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Speak Truth To Power…Or Irrelevance – OpEd

Back in July, in the immediate aftermath of the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump and that photograph of him rising phoenix-like from the floor with a bloodied ear and raised fist shouting the defiant ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’, J D Vance’s selection as Trump’s running mate caused a meltdown among those afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome. On the Democratic left, because Vance was regarded as an apostate and the only befitting punishment for apostates is death. On the Republican right, because Vance, an Iraq veteran, was the symbol of the long-overdue end of the interventionist neoconservative movement addicted to forever wars. There was a third line of criticism, which still bubbles up occasionally, which attacked Vance as an opportunist who had turned from excoriating Trump to singing his praises. He had described himself as a Never Trumper and called Trump ‘an idiot,’ ‘noxious,’ ‘America’s Hitler,’ and ‘unfit for our nation’s highest office’ because he is ‘morally reprehensible.’ The thing is though, as Salena Zeto wrote in the Atlantic back in 2016, while Trump’s supporters took his candidacy seriously but didn’t take his rhetoric literally, opponents take his words literally but don’t take him seriously. Vance’s earlier views of Trump were of the latter variety. For those who have read Vance’s autobiographical Hillbilly Elegy (2016), however, there is a natural political-cum-philosophical affinity between him and Trump. He grew up an Appalachian hillbilly, overcame ‘white trash’ origins and a dysfunctional family, joined the Marines, and leveraged military service into degrees from Ohio State and Yale. His social, economic, and governing philosophies are the result of this hardscrabble backstory. His business and political success offer a lesson in redemption that is the very essence of the American dream. Writing in the Spectator Australia on 27 July, I said: ‘Other potential picks for a running mate (who alone of the senior advisers cannot be fired) might have better helped Trump to win the election, but 39-year-old J D Vance offers the best chance to entrench the MAGA revolution in and beyond a second Trump administration.’ Vance brought his compelling backstory to life in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention in Milwaukee on 17 July. The introduction of his previously drug-addled and serially partnered mother, clean and sober now for a decade, to the whole nation was a fitting culmination of his life story to date. His wife Usha Vance represents another stream in the American dream, of immigrants who come to America as the land of opportunity where education, talent, and hard work are rewarded. Indo-Americans have achieved success without victimhood and grievance. Vance is exceptionally attuned to the ravages of American deindustrialisation with US manufacturing hollowed out, jobs shipped overseas, and swathes of the homeland turned into a wasteland along the Rust Belt. As Vance said in his acceptance speech, China built its middle class on the backs of growing numbers of unemployed Americans. Vance similarly prioritises the health of the US economy above the health of the planet under the alleged threat from ‘global warming.’ The commitment to reversing this destructive trend rests equally powerfully on the recognition of the importance of dignity conferred on human beings by productive work and living wages and the role of well-paying jobs in sustaining stable family life. Like Trump, Vance’s instincts are not to flinch but to go all in to turn the American nightmare into the American dream once again. His youth will ensure a continuation of Trumpism after Trump by an articulate and thoughtful politician. In foreign policy, he could be expected to shy away from military adventurism but punch hard if and when necessary to defend American interests and values. In personal traits, he came without the crude vulgarities of his boss that millions of Americans are unable to get past in order to appreciate his policies and achievements. Vance is a champion of the post-liberal right. To decry him as isolationist betrays willful blindness. He represents realism and restraint alongside strength. He has remained steadfast in US support for Israel in its war with Hamas. He questions why Europe, comparable in wealth and population to America, cannot deal with Ukraine on its own. Its military underspending is ‘an implied tax on the American people to allow for the security of Europe,’ he wrote in the Financial Times a year ago. He holds Asia to be the key strategic battleground in the foreseeable future. Similarly, Vance is no more racist and anti-immigrant than Trump. Both welcome legal immigrants who share in and commit to core American values. Both oppose discrimination – positive and negative – based on faith and skin colour. Why wouldn’t Vance want equality of opportunity for his own children? In a triumph of hope over experience, I concluded my July article with the thought that ‘Australian conservatives could do with a Trump-Vance combination whose focus is on the wellbeing of productive workers on the farms and in the factories.’ Vice President Vance Delivering his acceptance speech to the nation on 5 November after winning the election, Trump said of his running mate: [J D Vance is] a feisty guy isn’t he? You know, I’ve said “go into the enemy camp” and, you know, the enemy camp is certain networks and a lot of people don’t like it, they’re like “Sir, do I have to do that?” He just goes “Okay, which one? CNN? MSNBC?” He’ll say “All right, thank you very much.” He actually is like the only guy I’ve ever, he really looks forward to it and then he just goes in and absolutely obliterates them… We had of course seen these traits in the course of the campaign in the calm and methodical manner in which Vance did indeed obliterate many hostile media interviewers with complete courtesy but a deadly command of his brief. Trump added: He’s turned out to be a good choice. I took a little heat at the beginning, but he was – I knew, I knew the brain was a good one, about as good as it gets. And we love the family. Vance has grown into the office of Vice President. He is articulate, smart, knowledgeable and well-informed, intellectually agile, and able to marshal facts and evidence in support of the broader argument. He can respond with passion without losing his cool. A man of both gravitas and charm. Little wonder that he seems to have been given a national and international role of unique visibility and impact in the history of the office in my lifetime. The annual Munich Security Conference brings together the world’s top politicians, statesmen, generals, and corporate leaders to discuss the weighty issues currently on their mind. In a fiery address on 14 February that referenced Soviet-era language of misinformation and disinformation by the bad guys who censored dissidents, cancelled elections, and closed churches, Vance criticised Europeans for abandoning their roots as ‘defenders of democracy.’ He framed his attack along two axes, the retrenchment of free speech and the loss of border controls and national identity with mass immigration. The first is especially dear to my heart. Vance began by saying that the threat to Europe that most concerns him is not from Russia, China, or any external power but ‘the threat from within.’ The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values that are also American values. Romania’s elections annulled because EU commissioners didn’t like the outcome and warned the same could happen in Germany. Warning that ‘You can’t force people what to think, what to feel, or what to believe,’ he cited examples from across Europe of police action for online anti-feminist comments, judges saying that free speech doesn’t give people a ‘free pass’ to say things that offend a particular group with strongly held beliefs, the arrest, conviction, and fining of a man for praying silently 50 metres from an abortion clinic, and, most egregious of all, the Scottish government warning people that private prayers inside their own homes within ‘safe access zones’ could break the law. The next day, theTelegraph revealed that almost 300 people have been charged with online speech crimes under Britain’s controversial Online Safety Act. More than just talk about democratic values, ‘We must live them.’ He criticised the ban on populist elected parliamentarians from participating in the conference. It’s critical to engage in dialogue with everyone who represents an important constituency and not construct firewalls to quarantine the political system from being infected by their ideological disease. This has happened with Marine Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Nigel Farage in the UK, and, before her election as prime minister, even Giorgia Meloni in Italy. You cannot run ‘in fear of your own voters,’ afraid of their voices, opinions, and conscience, he lectured his audience. You cannot govern effectively without a democratic mandate when difficult choices have to be made on energy and supply chain security and ‘You cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail.’ After criticising the organisers for excluding the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Vance met its co-leader Alice Weidel outside the conference. Mass immigration is possibly the most urgent policy issue confronting Western democracies. On the eve of the Munich conference, a 28-year-old Afghan who lost his asylum application drove a Mini Cooper into a trade union demonstration in Munich, killing a young mother and baby and injuring 28. He was already known to police, which is another common thread in the recent spate of asylum seeker-related attacks across Europe and the UK. Many populist parties are riding the wave of public support on the back of promises to bring ‘an end to out of control migration.’ In a democracy, ‘the people have a voice’ and ‘leaders have a choice.’ Far from protecting democracy, ignoring people, ‘dismissing their concerns,…shutting down media, shutting down elections or shutting people out of the political process …is the most surefire way to destroy democracy.’ I wonder how the Albanese government now feels about Australia’s recently toughened hate speech law? And the supposedly centre-right Coalition parties that voted with Labor to enact it? It was a courageous speech in front of an expectedly hostile audience that by the end was barely registering a smattering of strained applause. Chancellor Olaf Scholz responded at the conference that Vance’s interference in Germany’s election was unacceptable. It’s worth repeating that Vance was born into the very types of circumstances and conditions that liberal leaders profess to be most concerned about. He delivered many telling home truths on the need for states to serve the people as active participants in the political process. Far too many countries have morphed into hollowed-out zones of discontentment run by career politicians, technocrats, and oligarchs. Instead of a distant, technocratic, and coercive behemoth feared by the people, institutions must once again become responsive to citizen aspirations and apprehensions and work with them to achieve economic stability and restore cultural identity and national sovereignty. One can quibble with particular phrases and debate the details. It’s the broad thrust of Vance’s two-pronged argument that I found attractive. ‘Free speech, I fear, is in retreat,’ said Vance. He called EU commissioners ‘Commissars’ and warned that ‘in Britain and across Europe, free speech is in retreat.’ Heady stuff! It was a brutal public dressing down of European liberal smugness ever from a visiting American dignitary. Progressive leaders habitually scold others. They are not used to being at the receiving end of a tongue-lashing. Because the EU is a geopolitical lightweight, we cannot call it an example of speaking truth to power. Instead, we could describe it as an instance of power speaking truth to an audience courting irrelevance. This article was published at Brownstone Institute