I began writing this piece last summer, after the disastrous Biden debate performance, and Trump’s unusual pick of J.D. Vance as running mate. I set it aside because I assumed Trump had no chance of winning. Vance is a product of Silicon Valley by way of Appalachia, and has been thrust into greatness thanks to the support of billionaire Peter Thiel. Elon Musk’s enthusiastic support of Trump helped to sway the election. That and Russian bots posting lies on social media.
Thiel and Musk go way back. Musk, an enthusiastic Burning Man attendee, is an admitted user of ketamine and other substances. Musk, Thiel, and Vance are smart and tech savvy. These are the new Trump supporters. How are they going to fit in with the old Trump supporters such as disgraced General Michael Flynn, the My Pillow Guy, and Paula White, the lady preacher who speaks in tongues, married to the drummer from the band Journey? It’s going to be a wild circus in the Oval Office.
Trump appeared strong after surviving two assassination attempts. After watching the entire Butler, PA rally on a YouTube video shot by a Japanese TV crew that was covering the rally, I wondered why the Secret Service doesn’t use drones, like our Sheriff does in Mendocino County?
President Joe Biden’s shockingly bad debate performance threw the Democrats into panic and despair. In some ways, I blame Dr. Jill Biden, whose tenacious protection of her husband seems now to have hidden his mental decline. Supposedly, she controlled who had access to Biden. The ouster of Biden and the anointment of Kamala Harris without a primary process didn’t sit well with a lot of voters. It is quite obvious that a machine of handlers is running the Democratic Party. Kamala gave it her all, and still the American voters picked Trump.
By selecting J.D. Vance, at the urging of Thiel and Musk, Trump has given the finger to the Koch Brothers, and other old line, hard right conservatives. Trump is now connected to the Tech and Finance Bros of Silicon Valley, a new source of money. Silicon Valley conservatives are more intellectual than Trump’s typical Evangelical supporters. They are often referred to as the New Right, described in the Vanity Fair article linked below.
I first heard of J.D. Vance while reading a ‘Wall Street Journal’ review of his autobiography, ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ published by Harper Collins in June 2016. I found the book inspirational, and recommended it to everyone I knew. Vance tells a compelling story of growing up with an opioid-addicted mom, Beverly Vance, a nurse who married multiple times, frequently job-hopping due to her addiction. Because of his mother’s addiction, Vance and his sister spent much of their time with their maternal grandparents, traveling between Kentucky’s Appalachia and the Rust Belt in Ohio, populated by many poor whites from Kentucky. The book was made into a movie, directed by Ron Howard, and released to mixed reviews. Amy Adams played his mom. A funny post on social media said Vance is responsible for ruining Amy Adams’ career.
Vance managed to claw his way out of poverty, inspired by the strength and grit of his grandmother, called Mamaw in the Appalachian custom. After high school, he joined the Marine Corps, where he lived and worked with people from many diverse backgrounds for the first time. Vance was a Combat Correspondent, honing his writing and story-telling skills. Vance credits the discipline instilled by the Marine Corps for his undergraduate success at Ohio State, and later Yale Law School.
One of Vance’s law school advisors was Professor Amy Chua, author of the controversial book about child rearing, ‘Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother,’ published by Penguin Books in 2011 (which I’ve read and recommend, even though I strongly disagree with her TigerMom methods). ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ describes Chua’s influence and support when the going got tough for Vance in law school.
Vance also describes meeting and falling in love with his wife, fellow Yale law student Usha Chilukuri, daughter of Indian immigrants. They have three children. Usha was a registered Democrat until recently.
Vance followed the typical path of many Yale Law School grads, first clerking for a U.S. District Court judge, then practicing law at Sidley and Austin, a huge global law firm.
Vance went on to work for Thiel’s venture capital firm in San Francisco. Theil is part of the PayPal Mafia, a group of former PayPal employees who founded some of the most influential companies in Silicon Valley (YouTube, Yelp, Tesla, LinkedIn, and many others). The PayPal Mafia includes Musk (apolitical, until recently) and Reid Hoffman (huge donor to the Democrats). The PayPal Mafia is described in this November 2023 ‘Business Insider’ Article.
Vance announced in 2016 that he was moving home to Ohio, to use his Venture Capital and legal skills to help revive the Rust Belt. Vance spent his time in Ohio involved in various groups at the intersection of tech, finance and politics, preparing for his successful 2022 run for U.S. Senate.
I am not a Donald Trump fan, but I have faint hopes that Vance might only be cos-playing as an extreme right winger, given his compassionate portrayal of poor communities in ‘Hillbilly Elegy.’ Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, is said to dislike Vance, and lobbied Trump to pick anyone but Vance as his VP. Like the old saying, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” maybe Vance is the best liberals can hope for in this situation. Does this mean that Murdoch’s toxic influence on American politics and culture is coming to an end? Musk’s toxic influence is probably greater.
Before he pulled himself together to stump for Trump, Musk seemed to be descending into Howard Hughes-level nuttiness, as exemplified by this video where he ‘explains generic supermarket products’, something that everyone who shops for groceries already knows. He is a frequent guest on the Joe Rogan podcast, a dumbed-down, comedy bro-fest that is sometimes funny and sometimes cringe-worthy. Musk was the “other man” in the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp divorce tabloid drama. Musk is a savant when it comes to running SpaceX, I’ll give him that.
Some pundits say that Thiel and Musk consider Trump a useful tool. Will Thiel and the Silicon Valley crowd be able to control the seemingly uncontrollable Trump, who has always done whatever he wants? Or will the wiley Trump steamroll over the deep pocketed Tech Bros? As a lover of reality shows, the dark-comedy aspect of this is fascinating to me. We are experiencing the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”
For a longer read on J.D. Vance, Peter Thiel and political philosopher Curtis Yarvin, who influences the New Right, check out this Vanity Fair article from 2022, ‘Inside the New Right, Where Peter Thiel Is Placing His Biggest Bets’.
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