In his first foreign trip as vice president, JD Vance delivered a masterclass in hypocrisy and antagonizing America’s longstanding allies.
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Vice President JD Vance had quite a week for a third fiddle. While his bosses Elon Musk and Donald Trump captured most of the headlines, with their efforts to destroy the government and beach resort-ify the Gaza Strip (sans Palestinians), he also made some news by suggesting that, maybe, the US no longer needed a rule of law if judges were just going to get in the way of the MAGAdministration doing whatever it wants.
Vance got even more attention once he went to Europe and didn’t have to share a continent with Mump & Trusk anymore.
After a fairly low-key appearance at an event in Paris where he told the world to just follow the US’s lead and put no restrictions on AI development, his moment to really shine came a couple of days later.
Vance traveled to Germany to participate in the Munich Security Conference, where he was expected to address the Trump administration’s plan to end the war in Ukraine. And, by “plan,” we mean how he blindsided Kiev and European leaders by talking to Vladimir Putin while his Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth undermined Ukraine’s negotiating position.
But the vice president had other ideas.
Vance used his first appearance on the world stage to lecture Europe on issues of democracy and free speech.
While his speech might have been celebrated by right-wing types in the US as an “own” of those uppity Europeans, it really just highlighted the hypocrisy of the vice president.
For example, here is what Vance had to say about democracy.
“Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters,” pontificated the vice president, who said in October that Trump did not lose the 2020 election. “There’s no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don’t.”
Well, in the case of Trump and Vance, they do not. To them, the only elections that are not “rigged” are those they win.
Also, it should be noted that it was their supporters, and not Europeans, who tried to overturn an election by storming the government’s seat of power (only to be pardoned as soon as possible), and it was Trump who attempted a coup, not one of Europe’s chancellors, prime ministers, or presidents.
Vance’s claims on press freedom ring equally hollow… especially coming from a guy who does not understand how journalism works.
“In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town, and under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree,” he said.
Of course, that does not apply to the Associated Press, his country’s preeminent wire service, which is one of the largest news organizations in the world but has been barred from covering White House events because it does not use the term “Gulf of America.”
What’s next? Censoring media outlets who say that Trump lost in 2020 or those who don’t do stories on imaginary immigrants in Ohio eating pets?
As we have previously pointed out, this is all by design because the White House would rather deal with friendly bloggers than actual news organizations.
Just as noteworthy as Vance’s hypocrisy is that he used his first foreign trip as vice president to emulate Trump’s combative style and attack US allies. Of course, it is debatable whether that term still applies… which is a subject we’ll address in our Sunday editorial.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
