A potential conservative and Catholic American vice president

The man is young. At 39, he could become the youngest vice president in the country’s history, even if the road is still long until the upcoming national elections. Just a few years ago, however, he did not hold Donald Trump in high esteem, denouncing his quasi-dictatorial behavior, dangerous for the future of the country. But, like many others in the Republican party, the man also senses the wind changing. After the election of candidate Trump, JD Vance will finally seek his support to become senator of Ohio. A turnaround that Trump appreciates, without forgetting to publicly decry the opportunism of the one who was once his adversary. But the Vance card can be an asset for the American millionaire who hopes to attract more easily a popular part of the country’s white electorate.

A conservative father

The fact remains that the career of this father of three children says a lot about American society. Born into a rather modest evangelical Protestant family, the future senator was adopted by another family at the age of six. In the process, he abandoned his middle name, that of his biological father Donald, in favor of David. As a young adult, it was the army that allowed him to structure himself. After four years of service in the Marine Corps, he began studying political science, philosophy and law. Having joined the Republican Party, the man turned out to be a fairly radical activist, close to the most conservative theses also advocated by Donald Trump: closing the border with Mexico, refusing renewable energy development policies in favor of the exploitation of fossil fuels, opposing financial involvement in the Ukrainian conflict, etc. His proximity to Curtis Yarvin, a computer scientist blogger with obscure, anti-democratic and very reactionary philosophical theses, is revealing. It is therefore not surprising that James D. Vance often has ambiguous remarks, close to conspiracy theorists, and promotes theories of the great replacement.

Baptized Catholic in 2019

Donald Trump’s running mate has also recently made headlines for joining the Catholic Church. He was baptized in August 2019 and claims to feel inspired by the writings of Saint Augustine, which helped him emerge from a period in which he considered himself an atheist. Accompanied for years by a Dominican priest, Father Henry Stephan of the Sainte-Gertrude Priory in Ohio, he says he also admired several Catholic members of his family by marriage. Inspired by the writings of the French Catholic anthropologist and philosopher René Girard, JD Vance says he appreciates in the Catholic faith the fact that the spiritual experience is also that of a significant personal commitment throughout life to live from the grace that is received. The man says he is close to the social doctrine of the Church but with a fairly personal interpretation, often far from what Pope Francis, for example, may promote today. He is thus quite representative of an American conservative “integralist” Catholicism with positions very opposed to those of the Democratic president, also a Catholic, Joe Biden.