Posted on 08/24/2026 4:52:49 PM PDT by TBP
I'm getting a lot of scathing pushback calling JD Vance a leftist so I'm laying out why it's true in a straight-forward, semi-nuanced way. It is not me making the claim, the following is what Vance has personally stated he believes in.
1. Vance calls himself a post-liberal. Post-liberalism rejects free-market capitalism and individualism in favor of the government securing economic and social well-being (social welfare). The counter-argument is to recognize the responsibility of individuals for their own welfare (food, shelter, well-being).
2. Vance says he believes in Hamiltonian economics. Hamiltonian economics has shared commonality with modern left-of-center ideology primarily through its advocacy for an active, interventionist federal government that shapes the economy rather than letting the free market determine the direction of markets.
3. Vance has stated he agrees with the politics of Huey Long, Louisiana's leftist governor of the 1930's. Huey Long functioned as a left-wing populist whose economic policies focused heavily on wealth redistribution, even to the point of proposing heavy-handed capital taxation on personal fortunes in order to distribute individual earnings to those who hadn't earned what they received.
These 3 points are objectively accurate about what JD Vance believes and what conservatives fight against. To protest the reality of Vance's beliefs is to reject stolid truth.
Mabey he is using the wrong terms. Jacksonianism is : 1. The US is a Nation. 3. Government should be small. 3. Government should serve the interests of the people of the US. 4. Debt is bad. 5. The money power- Especally a National Bank hurts America. 6. Hard Money, and 7. Monopoly lies are bad.
Meant to say that Monopolies and trusts are bad.
JD Vance Takes on Milton Friedman (And Disappoints)
"American economic policy on the right is now much more Alexander Hamilton than it is Milton Friedman. I think that's obviously a good thing."
Obviously? Here’s the whole interview. The segment in the economy and Milton Friedman starts at the 32 min mark.
Starting point is 00:31:51 So looking ahead to 2028 and beyond, if there's this thing going on even beyond you, this restructuring of what it means to be a conservative, then if it's not creative destruction, tax cuts for wealthy people exclusively, and, you're a restructuring of what it means to be a conservative, then if it's not creative destruction, tax cuts for wealthy people exclusively, and, I don't know, just like GDP ticking up. Yeah. What is... Well, first of all, I think that people need to appreciate how fully they lost the argument. So to the point that they've really moved the goalposts. I mean, if you remember when Donald Trump ran for president the first time, the idea of tariffs on imported goods was a heresy in the GOP. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:32:31 It is now the baseline position that virtually every Republican politician adopts is like, Of course, we shouldn't let foreign countries like prey on American workers and prey on American industries. Immigration restriction. Again, there is, obviously, there's a cultural and crime and law and order element to it, but there's also a very powerful economic argument that we don't want to let the wages of immigrants undercut the wages of Native American workers. Again, that is just boilerplate at this point in the GOP. And I mean, even things like when the president said a few weeks ago that, you know, yeah, he absolutely wanted to like seize, seize the equity of the AI companies. And, you know,
Starting point is 00:33:11 you're not supposed to say that. And it's like, guys, he's the president and he sets the agenda and he just said it. And by the way, nobody really even protested. Yeah. So, like, the president has already, and obviously I'm biased I'm as vice president, but the president has already, like,
Starting point is 00:33:25 completely reordered the conversation towards what you might call an American developmentalist approach. Like American economic policy on the right, right, is now much more Alexander Hamilton than it is Milton Friedman. Yeah. I think that's obviously a good thing. You might disagree, but that's just a normative statement.
Starting point is 00:33:45 Notice, though, what you've just said, because for the people who say that betraying some nostalgic retconning of a caricature of the 1980s, that to change that in any way would be abandoning American history and the tradition, you said, hold on, I just went from Milton Friedman to Hamilton. And to some degree, George Washington. Right. 200 years backwards in history, actually. That's very much a foundation of American developmental economics and economic policy. And I do think, you know, I don't want to say you can go back to the future or, you know, forward to the past. But I do think fundamentally that Hamiltonian tradition is going to be what we see on the American right
Starting point is 00:34:28 and will dominate American conservative economic thinking for the future. Yeah. Which is not laissez-faire. It's actually much more about building the kind of tools, building the kind of infrastructure that allow human beings to flourish, that allow national and native industries to flourish at the expense of a hyper-globalized economy. And I think those are the basic principles
Starting point is 00:34:51 that are going to carry us into the future. But to me, it's fundamentally about the dignity of the human person. The economy is a tool to service the dignity of the human person. if a set of economic policies make it easier for a person to raise a family, to earn a living wage, to give back to their community, to maybe go to church on Sunday, or to actually spend some leisure time building the kind of life that matters, like that is the sort of thing that we want to be supportive of. Now, obviously, to do those things, you do need economic development. But if you turn economic development into a sort of idol, then you end up sacrificing a lot of the things that matter. most. And I do think that, you know, for our friends who are sort of on the more laissez-faire side of the American right, in hindsight, part of why Milton Friedman's ideas made more sense in the 1980s is because they were being advocated in a country that still had a very rich and powerful institutional Christianity. And so, like, being laissez-faire in a world where there are
Starting point is 00:35:59 Christian guardrails on everything is a much different proposition than being laissez-faire in a world where globalized liberalism has become the sort of status quo of American elites. Of course, because so much of that liberalism, classical variety or a more modern variety, it is resting upon a foundation that it did not create, you know, and a foundation that in many ways weakens. So obviously really... I think that's exactly right. I think you could say this, You could say that about, you know, I have a British friend who has been in British conservative politics for longer than I have, maybe longer than I've been alive. He's, you know, on the older side of things. And he was making this observation about Margaret Thatcher to another British
Starting point is 00:36:43 conservative who was just scandalized by it, but couldn't push back against it in anything besides an emotional way. He said, you know, Margaret Thatcher, an amazing human being, like a true giant in the history of Western politics. But, you know, he said, you know, Margaret Thatcher, an amazing human being, But fundamentally, Margaret Thatcher was trying to preserve the shop and the community around the shop that her father had when she was a little girl. And yet, if you look at modern Britain and the result of Margaret Thatcher's policies, you would say that her policies actually got Britain further away from that ideal and not closer to that ideal. That's not, by the way, criticizing her. I think she was trying out something in a very new era in a situation where things were quite broken. But we have to be honest, like what worked and what didn't work.
Starting point is 00:37:30 And I think, unfortunately, I would say Thatcher's politics and a lot of 20th century conservative politics was, it sort of bought the premises of modern liberalism and was not infused enough with the basic Christian underpinning of the West. Yeah, Ayn Rand is not going to save your culture. It's not going to happen. So then we're throwing around all these names, all of our good dead friends. Yep. five figures off the top of your head. Thinkers, intellectuals, or statesman perhaps. Okay.
END OF TRANSCRIPT
I will add, that Vance also can’t pronounce laissez-faire correctly. That’s pretty cringe.
Now…let’s be a little fair. He’s 42 years old. Someone is feeding him this content. Maybe he’s still figuring it all out.
When Reagan was 42 - in 1953 - he had gone from supporting Truman in 1948 to supporting Ike. Reagan resigned as SAG president November 10, 1952, but remained on the board.
It is doubtful that Reagan was the Man he became back at 42 years of age.
I’ll give Vance a chance. He’s not a leftist. But he needs to turn this around.
I hope all three run . I will vote for whomever comes out the strongest against illegal immigrants and ideally cut down on legal immigration too.
The Neocons are trying so hard here.
Vance believes in reinvigorating our manufacturing base both for national defense as well as to revitalize communities that were devastated by all the outsourcing of the 90s and 2000s. That’s not leftist.
Here come the JD Vance smear jobs...
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None of the three things this lightweight listed are why Vance is being smeared.
He’s being smeared because he had the audacity to mildly criticize a government in the Middle East, that is very arrogant and gets plenty of money & weapons from Uncle Sugar.
That was a “bridge too far” for these factions operating in the US, so now they’re resorting to attacking him over conservative ideology.
An ideology his opponents have never supported & hasn’t been active or productive in my lifetime.(I was born in 1971.)
Do you any cites for any of this other than some rando X post?
A great Governor who couldn't read the political room.
It would be good if you included exact quotations, rather than someone else’s description of what he said.
I believe RDS was egged on to run by the George Conway sh!tshow. And that was after he promised not to run if Trump did. Really bad decision. But it worked out well for Florida.
2028 politics is NOW.
Smear jobs expected...
Left leaning? Maybe but mostly he opens his mouth and stupid jumps out. He’s weak, unimpressive and spouts foolish ideas. He’s a no go for President.
Left leaning? Maybe but mostly he opens his mouth and stupid jumps out. He’s weak, unimpressive and spouts foolish ideas. He’s a no go for President.
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You aren’t going to like the 2028 Republican Primary results.
I would add, as a native French speaker, almost no one in America pronounces laissez faire correctly, which is Ok. As long as it's not like they say "Des Plaines" near Chicago.
I wouldn’t count on it. If they could keep Vance in the basement like Biden so he never spoke he might have a chance. The more he blathers on with foolish ideas that conservatives want no part of his polling is going to slide.
It will not surprise me If he doesn’t even run. I can’t imagine Trump endorsing him.
Sorry, but if you believe in “restructuring of what it means to be a conservative” you’re not a conservative. Conservatism is a set of attitudes, values, principles, and ideas. It neitehr needs nor dmit of restructuring.
Neither Nicky Fuentes nor Aleksandr Dugin nor J.D. Vance is going to repalce conservatism with this gobbledygook.
I wouldn’t count on it. If they could keep Vance in the basement like Biden so he never spoke he might have a chance. The more he blathers on with foolish ideas that conservatives want no part of his polling is going to slide.
It will not surprise me If he doesn’t even run. I can’t imagine Trump endorsing him
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Trump won’t have to endorse him the money will do the endorsing.
Also, the only reason JD has taken a recent hits is because he had the audacity to mildly criticize a government in the Middle East that is arrogant & gets plenty of money & weapons from Uncle Sugar.
You didn’t like his remarks on that reality, so Vance isn’t Presidential material in your eyes
The dignity of the human person doesn’t involve mercantilism.
Government is there to protect life, liberty, and property. Not pick winners and losers. Unless you’re Mamdani. Or Vance.
Again, he’s young. Let’s see if he grows up to become like Reagan or Quail.
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