JD Vance blasted for 'revolting' conduct as his Senate campaign implodes in Ohio
Venture capitalist and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate J.D. Vance is under fire for publicly empathizing with Kyle Rittenhouse during the youth's murder trial.
Vance came to Rittenhouse's defense with a Twitter thread complaining about "global monopolists."
"Vance has no empathy to spare for the Kenosha, Wisconsin, residents who live with the consistent low-grade terror of racialized police violence—as manifest in the seven point-blank shots fired by Officer Rusten Sheskey into Jacob Blake, leaving him paralyzed, and which catalyzed anti-racist protests in the city. Those residents, sneers Vance, were 'lawless thugs' trying to destroy Rittenhouse's "community." It is a blatant statement of support for racist foot soldiers and a justification of whatever violence they inflict," Kali Holloway wrote for The Daily Beast.
Vance is facing former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, former Ohio Republican Party Chair Jane Timken and state Sen. Matt Dolan in the GOP primary. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) and attorney Morgan Harper are competing for the Democratic Party nomination.
"Hearing right-wing boosters attribute innocence and purity of motive to Rittenhouse, it's hard not to recognize how those things are consistently denied to Black kids. In states where rightwing perversions of critical race theory have been turned into bans on the teaching of slavery, anti-Black racism, and the legacies of white American supremacy, the argument that history will make victims of white children prevails," Holloway wrote. "The adults like Vance who somehow find a 'baby boy' with a 'moral core' in a young white man who needlessly shot three people, killing two of them, have no capacity for empathy when it comes to Black kids and young adults. It's a lethal blind spot."
Vance's comments come as his campaign is floundering.
"As much as he tries, J.D. Vance cannot out-crazy Josh Mandel. But try he has. Bizarre video rants about Kyle Rittenhouse; attacking detractors for having a picture of an animal in their profile picture; a defense of Trump hatchet man Johnny McEntee, who comes across as a psychopath—and this is all within just the last three days," Jim Swift wrote for The Bulwark. "Even while J.D. continues to try to compete with Josh on the Ohio Right-Wing Scoville Scale of Spicy Craziness, he is doing something that suggests that his Peter Thiel-supported candidacy is imploding."
Swift cited two sign's Vance's campaign may be in trouble.
"Vance has chickened out and refused to debate other candidates twice recently, citing prior commitments. But reporting from the Daily Beast contradicts that excuse," he explained. "Meanwhile, Vance is delaying informing Ohioans about his campaign's funding. Despite promises to file his campaign's financial disclosures in October, Vance has stalled."
Vance's past record of criticizing Trump is also becoming an issue in the GOP primary.
"The knives are out for Vance now, and he is a juicy target because of his flip-flopping on Trump," Swift noted, directing voters to a new USA Freedom Fund ad:
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