Article
JD Vance: MAGA Extremist, Danger to Jewish Americans
October 31, 2024
In the 2016 Presidential election, Vance opposed Trump, including calling him “America’s Hitler.” However, Vance actively sought and gained Trump’s endorsement in his 2022 Republican Senate primary. In his short time in the Senate, Vance established a record as a MAGA extremist who opposes aid to Israel.
- Vance promotes antisemitism and racism: Vance has drawn on the antisemitic and racist Great Replacement Theory in numerous instances. He warned of an “immigrant invasion” and accused Democrats of trying to “transform the electorate.” Vance consistently praises figures like Viktor Orban, who embraces antisemitism and opposes “race mixing.” Vance believes it is “reasonable” to call American Jews “disloyal,” which is a well-known example of antisemitism. Vance declined to denounce the right-wing talk show host Tucker Carlson for praising and airing the views of a Holocaust revisionist who falsely claimed that the Nazis’ destruction of European Jewry was not an intentional act of premeditated genocide. In 2022, JD Vance said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene did “nothing wrong” in appearing at a white nationalist conference organized by Nick Fuentes that even some Republican leaders objected to.
- Vance opposes aid to Israel: Vance supports an isolationist approach to foreign policy, which hurts the U.S.-Israel relationship. Vance voted against the package that included $14 billion in emergency aid to Israel twice, on February 13 when it could have passed and on April 23 when it did pass. The first time, Senate Republicans voted against the package 26-22 (Democrats supported it 46-2), but the second time even most Republicans supported it, 31-15. Vance was one of the few Republicans who voted against it twice, yet Trump selected him as his running mate.
- Vance does not share Jewish values on other key issues. Vance admitted that he falsely claimed that Haitians were eating pets in Ohio after his rhetoric inspired violence against that community. Vance supports a ban on abortion in nearly all instances and has called to “end abortion.” In 2021, when asked if he supports abortion in instances of rape or incest, he stated, “two wrongs don’t make a right.” Vance supports voter suppression laws and believes in expanding unnecessarily strict policies, including “voter ID, signature verification on absentee ballots, and an end to mass mail-in voting.” Vance said, “If I had been vice president [in January 2021], I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there. That is the legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me, think had a lot of problems in 2020.” He has diminished the violence of January 6, stating that “a lot of folks in the Democratic Party act as if January the 6th was the scariest moment of their lives….look, Jan. 6 was a bad day. It was a riot. But the idea that Donald Trump endangered anyone’s lives when he told them to protest peacefully, it’s just absurd.” Vance opposes common sense gun safety measures, including a bipartisan bill that expanded background checks and implemented red flag laws.