George Will in Scottsdale, Arizona on December 1, 2022 (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
George Will's disdain for Donald Trump and the MAGA movement was so vehement that the conservative Washington Post columnist, after many years, left the Republican Party and became an independent because of it. And that disdain extends to members of Trump's second administration, including Vice President JD Vance.
Once a scathing Trump critic himself, Vance became one of his most ardent defenders. Will, in a blistering Post column, slams Vance as an opportunist who is willing to flip-flop incessantly in order to advance his political ambitions.
"JD Vance has an aptitude for conversions," the 84-year-old Will writes. "His have involved politics, economics, history and religion, so far. Whatever his next one is will probably not be his last. One propelled him from the Pentecostal Protestantism of his youth, through atheism, to Catholicism. As the U.S. government's 'most senior Catholic' (his self-description) he, in the church since 2019, warned the pope to 'be careful' when speaking 'on matters of theology.' Leo XIV was careless (in Vance's view) when criticizing the Iran war."
Vance, Will argues, repeatedly contradicts himself in service of Trump and the MAGA movement.
"Five months ago," the Never Trump conservative notes, "this column listed examples of Vance's many public vulgarities, as when he denounced a 'd––' critic, and others who can 'eat s––.' Five months is, however, plenty of time for a Vance conversion, this time to decorousness. In 'Communion,' his new delicacy causes him to obscure the adjective 'p––.' So, presumably, he will not again talk of tech corporations telling a 'b–– story' about the need for more foreign workers."
Vance often declares himself to be a devout Catholic, attacking other Catholics he considers insufficiently devout. And the vice president, Will notes, repeatedly uses religion to promote the MAGA agenda.
"Christianity, Vance says, 'is America's creed,'" Will observes. "His Christianity often dovetails with MAGA commandments. He says a 'Christian statesman' must preserve 'social cohesion.' This is code for restricting immigration. Something already has, Vance says, made America a place where 'you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.' Especially if you are properly descended. 'I think,' Vance says, 'the people whose ancestors fought in the Civil War have a hell of a lot more claim over America.' More 'claim' (whatever that means) than most of today's Americans, whose descendants arrived too late to fight. What conversion convinced Vance of this?"
Vance, Will writes with biting sarcasm, had "another in-the-nick-of-time, road-to-Damascus epiphany" when he declared that the United States' 2020 presidential election was "rigged" and that unlike then-Vice President Mike Pence, he would not have certified the election results.
"Whether Vance has excelled as a result of his serial conversions is a matter of opinion," Will laments. "But certainly, he has risen fast and far because he is as unstable as water."