JD Vance: Vice President and Reply Guy

Wikipedia defines "reply guy" as "an internet slang term for someone who excessively responds to social media posts, often in an annoying, condescending, or overly familiar or flirtatious manner." Leaving the flirtatious manner part of this aside, I have long believed that Vice President JD Vance is the epitome of a reply guy. So much of a reply guy, in fact, that he does not limit the practice to responding to social media posts, but acts the same way in regard to offline interactions as well. Both online and in real life, Vance has developed the "annoying" and "condescending" traits of a reply guy to an art form.

The first thing that you should understand about JD Vance is that nearly everything about him is fake. He is not a hillbilly, for instance. He did not grow up on a hill in Appalachia, but rather was raised in a middle-class household in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio. JD Vance is not even his original name, but actually the third (or perhaps even fourth) name that he has had. When he was born, he was named James Donald Bowman. When he was around six years old and was adopted by his then-stepfather, his name was changed to James David Hamel. That is the name he used until just before graduating from Yale Law School in 2013. At that time, he assumed the name "J.D. Vance," with periods as he wrote in Hillbilly Elegy, "like jay-dot-dee-dot". Somewhere along the way, the dots were dropped and the official page on whitehouse.gov identifies the Vice President as "JD Vance". Vance was not originally a Trump supporter, once describing himself as "a Never Trump guy". He wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled, "Mr. Trump Is Unfit For Our Nation’s Highest Office." Vance even suggested that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump could be "America’s Hitler." Now, of course, he has nothing but praise for Trump. The only certainty about Vance is that he will willingly change anything about himself if it will further his own advancement. As it turns out, this is a useful trait for a reply guy.

To his credit, Vance is candid about his dishonesty. During the presidential campaign, Vance falsely accused Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio of eating pet cats and dogs. When he was confronted about this false allegation by CNN, Vance responded by saying that he was willing "to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention". The best interpretation of this is that Vance believes that the ends justify the means. Less charitably, Vance will do whatever it takes to get ahead.

Since assuming the office of Vice President, Vance has acted as the White House's reply guy. When the Wall Street Journal revealed that Marko Elez, a 25-year-old DOGE staffer, had posted racist tweets, including one saying "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity" and another saying "Normalize Indian hate," Elez resigned his position. Vance, who notably married a woman of Indian descent who is outside his ethnicity, quickly came to Elez's defense. Vance took to X to write that "I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life...So I say bring him back." Elez was rehired.

However, after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Vance's attitude towards "stupid social media activity" did an 180-degree turn. Hosting an episode of Kirk's podcast, Vance told listeners that "When you see someone celebrating this, call them out, and hell, call their employer." Across the U.S., individuals who did nothing more than post Kirk's own words lost their jobs. For instance, Joshua Bregy, a professor at Clemson University in South Carolina, posted on Facebook condemning violence but quoting Kirk's own words about gun violence. Clemson suspended Bregy, who is suing to get his position back. In Vance's world, racist statements about his wife shouldn't ruin your life, but posting factual quotes of Kirk should.

But Vance was not done defending racism. This week, Politico revealed leaked texts from a chat group that included the leadership of Young Republican groups across the country. As Politico described what was written:

They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

While these groups are named "Young Republicans," it is important to understand that members can be as old as 40 years of age. MotherJones checked the leaked chats against public records and determined that the age of the participants was in a "range from 24 to 35." As the magazine wrote, "The people in the group chat aren’t ‘kids.’" This was in reference to Vance's reaction to the texts. While many Republicans criticized the leaked chat posts and some of the participants were even removed from their jobs, or at least asked to resign, Vance came to their defense. Again hosting Kirk's podcast, Vance said, "By focusing on what kids are saying in a group chat—grow up! I’m sorry...Focus on the real issues. Don’t focus on what kids say in group chats." Vance went on to say, "The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys — they tell edgy, offensive jokes. That's what kids do." To hear Vance tell it, these were just college kids goofing around. The truth, however, was much different. These were adults, many of whom currently hold important political jobs, who were writing things much worse than accurate quotes of Charlie Kirk.

But Vance didn't end things there. He took to X to post that "This is far worse than anything said in a college group chat, and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia." He then linked to an image of a snippet of a text message exchange involving the Democratic nominee for Attorney General in Virginia, Jay Jones. Let's not forget that none of the participants in the chat appear to have been college students. Vance is just lying about that. But let's discuss Jones’s texts. Jones started the text exchange by referencing a scene in the TV series "The Office". In that scene, Michael Scott says that if he had a gun with two bullets and was in a room with Hitler, Bin Laden, and Toby (Dunder Mifflin's HR person), he would shoot Toby twice. In his version, Jones says that in a similar situation, he would shoot former State House Speaker Todd Gilbert twice. A joke in poor taste certainly. However, Jones then made things even worse. He argued that Republicans such as Gilbert would not change their policy positions unless they felt pain personally and, therefore, seemed to be hoping for the deaths of Gilbert's children. Many people have similarly argued that gun rights proponents will not change their position unless they are personally impacted (though this is refuted by Representative Steve Scalise getting shot and remaining an opponent of gun control). However, Jones’s personalization of this idea is beyond the pale and rightfully should be condemned (and has been). However, Jones’s suggestion that the deaths of two children might inspire gun control efforts is hardly worse than the wishes of Young Republicans (again, all of whom are over 24 years old) that Democrats should be sent to gas chambers. Equally bad at least, I would say. Vance is also engaging in the classic reply guy tactic of "whataboutism."

Vance, of course, by his own words, is not against creating stories. With regard to Jones’s texts, he also did exactly that. Vance tweeted that "The Democrat candidate for AG in Virginia has been fantasizing about murdering his political opponents in private messages." First, I am surprised that a Yale Law School graduate would not know that proper grammar would be "Democratic candidate," but I guess that reply guy Vance just owned me. Second, Jones didn't fantasize about murdering anyone. He made an inappropriate joke.

In Vance's tweet about Jones, he also alluded to some of Trump's recent social media activity. Following the government shutdown, Trump began tweeting memes of leading Democrats with large mustaches and wearing sombreros. Vance defended this practice, saying "Oh, I think it's funny" and going on to say, "I'll tell Hakeem Jeffries right now, I make this solemn promise to you, that if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop." In this instance, the shutdown is all a big joke. But, true to form, Vance almost immediately took the opposite position, using a tweet to criticize George Stephanopoulos for not taking the government shutdown seriously — something Vance suggested is the "real story" and, instead, focusing on a less serious issue. That issue, for what it is worth, was Border Czar Tom Homan being filmed taking $50,000 in cash stashed in a Cava bag in exchange for promising undercover FBI agents political favors.

Vance is a malleable puppet, ready and willing to assume whatever shape is required for his own personal advancement. Vance owes most of his professional life and much of his political life to Peter Thiel and was likely chosen as Vice President by Trump in order to shore up Trump's support among Silicon Valley tech bros. It is probably worth another post to investigate just how well Vance has succeeded in advocating his benefactors' agenda. Publicly, however, Vance has mostly acted as a reply guy. He excessively responds to social media posts — and real-life activities — in an annoying, condescending, and often untrue fashion. His lack of imagination is such that in an administration of trolls, he doesn't even stand out for trolling.