There’s something about JD Vance that makes him almost impossible to assess. Like Bigfoot, he’s a naturally blurry creature. His voice lands somewhere between the parents in Charlie Brown specials and those buzzers they put outside convenience stores to chase off teens. The vice president is hostile architecture in human form, a suit stuffed with charisma’s anti-matter.
This has served him well in his quest for political power. Being instantly forgettable is an asset for someone who made their name as a liberal hillbilly whisperer only to switch to an online edgelord identity at the behest of far-right backers. But if you’re willing to hold and rotate Vance’s recent statements in your mind, you’ll find something uncharacteristically interesting. He’s put the tiniest sliver of distance between himself and President Donald Trump on artificial intelligence, and it provides an inkling of how Republicans might move beyond a decade of Trumpism.
I’ll catch you up on the current AI conversation. Large-language models built by companies like OpenAI and Anthropic keep breaking out of their testing sandboxes. The companies actively promote that their products are breaking the law and hacking into other private businesses, showcasing their power while appearing somewhat concerned with safety. Recently, those same AI CEOs have started pleading for government regulation of artificial intelligence, a “stop me before I kill again” plea that many critics believe is meant to lock in their position at the top of the industry.
Trump has been incredulous about the ask. He has thrown his red hat in with AI boosters and reacted to the idea of slowing down as a slight against his discernment. In a day-long rant on Truth Social, the president said the only “guardrails that AI needs is a strong and smart . . . president.” He said that there was a “sick conspiracy . . . against AI and data centers” and that slowing down AI development would leave us behind China on the global stage.
“We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!” he wrote. “Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!”
In the week since, Vance has taken a slightly more skeptical tone on AI development. On Monday he told reporters on Monday that the U.S. needs to be “careful” about AI. He looked sideways at CEOs’ request for industry regulation, saying that the move might be a “Trojan Horse” masking their true intentions.
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He’s the GOP version of Pete Buttigieg. Lab grown by a team of consultants, he says all the correct things, but lacks any form of genuineness. No one believes a word he says, because not even he believes it. they’re both puppets. Vance has no identity of his own, he has more in common with an angsty high school teenager than a state official or a world leader. (Edit: and this is a guy who used to have a bunch of gay and trans friends, was possibly bi/drag-curious himself, and married a lovely Indian woman, and has polyracial children, has changed both his name and religion several times, all while preaching white nationalist, and neo Nazi rhetoric.) honestly, I might feel bad for the guy if he weren’t a Jurassic Park sized pile of shit.
At least Pete Buttigieg is pretty and has a stable sense of self identity. But neither one of them will ever be president.