WASHINGTON (AP) — J.D. Vance recently described conspiracy theories as the fevered fantasies produced by “fringe nutters who write about all sorts of idiocy.”
That was before he became a rising star in Republican politics.
The Ohio senator and GOP vice presidential candidate has said in recent years that the federal government has intentionally allowed fentanyl into the United States to kill conservative and rural voters. He has praised Alex Jones, a noted conspiracy theorist who claimed that the deaths of 20 young children in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting were a hoax.
And he has — contrary to all the evidence — repeated former President Donald Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was unfairly won by Democrats and that those charged in the subsequent Capitol riot are “political prisoners.” More recently, he lent credence to the debunked idea that Haitian immigrants kidnapped and ate pets in Ohio.
Longtime Republican strategists and academics say Vance’s evolution into conspiracy theories can be traced to the Ohio politician’s desire to gain a foothold in Trump’s Republican Party. The former president has a long history of pushing unsubstantiated claims. He lied about former President Barack Obama being born in Kenya and about doctors performing “postpartum abortions.” He has said wind turbines cause cancer. And he has repeatedly amplified messages on social media that elections cannot be trusted.
Reinvented himself
Vance has “completely reinvented himself,” said Joseph Uscinski, a University of Miami professor and expert on the history of conspiracy theories. “It’s advantageous now because of what Trump did to the GOP. It probably wouldn’t have worked, you know, 20, 30 years ago. He would have been seen as a lunatic. But now, given what Trump did to the GOP, it’s kind of the default.”
Denying conspiracy theories is not a recipe for electoral success.
Mike Pence and Liz Cheney are examples of what can happen to those who refuse to embrace such ideas. Pence, Trump’s former vice president, refused to cooperate with the plan to overturn the 2020 election, effectively dooming his bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024. Former Rep. Cheney was attacked by Trump and his allies after she helped lead the House investigation into his role in the insurrection. She was stripped of her congressional leadership role and lost her House seat to a Trump-backed candidate in the Republican primary.
A Vance campaign spokesman said that while the candidate stands by many of his claims, including the idea that immigrants in Ohio are kidnapping pets, other claims have been misrepresented by Democrats.
Vance recently indicated that he has no problem sharing unsubstantiated claims if they draw attention to a problem.
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he said Sunday on CNN.
Later in the same interview, he said his claims about kidnapped pets had helped focus media attention on immigration.
From intellectual to conspiracy theorist
Vance, 40, found early success and fame as the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” his 2016 bestseller, which explored the plight of rural America.
In addition to labeling conspiracy theorists as “fringe lunatics” in the book, Vance wrote that their beliefs were popular in part because people had lost trust in the media. “With little trust in the press, there is no check on the Internet conspiracy theories that rule the digital world.”
Before Vance wrote the book, he told his friends similar ideas.
Cullen Tiernan served in the U.S. Marines alongside Vance when they deployed to Iraq in 2005 and 2006. According to Tiernan, Vance systematically dismissed conspiracy theories that came up during discussions, including one that alleged the U.S. government was actually behind the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Vance “just didn’t have the time,” said Tiernan, who remains a close friend of the senator.
A review of Vance’s published works and speeches shows that he first turned to conspiracy theories after announcing his 2021 candidacy for an open U.S. Senate seat in Ohio.
He defended Jones, the InfoWars host, in a 2021 speech, saying that “believing in crazy things is not the mark of whether someone should be rejected.”
A spokesman for Vance’s campaign told AP that the candidate disagrees with Jones on the Sandy Hook massacre, then compared the conspiracy theory to Democrats’ concerns about Russian support for Trump in 2016.
The senator has also repeatedly questioned the seriousness of the January 6, 2021, insurrection and dismissed threats against Pence. Rioters were searching for the vice president in the Capitol and chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!”
He said the “real attack on democracy” did not happen on January 6, but that people charged in the riots were still in custody.
“It is an insult to all of us that so many people are languishing in prison without a speedy trial. These people are political prisoners,” he wrote on social media in 2022.
And he wrote a positive review for a book out in July by Jack Posobiec, a political operative perhaps best known for promoting the “Pizzagate” conspiracy, which alleged that Democrats were pedophiles who hid kidnapped children in pizzerias.
Echo of the Great Replacement Theory
Vance also cited George Soros, one of the far right’s favorite bogeymen.
Soros, the Jewish financier and Democratic megadonor, is such a ubiquitous target in some conservative circles that it can obscure the long-standing anti-Semitic elements in the language used to describe him: wealthy Jewish bankers secretly controlling the world, wealthy Jewish puppet masters pulling the strings of those in power.
In December 2021, Vance said Soros “has blood on his hands” for helping put Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner in power. “George Soros poured millions into Krasner’s campaigns, which promised to make life easy for the criminals who are committing these murders,” Vance wrote on X.
Vance has promoted the “great replacement theory,” which claims that Democrats are trying to use immigrants to replace white Americans in an effort to control the nation. Rooted in anti-Semitism and racism, many proponents of the theory claim the plan is being orchestrated by powerful Jews like Soros, along with other “globalists” or “elites.”
“We have an invasion of this country because it makes very powerful people richer and more powerful,” Vance said on Fox News in 2022.
“It’s not bad policy,” Vance added, “it’s evil.”
Vance’s campaign has rejected suggestions that he uses anti-Semitic or anti-immigrant rhetoric, noting that the candidate has three biracial children with his wife, the daughter of immigrants from India. The campaign also says Democrats have talked about how immigration could boost their party’s electoral prospects.
“Many leading Democrats have publicly exclaimed that changing demographics would lead to increased political power for their side,” the campaign said.
However, by attacking Soros and promoting the theory of the Great Replacement, Vance is flirting with dangerous rhetoric that has led to violence in the past, said Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
Not long ago, major party candidates would have rejected such theories, if only for fear that voters would see them as racist or anti-Semitic. That is no longer the case, Spitalnick said.
“It’s becoming more and more normal and more and more mainstream,” she said. “It’s not a coincidence and it’s incredibly dangerous.”
