"But he eventually settled into an uneasy agnosticism, spent some time as an 'angry atheist,' then, many years later, in 2019, converted to Catholicism. He said five years ago, at the time he was baptized as a Roman Catholic, that he had 'spent a lot of his life buying into the lie that you had to be stupid to be a Christian' but that when he started to feel the pull of faith, the Catholic Church 'appealed most' to him 'intellectually.’”
I’m a little more hesitant to say he ever converted or even had faith. Nothing that I have read seems to indicate he “got religion” — it seems to be a show, another scam, PR — you have to do this to get that.
The month before he wrote, "BeyondD Libertarianism” — made a lot of points, typical Conservative bullshit, even mentioned God.
The year prior, Hillbilly Elegy was published. Part fiction, party Conservative mantra, it blamed the situation of the poor on themselves.
You would think, as opioid abuse features heavily in his tome of blaming the poor, he would have at A TOKEN BILL dealing with opioids, abuse or both.
But reviewing the bills he supports comes up empty. As we say in Texas (well, not really, but people think we do) he is all hat and no cattle.
Vance describes, in his own words, what his book was about: "It’s about a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it.”
Really? They’re words, but what does it mean?
Again, he is good at PR. Describing what that PR means? Not so much.
"So if you’re hoping to read about a group of people that made Donald Trump or helped make Donald Trump president, then my book gets recommended.”
Except it isn’t. What REALLY got Trump elected was PR. The promise that something would happen that quite obviously didn’t.
That’s why Biden is President and not Trump. Tax Cuts? Rich. Cabinet positions? Rich. The rest of us? We had to wait for Biden.
"the real reason I wanted to write it, which was to talk about how difficult these problems really are”
Vance, again, makes this up: what he wanted to write about is that he pulled himself up by his own bootstraps (never mind he was never poor), what can’t the poor?
Oh, and listen to how he echoes Ronald Reagan...
"It’s more that I think government is somewhat helpful and can be part of the solution, but it can’t be the whole solution, and, more importantly, I think that if government tries to fix these problems without policymakers really understanding them, then I think those solutions are almost destined to fail.”
Who else would be the solution? His granma? This is just stupid. Yet everyone treated him as if his nonsense made perfect sense.
We have lost critical thinking in the MSM,
Vance didn’t get religion because he was “getting close to Jesus” — he did it as a long term plan to getting into office.
He is a SLIGHTLY smarter version of Trump.
But only slightly.
The truth is, Trump HURT the very people he promised to help.
Empty promises.
"I think that’s a little bit weird, frankly, given the fact that I really try not to talk about politics too much in the book”
This is, of course, another lie. His book is literally about the social safety net and how he believes (without proof) that it leads to moral decrepitude. If only we had a solution… like turning the poor into biofuel (he and Thiel were friends with someone who thought that was a great idea)