JD Vance told far-right podcast the Civil War is still ongoing and he’s with the South

12 September 2024

In an interview on a far-right podcast, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) invoked the Civil War, and suggested to the hosts that he's on the side of the Confederacy.

Conservative media outlet the Bulwark recently highlighted Vance's appearance in a 2021 episode of the Viva Frei podcast, in which he told hosts David Freiheit and Robert Barnes that in his view, the Civil War never really ended. Rather, the Hillbilly Elegy author posited that the North and the South are still battling for control of the cultural and political narrative. And he made it clear he was on the side battling the "Northern woke people."

"American history is a constant war between Northern Yankees and Southern Bourbons, where whichever side the hillbillies are on, wins," Vance said." And that’s kind of how I think about American politics today, is like, the Northern Yankees are now the hyper-woke, coastal elites. The Southern Bourbons are sort of the same old-school Southern folks that have been around and influential in this country for 200 years. And it’s like the hillbillies have really started to migrate towards the Southern Bourbons instead of the Northern woke people. That’s just a fundamental thing that’s happening in American politics."

The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last remarked that he agrees with Vance, but was "just kind of shocked that he’s willing to admit that in this parallel, Democrats and liberals are the abolitionists and he’s on the side of the slaveholders."

"Actually, scratch that. I’m not shocked at all," he wrote.

Last contextualized Vance's 2021 remarks by putting them next to a key excerpt from his vice presidential nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in July. In that speech, Vance echoed former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan's nativist rhetoric about immigrants (Buchanan ran for president in 1992 and 1996 on closing the Southern border and calling immigration an "illegal invasion").

"America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation," Vance said. "Now, it is part of that tradition, of course, that we welcome newcomers. But when we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms."

As Last noted, Vance's comments on the 2021 podcast episode and at the RNC have a similar theme: Allowing new people into the country is up to the "American family," which naturally establishes a hierarchy between deserving "real Americans" and the undeserving others. And as the eventual 2024 Republican vice presidential nominee suggested to the Viva Frei hosts, the "Southern bourbons" and their "hillbilly" counterparts have more of a claim than the "Northern woke people."

Click here to read Last's analysis in the Bulwark. And watch the video of Vance's remarks below, or by clicking here.

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