Jd Vance: “Our Voters Are Very Awake to What’s Going On in the Country”

Audio By Carbonatix

Published: March 30, 2022 | Date of Source Audio: March 24, 2022

Transcribed and modified for publication from the original audio program

Eric Metaxas talks with senatorial candidate JD Vance about why there is reason for hope for 2022 and beyond

Eric Metaxas: I'm talking to JD Vance. Some of you know him as the author of an extraordinary book, “Hillbilly Elegy.” But now he is running for the Senate in the state of Ohio. And in my opinion, which is a considered opinion, he is one of the bright lights in the political future of this country. I think of Governor DeSantis being another one of them, people who understand things in a way that has become, alas, tremendously rare, and who are willing to be bold and to talk about their understanding of things.

So, JD, you were just talking about education. Something has happened over the decades and you get this because you've been to Yale law school and you know that the ideas of the Marxist left — because that's what it is now, it's the Marxist left, these are fundamentally atheistic, fundamentally anti-American ideas — they have, in fact, taken over the academy and they are really polluting the water system, so to speak. They are destroying every part of our society. There was a story about what was going on at Yale law school recently. What do you think folks like you can do about this if you're elected to the Senate?

JD Vance: Well, I think we have to start from the premise that, like we talked about earlier, the education system really drives so much, right? I mean, so many of our corporate leaders, our military leaders, our generals, our politicians, pretty much every person of leadership in this country goes through some of these institutions and it's heavily influenced by the ideas that come out of them. And I think we have to recognize, in my view, that these institutions are largely unsalvageable and we have to start dismantling the preferential treatment that these places have gotten so that things can come up and replace them.

So just to give you one example: I come from a working-class family — every single member of my family pays a higher tax rate than the Harvard University endowment, which is a $45-billion hedge fund that pays no taxes and uses its incredible wealth to fund left-wing causes.

Metaxas: Hold on, wait a minute. You said that the Harvard endowment $45-billion hedge fund pays no taxes?

Vance: Zero taxes.

Metaxas: That is extraordinary. That is, I mean, everybody needs to know this, ladies and gentlemen. Yale and Harvard, the money that they have. Okay. So, what can somebody in the United States Senate, like you, what can they do about that, potentially?

“We have to start creating a level playing field.”

Vance: We have to start creating a level playing field. If I started a private company, of course it would have to pay taxes, as it should. If my family has to pay taxes, then these other institutions have to start paying taxes too. I think the thing that is so important about this — the point that I'm trying to make, Eric — is that these left-wing institutions, they haven't just taken over the country naturally. They've been given preferential treatment, and they've used that preferential treatment to accumulate more and more power, and then to use that power to push their dogma on the rest of the citizenry. That's what's really going on. You see this in so many different spheres. Google, Amazon, Apple pay a lower tax rate than the small- and medium-size businesses supporting the community that I live in.

Of course, they engage in massive censorship. You have these massive foundations that are treated differently, even from many of our churches, of so many of our nonprofits, which are harassed by the IRS. Meanwhile, these foundations are let off the hook by the IRS.

There's so many ways in which the left has subtly gained control of these power centers, gotten themselves special benefits. And then, you know, conservatives like me and you look around and say, well, we keep on winning elections — why does the left keep on winning the longer war for our society? It’s because they have used their power very smartly, and we have to push back against it more aggressively and more intelligently than what they've created for themselves.

Metaxas: I just get the impression that most of your, I hope, future colleagues in the Senate lack courage. They are unwilling to take these things on. I can think of a tiny handful of senators — Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton — just a tiny handful of senators who are willing to use their power, their accumulated capital to do something for the American people, which is why I get so excited about you. Because if we don't do this, it is game over for the United States of America. That's not hyperbole, I'm not being Cassandra. This is absolutely true. Anybody with eyes to see understands that we're at the edge of the volcano. I mean, we almost have gone over.

“We're going to have a real class of fighters in Washington.”

Vance: Yeah. Look, you're absolutely right. Hawley's great. Cotton's great. I think there are a few critical mass of our leaders that get what's going on. And the hopeful note that I'll sound is that our voters are very awake to what's going on in the country. This is one of the great things about running for office is the media thinks that conservative voters — that we're fundamentally stupid, that we don't know what's going on in the country. And our voters are so far ahead of where our political leaders are. Eventually that gap is going to have to close. And when it does, we're going to have a real class of fighters in Washington. They're going to take back the country.

Metaxas: I mean, that's kind of what I see happening. I didn't mention Rand Paul, a great hero, and in the Congress, Jim Jordan — I mean people who get it. And I think that it's not just getting it intellectually. In other words, if you really understand how bad things are, you know that not fighting with everything you have is madness. That the only thing to do about this is to fight. Final thoughts for my audience.

Vance: Well, I think you're exactly right. I mean, the thing that I would encourage them to look for in political leaders is you have to be willing to take the heat from the media. If you go to Washington and you're desperate to get a good headline written about you in The Atlantic or The New York Times, you're eventually going to stab your own voters in the back. So maybe one of the best things I could say about my candidacy is I don't care about what these people say about me, because I'm not in it for them. I'm in it to save the country.