
Vance, Trump, and The Politics of Hate
The liberal elites may be the stated target. But minority communities are the ones who suffer.
Another assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump was foiled over the weekend: A man with a rifle was discovered near Trumpās Mar-a-Lago golf course while the president was playing a round on Sunday.
For the second time, a would-be shooter was able to get a gun way too close to the former president; this time, however, the Secret Service dealt with the threat before he was able to fire a shot. Happy Monday.

Who Are the āRight Peopleā to Hate?
āWilliam Kristol
āI think our people hate the right people,ā a relaxed JD Vance confided to an interviewer three years ago.
By āour people,ā Vance meant the followers of Donald Trump, whose support he intended to win in the Ohio Republican senate primary.
By āthe right people,ā Vance meant liberal elites.
And yet, it was also clear that Vance knew one couldnāt foster hatred for liberal elites without the collateral damage of hatred for immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, cultural nonconformists, and any of the groups whom those elites were supposedly elevating at the expense of āour people.ā
But these past few weeks suggest that it wasnāt merely collateral damage at all. The assault on these groups really was the point. The alleged failures of liberal elites (to, say, close the border or protect manufacturing jobs) are the excuse for the assaults on immigrants and minorities that weāve seen throughout the Trump years. Thatās where the real political payoff is.
Letās return, for a moment, to Vanceās telling sentence. By āhateā Vance means . . . hate. Not disagreement or even dislike. Hate.
Vanceās politics are the politics of hate. Perhaps he once read The Education of Henry Adams and learned that, āPolitics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.ā Or perhaps he just watched Trumpās success and internalized its lessons. But in any case, for Vance itās all about hate.
And the assault on the Haitians of Springfield, Ohio, is a kind of culmination of Vanceāsāand of course Trumpāsāpolitics of hate.
It also represents a culmination of Vanceās and Trumpās politics of lying. Vance acknowledged yesterday on CNN that he had been trying to manufacture coverage of Springfield based on nothing more than a few unsubstantiated constituent phone calls. āIf I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then thatās what Iām going to do.ā
The creation of stories. One could call that fiction. Or lies. Lies in the service of justifying and encouraging hatred for a minority group. That seems familiar. Itās familiar from the last century in Europe. Itās also familiar from periods of American history, especially with respect to race and immigrants.
Donald Trump is of course the master of deploying lies in the service of hatred. But in Trumpās case, the hatred is so mixed with his distinctive showmanship and conmanship that itās sometimes hard to see the heart of the enterprise. With Vance, whoās not as much of a showman or con man, itās all much clearer.
Republican political operatives profess to be unhappy that Trump and Vance have veered away from what had seemed to be a winning version of the immigration issue: the border. Vice President Harris was given the task of managing migration to it. But the borderās been a mess, and there are people whoāve come across the border illegally and committed crimes. So thereās plenty of grist for the mill here for a more conventional (if still mean-spirited and demagogic) anti-immigration candidate.
But instead, Vance and Trump have gotten ādistractedā into a debate about legal Haitian migrants whoāve come to Springfield to work legally. Or is it a distraction? Might Vance and Trump know what theyāre doing? Perhaps a pure play on racism and nativism is more effective politically than a somewhat complicated debate about the borderāespecially after Trump killed the border bill, and especially in non-border states in the Midwest?
In any case, itās striking that Trump and Vance are willing to make this campaign so clearly a referendum on nativism and racism.
Such efforts have worked at other times in American history. And such efforts have been aided by sophisticated allies who donāt quite join in the campaign, but certainly donāt go out of their way to denounce it or repudiate it. Think of the Southern Bourbons who tolerated and benefited from the uninhibited racism of Southern populists and demagogues.
We have the equivalent of Southern Bourbons today in the ranks of the Republican establishment and conservative elites. The sounds you hear from that establishment and those elites, from corporate boardrooms and editorial offices, in the face of disgusting bigotry and dangerous incitement from the presidential ticket they support? Those are the sounds of silence.
Republicans Donāt React Anymore
āAndrew Egger
During Donald Trumpās presidency there was a genre of press coverage known colloquially as the āRepublicans reactā story. Trumpās bad behavior was a constant. And after any morning outburst or wild scandal, the question was always how far his congressional allies would let him go without pushback.
Usually theyād profess to be unaware of what was happening. But now, GOP reactions donāt even hinge on ignorance: Whether itās policy betrayals or personal lunacy, almost all of them will stick with the guy come what may. The last gasp here was really the aftermath of January 6th, when many Republicans finally realized there was nothing Trump could do that would break his popularity among their constituents. Their widespread criticisms of his violent attempt to steal the election were fully memory-holed within months.
Still, there are moments you canāt help but feel awed by this total capitulation. Trumpās xenophobic rhetoric against the Haitian population of Springfield, Ohio, has dramatically ratcheted up tensions there, with schools and government buildings forced to evacuate twice last week due to bomb threats and a local university canceling activities Sunday after threats of a campus shooting targeting Haitians. A violent right-wing group, the Proud Boys, marched in Springfield on Saturday.
All this was enough to draw a rebuke from the stateās Republican governor, Mike DeWine, who called the rumors about Haitians eating pets āa piece of garbage that is simply not trueā in an interview with ABC News yesterday. But vanishingly few Republicans in Congress have been willing to go even that far.
Itās not just Springfield, either. Last week, Trump brought Laura Loomer with him not only to Tuesdayās presidential debate, but also to a September 11th memorial ceremony the following day. Loomer isnāt just a revolting conspiracy theorist in generalāsheās also spread September 11th conspiracies in particular, spreading a post that called the attack an āinside jobā and sharing other conspiracies about it just last week.
āThere are 10 Republicans in New Yorkās congressional delegation,ā HuffPost reported on Friday:
None have said anything publicly about Loomerās false claims about 9/11, or about Trump bringing her to Ground Zero to commemorate the lives lost on September 11, 2001. HuffPost reached out to all 10 of the on Friday for comment. Five responded. Of those, just two directly denounced Loomer.
And of course none saw fit to denounce Trump for bringing her. That part of the āRepublicans reactā story is so obvious by now that it goes without saying.
Quick Hits
TYING DOCTORSā HANDS: A chilling ProPublica report this morning looks into the preventable death of a Georgia woman, Amber Thurman, who experienced a septic infection after taking an abortion pillāwhich doctors delayed treating for more than 17 hours while they dithered about whether she was sick enough to qualify for abortion treatment under Georgiaās narrow ālife of the motherā exception.
When Georgiaās law went into effect in July 2022, the authors write, āGov. Brian Kemp said he was āoverjoyedā and believed the state had found an approach that would keep women āsafe, healthy, and informed.ā After advocates tried to block the ban in court, arguing the law put women in danger, attorneys for the state of Georgia accused them of āhyperbolic fear mongering.ā Two weeks later, Thurman was dead.ā Read the whole thing.
THE MAN WHO SAID TOO MUCH: JD Vance caused a stir last month when he said Donald Trump would veto a national abortion ban, getting himself crosswise from Trumpās strategic position of generally refusing to engage on specifics of national abortion policy on the campaign trail. Yesterday, Vance was asked the same question again in an NBC interview. This time, he knew enough to stay vague: āI think that Iāve learned my lesson on speaking for the president before he and I have actually talked about an issue.ā Trump had thrown Vance under the bus on the subject during last weekās debate: āI didnāt discuss it with JD, in all fairness. And I donāt mind if he has a certain view but I donāt think he was speaking for me.ā The current position of the GOP ticket is that they are not committed to vetoing a national abortion ban.
ALWAYS THE ONES YOU LEAST EXPECT: Donald Trumpās orbit is full of charlatans, and the crypto industry is full of charlatans, so it may not greatly surprise you to learn that the guys running the Trumpsā new crypto racket seem to be charlatans of the highest order. āChase Herro has sold a lot of things in his career,ā begins the new Bloomberg profile of the head of ādata & strategiesā at World Liberty Financial. āWeed. Weight-loss ācolon cleanses.ā A $149-a-month get-rich-quick class. Now heās adding another line to his resume: the Trump familyās crypto guru.ā Read the whole thing. Trump is expected to announce his familyās new crypto venture tonight.
In 10-20 years after the atrocities of the deportation camps have been documented, the cry from the good people of the heartland will be "we had no idea." Today's post shows that MAGA knows full well what they want.
We all need to stiffen our resolve to keep this from happening.
I know I keep thanking Bill and Andrew, but seriously, you guys have been en fuego lately. As for what Trump could say to lose voters, I think it would be along the lines of "While praying, I realized that I've been stoking racial violence, and I'm sorry and intend to stop."
Also, Bill's point that the hate of "elites" is really hate of "slur of the day"-lovers is quite an excellent one. It doesn't apply to most people, but if you don't think a billionaire with a gold-plated toilet and trophy wife is an elite, well, that might be a sign right there that it's not the elites who bother you.