A former Republican strategist Tuesday mocked Vice President JD Vance as having a "dead soul," and describing him as "the ultimate code switcher, a shape-shifting wraith."
Rick Wilson, co-founder of the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project, laid out the argument in his Substack essay that Vance's hopes for a 2028 presidential run have clouded his morality and introduced a "new, more terrifying breed: the post-identity zealot." In the wake of Renee Nicole Good's killing at the hands of an ICE agent in Minneapolis, Vance turned to blaming Good and, in the move, aimed to establish himself as MAGA's next in line.
"It was a formal move in the 2028 electoral sweepstakes, an audition not just for the MAGA base, but a supplication and a bent-knee to the most powerful man in Washington you’ve never seen under direct sunlight or a mirror: Stephen Miller," Wilson wrote.
The decision revealed Vance's ultimate political aspirations after President Donald Trump leaves office, he wrote.
"He wants the guys with the badges and the tactical gear, dragging American citizens out of their cars and sending some to the morgue, to see that he’s their guy," Wilson wrote. "It’s his application for the Bubba Praetorians to be on his side, to remind them he believes in their absolute immunity, and that he will let them keep killing Americans for sport."
"It’s a move that is simultaneously enormously dangerous and pathetically thirsty, the behavior of a beta-male bully who hopes that by holding the jacket of the guy doing the beating, he might eventually get to take the baddie to prom," Wilson wrote.
Vance's statements echoed his views — and what he hoped would appeal to his MAGA base, Wilson wrote.
"Vance understands better than Trump, and perhaps even more than Miller, that secret police organizations in authoritarian states hold a powerful veto over who gets elected, who gets to take office, and who gets to live or die; they’re the ones with guns, armored vehicles, and 'absolute immunity.' Vance sees the future, and it’s dark, authoritarian, and violent to his opponents," Wilson wrote.
"Vance was also sending a clear 2028 message to the MAGA influencer media and the MAGA political base of dictator-curious extremists, that he embraces their grotesque incentive structures: cruelty, racial animus, social division, and cheerleading a weaponized government agency devoted to suppressing the speech and rights of the people who they hate: the immigrant, the literate, the compassionate, and those devoted to exercising their rights," Wilson wrote.
This is on purpose — and it's part of his strategy, Wilson argued.
"Not by accident, Vance has also been highlighting the lies and agitporn of the MAGA influencer class who have descended on Minnesota like maggots on roadkill," Wilson wrote. "His message to them is that the circus of propaganda and division will continue, monetized with every violent attack by ICE."