Republican VP pick JD Vance has history of Trump criticism and now recasts book | Opinion

Editor’s note: Contributing columnist David Mastio is covering the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee for McClatchy Opinion.

When I interviewed members of the Missouri Delegation to the Republican National Convention before the announcement of Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, there was one name on their lips: JD Vance, Their words to Trump’s ears apparently

Now Vance is shaking hands and smiling on the floor of the FiServe Center in Milwaukee as the crowd chants “USA.”

Missourian David McFarland, an alternate delegate, said “Vance is a blue-collar Marine who knows military issues. He best represents the working-class people of America.”

Kirk Hilzinger, who is running for the legislature in St. Louis City, is looking for someone who is younger, can take over and is strong on the border and crime. Vance is younger, has more political experience than Trump did when he walked into the White House and is a reliable vote on Trump’s approach to the border and crime.

Missourian Judy Hon likes JD Vance too, saying “If something else bad happens Vance will do Donald Trump proud.” while Amy Clue, chair of the Franklin County, Missouri Central Committee says she’s happy Vance is “conservative in word and deed.”

But there’s just one little problem for the Ohio Senator and “Hillbilly Elegy” author and for Donald Trump – Vance used to be a tough Trump critic. Vance, who said he was going to vote third party in 2016, argued that Trump was leading “the white working class to a very dark place.” In a text to college friend he said Trump was either “a cynical a--hole like Nixon” or “America’s Hitler.” Elsewhere, he said “I can’t stand Trump.”

While Vance bent the knee as he ran for Senate deleting all his nasty tweets, the newly minted veep candidate forgot to delete all his “likes” reported the Daily Beast:

“Vance’s Twitter likes, which were still visible as of Monday afternoon, include two tweets supporting Hillary Clinton’s 2016 candidacy, a post implying Trump supporters are antisemitic, and multiple tweets indicting Trump’s character. One tweet even accuses then-candidate Trump of sexual assault, and another calls him ‘psychologically disturbed.’ He also liked two tweets mocking Melania Trump.”

One of the anti-Trump tweets was mine. Vance and I had something of a bromance on X, then called Twitter, where the then-investment banker would amplify my anti-Trump musings and I, his. When I wrote “We all have to stop Trump,” echoing the headline of a Washington Post headline, Vance was there with a retweet and a like. Now all that’s left of it is the Daily Beast’s reporting.

A history of Trump hate isn’t the only thing Vance has dumped overboard in his climb to being an election away from being a heartbeat away from the presidency. The infinitely flexible veteran has abandoned the thesis of his own book.

Elegy tells the story of Vance’s family from a survivor’s perspective who saw all the unnecessary self-destructive decisions of his family. In Vance’s telling, the dirt-poor working-class people who raised him were the authors of their own misery. His escape from poverty to the Marines and the Ivy League was proof that self-control and good decisions led to the bountiful opportunity known as the American Dream.

No more. In his more recent telling of his family history, designed to bolster Trumponomics, the poor are victims of an international capitalist class with no loyalty to America or workers and the predations of Asia’s unfair competition. Once Vance said Trump’s targeting of immigrants was dangerous, now they are third in the 39-year-old’s trinity of villains.

In Vance, Trump has found an understudy who is every bit as principle-free as the star of this week’s show. Get ready, it is more than the white working class that’s about to go to a very dark place.

David Mastio, a former editor and columnist for USA Today, is a regional editor for The Center Square and a regular Star Opinion correspondent. Follow him on X: @DavidMastio or email him at dmastio1@yahoo.com