314: JD Vance Rebrands as Church Dad for Prez
Episode description
As the gases slowly leak from Trump’s orifices and IV holes, the bright flame of his inspiration to MAGA Christians is fading. Did he drain the swamp? Prosecute the pedophiles? Save the Holy Land? Lower gas prices? Give all the grill dads better health care? What was all the speaking in tongues for?
JD Vance has an answer for the MAGA faithful: another memoir, another rebrand that turns to the device that made Hillbilly Elegy a smash hit, and the worst book ever: the gall to turn his personal and familial despair into the diagnosis of an entire culture, in Appalachia.
With Communion: Finding my Way back to Faith, Vance plays the same narcissistic trick: turning his lifelong journey through rightwing American Chrisitianity—with a short and shameful detour into New Atheism—to land in the Catholic faith of Leonard Leo, sketching out a redemption plan for every bro seeking their way home.
Show Notes
Rerum Novarum (1891) — Pope Leo XIII
Elizabeth Catte, What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia
Appalachian Reckoning — Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll, eds.
Battle of Blair Mountain — West Virginia Encyclopedia
Hurricane Helene federal aid gap — Associated Press
PolitiFact — Springfield "Lie of the Year" 2024
Institut Montaigne — JD Vance analysis
Randall Balmer, "The Real Origins of the Religious Right" — Politico
Know Your Enemy podcast — episode on René Girard with John Ganz
Magnifica Humanitas — Pope Leo XIV
Mike Fox, "JD Vance's Memoir Communion Performs Catholicism for Evangelicals"
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