How the Catholic JD Vance assumes decompéxed nationalism
This is one of these events of which the United States has the secret: each year, in February, in Washington, in the Cosys salons of the Hilton hotel and the congress, several “national breakfasts of prayer” bring together the conservative elite of the city. Besides the Protestant historic version born in 1953, a Catholic equivalent has existed since 2004. On February 28, for its 20th edition, it is the brand new vice-president JD Vance, 40, which is expressed in front of a conquered audience. The tone of his intervention, not devoid of a certain humor, is more relaxed than fifteen days before against the members of the Safety Conference in Munich, Germany. “Freedom of expression”, according to him, would be “behind” in European democracies. That same day, during a meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, this time he attacks the Ukrainian President until he leaves the room. A well -conducted media operation, intended to mark the change of course in American foreign policy.
Born in an Ohio Protestant Evangelical Protestant family, alongside a toxic mother, JD Vance chose, in 2013, to change his family. Six years later, he converted to Catholicism, especially after discovering the thought of the French philosopher René Girard. The rest of his ascent follows a fairly classic path: six years among the Marines, followed by law studies in Yale before starting a career as a businessman, then a politician. First close to Hillary Clinton at a time when Donald Trump seemed to be infrequent – he even wondered on Facebook in 2016 if he was not the “Hitler of America” -, the man will radicalize gradually. In particular in contact with billionaire Peter Thiel, the inventor of Paypal, who finances and initiates him to national conservative ideas. Having finally joined the Republicans, JD Vance becomes a rising figure of the party. Spotted and supported by Donald Trump, he was elected senator in 2022.
An opportunistic president
Feeling the wind running in recent years on the side of an increasingly uninhibited conservative Catholicism, the candidate of the Republican camp takes JD Vance, worthy of this movement as a right -hand man. The latter has multiplied over time in contact with influential foundations and think tanks (reflection groups) that count. As of 2017, he got involved in the Heritage Foundation, participating in the development of the “2025 project”, a true ideological matrix of current Trumpism. A few days after his appointment as vice-president, JD Vance signs the preface to a book freshly released in bookstores. Its author, Kevin Roberts, is an assertive conservative Catholic … as well as the current president of the Heritage Foundation. The original title of the book? Reduce Washington ash to save America. The essay advocates the release of globalist liberalism with deep nationalist hints. One of the representatives of this current, Patrick Deneen, is also a close friend of JD Vance. This professor of political theory teaches in a prestigious Catholic University of Indiana.
This taboos without taboos undoubtedly benefits from the loss of influence of American bishops, weakened by the often calamitous management of the scandals that have affected the institution in recent decades. In their place, it is these new self-proclaimed spokespersons that loudly bear the demands of an increasingly noisy part of the Catholic clan.
Autized tensions
“JD Vance is like the antithesis of Joe Biden, the ex-president also Catholic,” explains the historian and essayist Charles Vaugirard, a connoisseur of Catholic circles. Biden Catholicism has become a minority in the country, no doubt because it has aligned itself too much on the surrounding society while moving away from the Roman magisterium on societal subjects, especially on the question of abortion. »»
Time seems far away when the mainly democratic Irish descendants networks, as well as Hispanic minorities, clearly made their voices heard. Faced with rising demands linked to gender issues or virulent anti -colonialism of a certain left, skillfully mounted in pinning by conservative leaders, a certain number of Catholics have recently taken refuge in the Republicans. JD Vance is one of them.
When, on February 11, the Pope denounced in a letter the massive expulsion of migrants and the dehumanizing discourse that accompanies him, the “fervent Catholic” Vance cannot help a dumbfounded. The Conference of American Catholic Bishops “was frankly not a good partner in the application of the common sense immigration law for which the American people voted,” he said. Reviews then deemed “scandalous” by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York.
