Posted on 07/20/2024 4:45:21 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
It shows a remarkable level of confidence from Donald Trump that he’s chosen for his running-mate the man who once called him “America’s Hitler.”
J.D. Vance, the thirty-one-year-old junior senator from Ohio, made the private comment in 2016, as he rose to fame off the back of his autobiography Hillbilly Elegy. The book recounts what it was like to grow up in a deprived rust-belt town, where his family and neighbors had “no college degree” and “poverty’s the family tradition.” Vance escaped by joining the US Marine Corps, which included a tour in Iraq. Once home, his degrees from Ohio State University and Yale took him to California, where he worked for the entrepreneur and Republican-backer Peter Thiel, who is reported to have arranged the first meeting between Vance and Trump.
Vance wasn’t just establishing himself as an author. He was starting to make a name for himself politically, too, as a never-Trumper who thought the president was “reprehensible,” an “idiot” and “cultural heroin.”
Six years later, Vance successfully ran for the Senate in Ohio as a MAGA-affiliated candidate. He became one of the former president’s biggest supporters, defending his actions on January 6 and repeating Trump’s claim that the 2020 election “was stolen.” In his speech at the Republican National Convention last night — his first as the vice presidential nominee — Vance described Trump as “America’s last best hope to restore what, if lost, may never be found again.”
What changed? In an interview with the New York Times earlier this year, Vance described the “complete overreaction,” after Trump’s 2016 win, to the mere suggestion that the president might, sometimes, have a point. By the 2020 election, Vance’s vote for Trump was a protest vote against being “policed in what we think and what we say.”
Fortunately for Vance, Trump can be forgiving towards those who repent and do penance. Humiliation is part of the punishment. “J.D. is kissing my ass,” Trump told a rally of Ohioans in September 2022. “Yeah, he said some bad things about me, but that was before he knew me and then he fell in love.”
Despite their past differences, Trump and Vance are now thought to be politically aligned. Joe Biden described Vance as “a clone of Trump.” Yet there are some notable differences between them: Vance is a devout Catholic convert, whereas Trump could not name his favorite verse in what he says is his favorite book, “the Bible.” Their biggest differences, however, come down to extremes. On policy, Vance tends to out-MAGA Trump.
While Trump is vague on the extent of his support for Ukraine, Vance has called for an end to the war, which would cede territory to Russia. “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine,” he said in 2022. Vance wants the resources that are flowing to Europe to be diverted to America’s borders, as well as towards Taiwan — a move, he thinks, that could stop China invading.
Vance goes further on the economy, too. For all of Trump’s protectionist rhetoric, the crux of his economic agenda in office was broadly laissez-faire: a combination of lower taxes and market liberalization, with the odd Trumpian threat of a trade war thrown in to keep China and Europe on their toes.
If Vance gets his way, tariffs are the future. He seems relaxed about price rises (which he thinks are exaggerated) and tax hikes, so long as immigration is curbed and wages rise. His answer for filling in budget deficits is not to force America’s unemployed back to work but to entice them. The Republican Party hopes Vance’s economic outlook will appeal to trade-union voters. This week the head of the Teamsters Union — which represents 1.3 million workers — spoke at the Republican National Convention for the first time in history.
Vance may be a poster boy for the American dream, journeying from absolute poverty to Silicon Valley, to Congress. Trump has selected him as VP to highlight a different journey: Trump-naysayer to MAGA-enthusiast.
The Trump-Vance ticket is Trump’s way of showing off his unprecedented level of power over the Republican Party. In 2016, he chose Mike Pence as his VP to reassure its traditional wing. That’s a concession he doesn’t need to make any more. With Vance’s nomination, the MAGA takeover of the Republican Party is complete.
And why is Trump repudiating the 2025 project?
What is that?
Not surprisingly, a few people viewed my research presentation of JD Vance through a prism of negativity. [SEE HERE] We have many new readers who are not as in-tune with the details of how the bad parts of the DC surveillance state work. So, let me take you behind the scenes a little and expand for context.
Nothing written about the data set, the facts within the JD Vance storyline, is incorrect. Everything is cited, accurate and factually true. However, when you get into the intent and consequence part, that’s when people start to become emotional an issue. Some clarity is needed.
Commenter Freedom Ring provides a good example. FR says,
“JD has an association with Theil [sp?] & Musk; this could be worded to be a positive or negative, but the article paints it as a negative.”
This is correct. The research article positions the relationship between JD Vance and Peter Thiel as a serious challenge, here’s why.
Since his original endorsement of Donald Trump in 2016, a good thing, billionaire tech executive Peter Thiel has expanded his company, Palantir Technology, to be the leading edge of a data-processing system. The Palantir tech is designed to use artificial intelligence (AI) to crawl through massive sets of surveillance data, phone data, facial recognition data, metadata (writ large) etc.
In essence Palantir Tech is receiving government contracts (Defense and Intel) to use the Palantir AI tools to analyze and filter massive amount of data and take action based on results from the electronic data, or what might be called SIGNIT (Signals Intelligence). There are billions at stake in this relationship.
In short, Thiel has a vested financial interest in providing ai surveillance filtration tools to the U.S. government.
Ok fine. That’s just a simple acceptance of what the Thiel’s company does now. And Thiel recruited JD Vance back in 2012/2013 while at Yale law school, and personally financed JD’s entry into the world of politics in 2020/2021. I won’t repeat all the citations but suffice to say, without Thiel there is no Senator/VP Vance. Thiel leveraged his relationship with Donald Trump to get JD Vance the Ohio primary endorsement in 2022, and the rest is history. Fair enough. Nothing disputed.
Here’s where things get sticky….
Thiel’s company Palantir Tech provides the AI metadata analytic tools used by the U.S. government in their national security efforts. The government access to that metadata comes, in part, as an outcome of the legislative FISA authorization. As a consequence, eliminating, say… FISA(702) surveillance processes, is against the financial interests of Peter Thiel. If the U.S. government cannot access the dataset, the U.S. govt doesn’t need Palantir’s AI filtration tech. That’s just the nature of the relationship.
Again, this is just a cold, factual acceptance of the situation.
Would JD Vance support the elimination of FISA(702), FISA Courts, or the National Security Division of the DOJ (something that forms the foundation of removing the worst elements of the Deep State), knowing that action would be adverse to the interests of his benefactor and mentor, Peter Thiel?
Again, just a question. Perhaps he would, perhaps not; however, a review of history shows the odds are not in our favor. I mean, there is a reason why Thiel recruited, financed, supported and guided Vance to the position he is now in, correct?
Elon Musk’s entire business model, sans X (maybe – lol) is contingent upon government contracts and policy.
Regardless of his altruistic disposition, or lack thereof, Musk’s enterprises, Tesla and Space-X, do not exist without direct government funding or indirect govt support via policy. Peter Thiel is essentially in the same position with Palantir Tech, unless the U.S. Government gave him permission to sell his services to foreign adversaries. Not likely.
Many are looking at JD Vance as the guy, maybe one of the ‘guys’, who can finally confront the worst elements of the Deep State. However, the worst elements of the Deep State, the surveillance and control silos, are in a synergistic relationship with Vance’s benefactors. Will Vance willingly tear apart the surveillance state, that will create a negative financial outcome for those who put him into office? My note of caution is ‘don’t get your hopes up.’
I mean, seriously think about it. Musk puts up USG satellites that monitor stuff. The low-earth-orbit monitoring results (data signals) are returned to the USG. The data signals are then analyzed by AI tech created by Thiel.
Another way to look at it…. Musk puts the camera on your face. Thiel tells the govt where you went.
♦ BIG PICTURE – Are the newest group of billionaire Silicon Valley tech leaders currently supporting MAGA Trump/Vance, really a modern assembly of the Green Dragon rebels in Boston, plotting the next Tea Party rebellion. Or are they simply just the other side of a new modern Technocratic control system, aligned with and dependent on government?
The Obama-era ‘Technocracy‘ was based on public-private partnerships with social media. This was the origin of the surveillance state that now scours, controls, filters, censors and ultimately monetizes your social media data profile. The operational and business model is cemented into the process now. Everyone accepts it. Terms and conditions apply, and if you don’t agree, you can’t use.
Is the pending Trump-era ‘Technocracy‘ a rebrand, pushing social media off to the side (that part is done) and bringing data processing control agents, artificial intelligence software designers, big money venture capitalists, banks and those who are creating digital id systems. Does Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Bill Ackman, David Sacks, Chamath Palihapitiya, Jacob Helberg, Vivek Ramaswamy occupy the empty chairs around the table of Technocracy?
Was the 5/10-year business model in the mind of tech billionaire Peter Thiel what led him to recruit JD Vance in 2013. Was it a financial decision blended with ideology to guide, finance and support JD Vance all the way to 2022 and 2024? Was JD Vance an investment?
Truly, I suspect our gut knows the answer.
That’s why my approach is to say, “here’s the factual data – trust your instincts.”
[SOURCE]
Around this time someone will snark, saying my assembling this perspective indicates President Trump is an idiot, or something.
NO! President Trump is not stupid, or naïve!
CTH has painstakingly outlined how the silo process within the Deep State works. You have more information about that process. You have more knowledge about that process.
All of us, courtesy of dozens of brilliant researchers here and in lots of other places on the internet, have a far more comprehensive understanding of how the systems within the DC administrative state work than any subset of professional politicians or their staff.
Are you stupid or naïve? No. None of us are.
However, many of us are sick and tired of having the virtue of our patriotism weaponized against us. For reference see DHS, ODNI, CISA, TSA, The Patriot Act, or any other of the myriads of crisis-created legislative solutions, later turned into tools by bad actors that inevitably diminish freedom.
I was sitting at dinner with a good person, who happened to be the head, the tipy-top, of one of the most connected IC silos in Washington DC, and that person laughed recalling situations where they walked into their office many days and frustratingly shouted at their staff, “who the f**k is leaking information to this guy,” meaning me. No one was leaking anything, and the entire organization was just as surprised as the leader of it.
My point is that many ordinary Americans know far more about the interconnectedness of DC silo operations, than the people within the individual silos can fathom.
The overwhelming odds are that you know more than your federal representative. That fact doesn’t make you smarter than President Donald J Trump, that just means you have a different set of researched datapoints that create a different understanding.
Additionally, President Trump doesn’t “vett” anyone, someone else does the “vetting” for him. That vetting helps him to make decisions, it doesn’t exclusively determine the final decision.
No one is stupid in this discussion. No one knows all the information. The fact-finding is a process of information assembly, that permits guidance to decision making. That’s it.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) might have been a good decision at the time, until it starts getting weaponized later on.
Given the nature of the political landscape, Senator JD Vance was a good selection for Veep. A candidate for the office of the vice-presidency that will hopefully position President Trump and the people around him to be able to start putting countermeasure into place that will stop this government weaponization, a seemingly out of control surveillance state.
Senator JD Vance helps to unite the various Republican clans.
Perhaps more valuable, his selection reduces the possibility of the Silicon Valley Technocrats to work against OUR interests – as we look to control THEIR influence.
More importantly, Senator JD Vance makes winning in November of 2024 more likely. That’s the key value in his personage. Perhaps Vance is a tool, perhaps he’s an ally, who knows. We must understand the context of everything that comes with him, nothing more.
Trust God, and for everyone else – watch them like a hawk, while you live your best life.
If we win in November, we then have an opportunity to start putting countermeasures and guardrails into place that will seemingly impede the efforts of the bad operators within each IC silo. Simultaneously, we need to identify who each bad actor is.
This mission then becomes the reversal of weaponization we desperately need.
I am optimistic about victory in November. However, I am also comprehensive about the nature of the enemy we face.
I recently suggested, partly tongue in cheek, for congress to enact legislation that simply says:
If any president dies during his term in office, all actionable authorization within agencies of the CIA, FBI, DNI and DHS is immediately revoked, until such a time as new legislative authorities can be debated, assembled and reauthorized by congress.
Daisy… Daisy…
Love to all.
So that is it then. You conclude then then that Vance is Uniparty (the "right" side of the mirror" as explicitly stated in your post, and is only trustworthy until policy considerations impact with his apparent real boss, Thiel, who has the chain and leash around Vance's neck) and if Thiel's pocketbook or power structure (which is the Deep State, of which Vance is an integral part, now in the service of Trump, but his real fealty is to Thiel) then he is going to make his choices on behalf of Thiel and not the United States.
Because he is beholden to Thiel. Did I get that right?
I appreciate Sundance's points of view on many things, but including that line there tells me all I need to know. I part ways with him on this.
And I have stuck up for Sundance on this site many times, where there are a number of people who excoriate him for all the same reasons they excoriate people like Catherine Englebrecht, General Flynn, Dinesh D'Souza, and even Dan Bongino as grifters who are only interested in clicks at their website and money in their pockets.
I simply don't buy it from them, and I don't buy it from Sundance. If this is true, and that is what you believe, your only choice is to retreat further and further into a shell, abandon this concept of America, and wait for the end where you are rooted out and dealt with by a tyrannical government.
Trump wants tariffs.
"...“I know nothing about Project 2025, I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them..."
If so, have you read the 2025 Project? Do you know which parts Trump might have read and found abysmal and ridiculous? If you haven't read it, how do you know there aren't ridiculous and abysmal things?
I have read the intro and skimmed the first hundred pages, finding nothing abysmal and ridiculous in it, but it isn't because they don't exist. I don't see them, and assume since it was put together by the Heritage Foundation, it doesn't have ridiculous and abysmal things. But I don't know that yet. But I can assure you, I have done more than 99% of the people who both support it and demonize it.
I very much like what I have seen so far, with one exception, and that was the section about updating tactical nuclear weapons and developing policies for use on the battlefield. But that exception was my gut opinion, and only stuck out at me because of the subject. And I don't think it is either ridiculous or abysmal, but I haven't had time to think it through. I assume any tactical nuclear weapons we have (if we have them) would be outdated, and the tactics haven't been updated in decades, but...I cannot say that either.
I don't know what Trump has seen or who may have "explained" parts to him, or how they have explained them to him.
He is correct to say those things with the exception of the "abysmal and ridiculous" statement (and given that I took that quote from NPR, I won't even grant as a given he said that, or that it was presented to readers in the correct context. But for the purpose of discussion, I accept that for the time being.
Trump likely had an idea the Heritage Foundation was behind it. But is that a given? And he sure did not have anything to do with its creation and has not signed on to it, probably being advised to for some political reasons.
This is a document from a think tank. When political campaigns are underway with potential new or repeat administrations, these position papers come fast and furious from many sources on both the Left and the Right. I have no idea how many of these show up in brown envelopes, sent to connected people and various campaign staffs, but I will bet it is way more than just-this-one.
OK, so he didn’t “call” Trump America’s Hitler, he said he sometimes “thinks” Trump was America’s Hitler in 2016.
And just to be clear-If the whole point of the article is to be wary, then it is redundant to those of us paying attention. That is a given. So if that is Sundance’s point (and/or yours) then I don’t specifically have a problem with that even with the way it appears to be couched.
Forewarned is forearmed.
Or as Ronaldus Magnus would say, “Trust, but verify.” 😉
It is about electoral politics. PA is quite probably the state that decides this year’s election
Vance will resonate with a lot of blue state working class Dems in PA who see the GOP as the “party of the bosses and Wall Street”.
On this we agree, FRiend.
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