J.D. Vance's Interest in Huey Long Should Be a Red Flag for Conservatives

Reason ^ | August 25, 2026 | Eric Boehm

[GrootheWanderer]

As a governor and senator, Huey Long is best remembered for his radical proposals to redistribute wealth by force and for criticizing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal" as not expansive or progressive enough.

So when Vice President J.D. Vance says out loud that he finds Long "great" and "interesting," that's worth keeping in mind.

---

TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: conservatism; economics; fdr; hueylong; liberaltarianism; newdeal; populism; propaganda; vance; wealthredistribution; welfare

[GrootheWanderer]

Vance is an "interesting guy," but also "kind of a crazy guy."

[Fledermaus]

Long was definitely interesting.

[ClearCase_guy]

I listen to Reason magazine very closely. So that I can do the opposite of what they suggest.

[ComputerGuy]

Long was quite adept at income redistribution.

[escapefromboston]

I will vote for the candidate that wants less immigration and more deportations.

[Responsibility2nd]

I haven’t formed an opinion one way or the other on what JD thinks about Huey Long.

But I have formed an opinion on Reason.com and therefore I don’t pay no mind to their liberaltarian ideas.

[tlozo]

Vance ... proceeded to outline a vision for the future in which the Republican Party shuns the economic ideas of Milton Friedman.

[pingman]

From The public’s pocket into his own?

[ComputerGuy]

Every man a king!
Starting with me.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Vance needs to go back to the Hedge fund.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

Libertarians dislike tariffs. Libertarians dislike those who apply tariffs to protect America and Americans. Democrats dislilke tarrifs too. There's a "vibe" going there....

---

[Verginius Rufus]

Huey Long might have been a threat to FDR's re-election, so his assassination was convenient.

Robert Penn Warren's novel All the King's Men features a governor of Louisiana, Willie Stark, with many resemblances to Huey Long.

[lastchance]

Here is the context of Vance’s mentioning Long. This is taken from realclearpolitics.com.

VICE PRESIDENT J.D. VANCE: The great southern populist, probably most of you in the room don’t know who I’m talking about, but he’s an interesting guy, kind of a crazy guy. His name was Huey Long, and he once said, every man a king was the goal of his political program, but no man is a king if their castle is under siege by criminals. No man is a king if they can’t take their family out to dinner without being mugged or having their car jacked.

And of course, ending the Biden border invasion was a big part of why we have changed that over the last 18 months.

[GrootheWanderer]

But, as the article points out, Long wasn’t talking about crime. He was talking about redistributing wealth.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

---- "...the future in which the Republican Party shuns the economic ideas of Milton Friedman."

Hmm. But what do the libertarian and open borders folks know and say about Friedman?

Or, what does Milton Friedman say about Milton Friedman?

"In an email to Henryk A. Kowalczyk, Friedman wrote: Immigration is a particularly difficult subject. There is no doubt that free and open immigration is the right policy in a libertarian state, but in a welfare state it is a different story: the supply of immigrants will become infinite. Your proposal that someone only be able to come for employment is a good one but it would not solve the problem completely. The real hitch is in denying social benefits to the immigrants who are here. That is very hard to do, much harder than you would think as we have found out in California. But nonetheless, we clearly want to move in the direction that you are talking about so this is a question of nitpicking, not of serious objection."

Source: Friedman on immigration and the welfare state

Deny welfare to some, but let the folks come on in because "free and open immigration is the right policy in a libertarian state."

So libertarians turn out to have come problems with the "nitpicking," but not with "free and open immigration."

How about that?

[ifinnegan]

Thank.

Reason of course was intellectually dishonest.

[tlozo]

Vance ... proceeded to outline a vision for the future in which the Republican Party shuns the economic ideas of Milton Friedman.

what does Milton Friedman say...The real hitch is in denying social benefits to the immigrants who are here. That is very hard to do, much harder than you would think as we have found out in California. But nonetheless, we clearly want to move in the direction that you are talking about so this is a question of nitpicking, not of serious objection."

Thanks for pointing out how awful it is that Vance would shun those ideas of Milton Friedman.

[rlmorel]

There is a ramped up effort lately on Free Republic and the Media to discredit J.D. Vance.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

--- "Thanks for pointing out how awful it is that Vance would shun those ideas of Milton Friedman."

Thanks for pointing out that you are a libertarian.

[Texas Eagle]

I don’t think Vance has any idea of who Huey Long was. He was just reading the teleprompter. If he does know who huey Long was, then, yeah, no thanks.