Here's what J.D. Vance's old blogs expose about Trump's V.P. pick
More evidence is being revealed that Donald Trump's new running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), was not the right choice in an ever-changing campaign landscape, according to a conservative commentator.
The Bulwark found yet another piece of Vance's past that is returning to haunt him: His Blogger account. In the early 2000s, the online blogging site was seen as the go-to place to present thoughts in an easy-to-manage website. The site was ultimately acquired by Google and linked to its suite of products.
Vance's account exposes some of his thoughts, showing he was further right than Trump at times.
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He already faced backlash for his comments about "childless cat ladies" and the suggestion that those without children shouldn't be allowed to vote. ABC News then exposed Vance for saying that people with children should have to pay less in taxes.
Now Bill Kristol is highlighting two blogs Vance wrote: A 2005 deployment to Iraq and his 2010 enrollment at Yale Law School.
It's described as an anthropological tracking of a Kentucky boy as he explores the world and how it impacted him.
“So it’s like a diary,” the 2010 blog says, “only far more masculine.”
After the short-lived project ended, he began writing about the 2010 blogosphere during the tea party explosion that reacted to Obamacare.
"Vance profiled as a conservative think-tanker on the make, arguing earnestly for Paul Ryan-esque entitlement reform and against market-distorting ethanol subsidies," said Kristol. "He proclaimed his appreciation for Andrew Sullivan ('a truly conservative thinker, though his politics have swung leftward lately'), but also center-left types like Matt Yglesias and avowedly left types like Paul Krugman."
He was an avid supporter of Jon Huntsman, who had a minor 2012 presidential campaign.
Vance supported Jon Huntsman early in the 2012 cycle over then-Gov. Rick Perry (TX) or Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). In the post, Vance argued that his moderate style belied firm conservative policy beliefs: “He believes in low taxes, free markets, balanced budgets, the importance of the family, and the wisdom of an active—but measured—American foreign policy.”
He even comes out to preserve same-sex marriage.
"Perry and Bachmann’s conservatism is defined by what it opposes: science, liberalism, and gays," Vance wrote. "Others insist that their conservatism is reflexively anti-government, but each supports the Federal Marriage Amendment, a proposal that would annul the marriages of gay couples—ripping apart new families, many of which count young children as members."
He goes on to shred the conservatives for denying "evolution," one of the many culture war battles evangelical voters have fought over the past 20 years.
According to Vance, he always saw Republicans as the more "mature" of the parties but feared that it was shifting.
“With few exceptions,” he wrote, the “American right is no longer a bastion of maturity, but a factory of anger and contradiction.”
Perhaps the worst thing for Trump to hear is that Vance supported the likes of "Jeb Bush, or possibly even Chris Christie."
In one post, Vance confesses he became radicalized by Robert Bork, President Ronald Reagan's failed nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987. Vance was only three years old at the time of the nomination and the revelations that Bork would roll back historic civil rights rulings.
Kristol said, "The old Vance would be genuinely repulsed by the Vance of today."