration with them. This
25:37is a guy who criticizes elite power and
25:40money in politics when his political
25:41rise was financed by Peter Thiel, who
25:44spent a record-breaking $15 million to
25:46get Vance narrowly elected as a senator.
25:48This is a guy who glazes unions while
25:50being the right-hand man of one of the
25:52most anti-labor administrations in
25:54recent history. And there's some stiff
25:56competition there, let me tell you. This
25:57is a guy who's changed his political
25:59affiliation and even his legal name
26:01multiple times. J.D. is a shapeshifter.
26:04I think everyone can see that. And it
26:05comes through in his writing. Reading
26:07this book was a really odd experience
26:09cuz it's designed to feel like raw and
26:12personal, to be vulnerable,
26:14yet I came away with it feeling no
26:19closer to understanding the essence of
26:21J.D. I know more facts about his life. I
26:23understand his intellectual evolution. I
26:26even know how he was feeling at certain
26:27moments in time. But I'm not sure I ever
26:30caught a glimpse of the real J.D. Vance.
26:32I'm not even sure J.D. Vance knows the
26:34real J.D. Vance anymore. In any case,
26:37whether or not J.D. is the right
26:39standard-bearer for this right-wing
26:40populist movement, this wave is
26:42swelling. And at the moment, J.D. seems
26:44to be the frontrunner for the Republican
26:45nomination, so I'd expect to see a lot
26:47more of him in the future. Okay, there's
26:49one last section in this book that I
26:51think is worth taking seriously. And
26:53this is where J.D.'s real competitive
26:55edge is, in my opinion. Any fool can run
26:58the right-wing populist playbook, but it
27:00takes a genuine sensitivity to go where
27:03J.D. goes in the last chapter. He starts
27:05by recalling a trip to the UK, where he
27:07visits an old church.
27:08>> "Do you ever feel," I asked Usha, "a
27:10sense of dread when you see these
27:12beautiful places that have fallen to
27:13disrepair? I look at this church. It's
27:16simple. It's not some grand cathedral,
27:18but it's a beautiful building. And there
27:19was a time when it was alive and
27:21vibrant. Now it isn't. That really
27:23bothers me. I can't quite explain why.
27:25It was here that I discovered something
27:27like the fear of death, not of my own
27:29physical death, or of the spiritual
27:31death of hell, but of civilizational
27:34death."
27:34>> It's been said before, but this chapter
27:36illuminates it very clearly. The god of
27:39Christian nationalism is certainly not
27:41Jesus the Christ, or even Yahweh. The
27:43god is America,
27:46American power, and the civilization
27:49that it claims to take up the mantle of.
27:52For J.D., religion is a tool. He calls
27:54himself Christian because Christianity
27:56works for him.
27:57>> What I saw around me, and what started
27:59my journey back to my faith, was that
28:01Christianity bore the best fruit. I
28:03think it's very, very important for the
28:05Pope to be careful when he talks about
28:07matters of theology.
28:08>> It is equally important to resist the
28:10commodification of basic human needs.
28:13Food,
28:14water, and health care cannot be
28:17subordinated to market considerations or
28:19geopolitical interests.
28:21>> But more importantly, J.D. sees
28:23Christianity as politically useful. He
28:25sees it as key to reawakening a sense of
28:28national purpose, to weaving a myth that
28:31can bind the nation together once again.
28:33>> When I was a kid, we learned of the
28:35great deeds of our civilization's
28:36forebears. All of us took part in the
28:38story. All of us knew someone who had
28:40fought in an important war, or laid a
28:42brick in a beautiful home, or mopped the
28:45the of the NASA facility that first sent
28:47a man to the moon. I dread inheriting
28:49these beautiful buildings, the stories
28:51and the joy that happened inside of
28:53them, and then letting their memory slip
28:54into nothing, allowing their foundations
28:56to crumble, witnessing some gaudy,
28:59disgusting shopping mall be built on top
29:01of them.
29:02>> Hopefully, you're starting to realize
29:03why this book concerns me because Vance
29:05is tapping into something real here. And
29:07this is where the meaning of the book's
29:09title finally comes into focus.
29:11According to Vance, by honoring the
29:13heritage of our civilization, by
29:15carrying on the Christian tradition, by
29:17remembering and honoring the dead, we
29:19restore the bond between each other, a
29:20bond which transcends time.
29:22>> Whether you're worried about yourself or
29:24your civilization, Communion addresses
29:26the despair that so many people feel. It
29:29ensures that the communion we seek in
29:30life runs not only among those living
29:32today, but also across the generations
29:35that came before us and those yet to
29:36come.
29:37>> And while I have no doubt that this
29:38sense of [music] Christian charity,
29:39brotherhood, and beauty would not be
29:41reflected in a hypothetical Vance
29:43administration, it's hard to deny that
29:45there's something compelling about this
29:47myth that J.D. is weaving. This idea is
29:49more powerful than the bloodless
29:50technocratic liberal individualism that
29:52currently rules us, that's for sure. And
29:54it can be tempting to roll your eyes at
29:56this as a sort of a hard-headed
29:57materialist, but people seek meaning in
29:59their lives. But this is the modus
30:01operandi of fascism and right-wing
30:03populism more broadly. Run as a
30:04populist, govern as an authoritarian,
30:06claim to speak for the people while
30:08empowering the elites, invoke the lofty
30:10and the mythical while allowing your
30:12carnal desire for revenge, violence,
30:14bigotry, and dominance
30:15>> [music]
30:15>> to drive you. But even as we recognize
30:18that it's ultimately hollow, I believe
30:19we must reckon with this mythical power,
30:22the greatest strength of fascism, the
30:24side of humanity which it captures and
30:26all other modern ideologies ignore is
30:28the human desire for heroism. We all
30:31want to be great. We want our lives to
30:33be more than a banal slog. We seek
30:35something higher, something which will
30:37allow us to locate our suffering and
30:39[music] tragedy, our joy and victory,
30:41our lives and deaths as part of a larger
30:43mythos. Fascism stokes our appetite for
30:46the mythical and identifies the nation
30:48as its [music] nexus. And we can resist
30:51this siren song. We can reject fascism.
30:53But it's dangerous to deny that it calls
30:55to something real in us. If you travel
30:57to that remote mountain in your mind,
30:59its peak shrouded to modern eyes, you
31:02will find a graven image of a golden
31:04god. This god is old, older than Lenin
31:07or Locke or even Christ. And this god
31:10speaks in an ancient tongue, speaks of
31:12sacrifice and glory and honor and power
31:15and strength and victory. You must honor
31:17this spirit, but you must not worship
31:19it.
31:21So, what are we to do with this? J.D.
31:22Vance says, and this is a quote from one
31:24of his speeches, "I'm not saying you
31:25have to be a Christian to be an
31:26American. I'm saying something simpler
31:28and truer. Christianity is America's
31:31creed, the shared moral language from
31:33the Revolution to the Civil War and
31:35beyond." [music] But what do we say?
31:37What's our rebuttal? Should I mumble
31:39about how this idea is exclusionary? How
31:42it doesn't make sense to bind a nation
31:44together by centering a faith that the
31:46majority of the population doesn't even
31:47follow? Should I say that the idea of
31:49myth, heroism, [music] purpose, and
31:51communion is unscientific and cringe,
31:54and that I'm more rational because I
31:56don't believe in anything? As a leftist,
31:57[music] as someone who sees through the
31:59alienating individualism of capitalist
32:01society, who sees the way that it strips
32:03meaning from us, I'm supposed to see
32:05further. I'm supposed to believe in more
32:07than DoorDash and Bank of America and
32:10the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
32:12But what is that thing, exactly? What is
32:14our horizon? I used to draw, you know.
32:17Doodling, really. I mean, I never took
32:19it seriously. I would just draw faces
32:20[music] over and over again. And over
32:23time, I realized that I was actually
32:24drawing the same face over and over
32:26again. I would try to create a unique
32:28human, and over and over again, that
32:30square-jawed proletarian hero [music]
32:32would be staring off the page at me with
32:34that impersonal, pleasantly
32:36one-dimensional gaze. This is the spirit
32:38which animates my politics, the spirit
32:40which, Atlas-like, confidently takes on
32:43the yoke of history. Spirit which moves
32:45between union coal miners in West
32:47Virginia going to battle with Pinkerton
32:49strike breakers and civil rights
32:51activists marching through fire hoses
32:53and attack dogs in the deep south,
32:54[music] and guerrilla fighters deep in
32:56the jungle fighting to free their nation
32:58from colonial rule. The spirit which is
33:00destined to triumph and then humbly go
33:02to work at erasing poverty, suffering,
33:04and exploitation. The spirit which is
33:06destined to usher humanity out of the
33:08predatory stage and show us how to
33:10stride [music]
33:11confidently, arm in arm, out of our
33:13cradle and into the stars.
33:16This is a powerful spirit. On a good
33:18day, I feel this spirit begin to stir
33:20and walk among the people again like a
33:22cool summer breeze. I see in the
33:24bronze-flecked seaside sunrise the
33:26reflection [music] of this new world
33:28which dreams itself into being. I have
33:30faith that this spirit is more powerful
33:32[music] than Christian nationalism, that
33:34they are destined to do battle, and that
33:36we will prevail. But is this spirit my
33:38god?
33:39Can this proletarian spirit counsel the
33:41afflicted, speak of virtue and the good
33:44life, satisfy the ultimate questions? Is
33:47the socialist project merely attempting
33:49to substitute one kind of economic
33:51efficiency for another? Marxism is a
33:54useful lens for understanding the
33:56mechanics of class conflict. It makes a
33:58good science,
33:59but it makes a poor religion, and I've
34:01seen what happens when people make it a
34:02religion. It's not pretty. I need
34:05something more, and I suspect that if
34:07you self-reflect, you'll realize that
34:08your craving for meaning goes quite
34:10deep, too. Without a vision, the people
34:12perish. And I know I've been
34:14waterboarding you with mythopoeic
34:16gobbledygook for a minute now, so let me
34:18reset. What I'm trying to say is think
34:20about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The
34:23lowest two levels are physiological
34:25needs and security needs. You need to
34:26feed and clothe yourself, find shelter,
34:29and then you need some sense of
34:30stability and security in your life and
34:32in your future. Only then can you focus
34:34on the higher things, relationships with
34:36others, self-development, and
34:37transcendence. This is what I meant
34:39earlier when I said that JD confuses the
34:41symptom for the disease. If people are
34:43scrambling for the basics of life, is it
34:45any surprise that their connection with
34:47their communities and with the sublime
34:49are threadbare and fraying? To me, this
34:52is the task of socialism, to sweep away
34:54the artificial scarcity of capitalism,
34:57to ease the yoke of material constraint,
34:59and to free humanity to pursue higher
35:01things. For me, socialism is a means,
35:03not an end. It's a mistake to think, as
35:05JD does, that piety is a substitute for
35:08freedom, that people can be browbeaten
35:10to give up their materialism while their
35:12cost of living explodes. It's
35:14exceedingly difficult to focus on a
35:16higher good without a foundation of
35:18material security. But, it's also a
35:20mistake to think, as some Marxists seem
35:22to, that material abundance is a
35:24substitute for meaning, that our utopian
35:26horizon is a Wall-E-like existence where
35:29robots cater to our every whim. If we
35:31obsess over the lower levels of the
35:33hierarchy while denying the existence of
35:35the higher levels, we lose something
35:37essential. If we want to have any hope
35:39of defeating Christian nationalism, we
35:41need to tell a better story. We need to
35:43tell a rich story, a full story, not
35:45just a story about GDP growth or
35:48whatever the socialist equivalent of
35:49that is. And that doesn't simply mean a
35:51more just distribution of ownership and
35:53resources. It also means a more
35:55compelling story of who we are as a
35:57species, a story about what it means to
35:59live a good life. If you were to go to a
36:01rally in support of a left-wing social
36:03cause and ask the attendants why they're
36:05there, they'll probably tell you that
36:07they're defending equality or human
36:09rights. But, I wonder how many of them
36:11would be able to define those terms or
36:14philosophically justify why human rights
36:17or equality are worth defending in the
36:19first place.
36:20The honest answer is,
36:22we hold these truths to be self-evident.
36:24It's an article of faith. It's a
36:26religious belief. And that's fine, but
36:29we have to own it. I'm going to say
36:30something kind of crazy here, and it's
36:32going to taste weird. Do you trust me?
36:35If socialism is to succeed, it must be
36:37religious.
36:38And I don't mean that it's going to be
36:39Christian socialism or Buddhist
36:41socialism or some kind of weird acid
36:43Marxist psychedelic cult. I mean
36:45religion in the original Latin sense of
36:47the word, religio, meaning to bind
36:50together. Something that binds us not
36:51just to each other, but to our past and
36:54to our future. There's a quote
36:55attributed to Gustav Mahler, Jewish
36:57Austrian composer, whose avant-garde
36:59work was later banned by the Nazis. It
37:02goes something like this. Tradition is
37:04not the worship of ashes, but the
37:06preservation of flame. Ironically, this
37:08quote has been claimed [music] by the
37:10right, but I have to say,
37:11I resonate heavily with it from a
37:13left-wing perspective, from a futurist
37:15perspective, from a revolutionary
37:17perspective even. After all, in order to
37:19preserve fire, you must add new wood.
37:22Civilizations die when they can't adapt,
37:24[music] and that in my mind is the role
37:26of the left to invent the future.
37:28Culture changes. It evolves over time.
37:31This means that trying to freeze America
37:33or the West at one particular moment in
37:36time, or to try to return to some
37:38imagined past, is foolish.
37:41JD's book and the Christian nationalist
37:43movement more broadly is nothing more
37:44than ash worship. Fundamentally, this is
37:46why [music] I'm not a conservative. I
37:48think a reflexive deference to tradition
37:50is philosophically lazy. But it also
37:52means not being agnostic about the
37:54direction of culture's development and
37:56giving ourselves over to relativism. If
37:58we recognize that culture does evolve,
38:00then it becomes our responsibility to
38:02discern which traditions serve us and
38:05which don't. It becomes our
38:06responsibility to evaluate other
38:08cultures and decide which traits we
38:09would like to adopt and which we should
38:11reject. In short, it requires developing
38:14a worldview. It requires thinking deeply
38:16about what binds us together and what we
38:18value as a culture. And so even though
38:20JD has a
38:22wrong and sort of ugly answer, I think,
38:25I am interested that he's at least
38:27taking on the question. And if we refuse
38:29to grapple with this question, we're
38:30going to lose. And this developmental
38:32process shouldn't just be the providence
38:35of the individual. This process is
38:37already happening, so why shouldn't we
38:39consciously and democratically try to
38:41shape it? Meaning making is a collective
38:43process. I never thought I'd say this,
38:44but J.D. Vance is kind of correct. Any
38:47prosperous civilization [music] has a
38:49story about its history and its purpose.
38:51A story which gives its subjects a
38:53shared moral language. And now, for
38:55better or for worse, the myth that bound
38:57our civilization together is crumbling.
39:00J.D. Vance is trying to tell a new
39:02story. And that story is rotten to the
39:04core.
39:06So let's tell a better one.

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