> J.D. Vance’s convention [speech](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/us/politics/read-the-transcript-of-jd-vances-convention-speech.html), with a few moments of performative pugilism aside—a clenched fist, a set jaw, a raised voice—could appear anodyne and normal. It even tried to be sweet: They clearly wanted Vance to soften his image by his references to being a loving husband and dad. It was not nearly as steely or menacing as Pat Buchanan’s 1992 “Culture War” speech. It hit the requisite populist notes: all the stuff about fighting Wall Street and multinational corporations, poses that are somewhat belied by a recent mass defection of Silicon Valley capital to Trump’s G.O.P. (Perhaps those are the good “American” businesses not the evil globalist ones.) But the thing that struck me most was the nationalism. You might say, “Well, it’s a convention speech of course it’s gonna be patriotic.” No, not patriotic. Nationalist. Far more than Buchanan’s speech 32 years ago, Vance openly embraced “America First”—a slogan Pat still dared not say at the podium in Houston—and the type of nationalism championed by the paleoconservatives. Here was the pivotal moment of the speech for me:
> > You know, one of the things that you hear people say sometimes is that America is an idea. And to be clear, America was indeed founded on brilliant ideas, like the rule of law and religious liberty. Things written into the fabric of our Constitution and our nation. But America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.
> He represents those with “similar stories.” America is *their* homeland. This is what the French historian Michel Winock once called “mortuary nationalism.” There’s the soil one’s ancestors are laid to rest in. And the continuity of the blood: The “seven generations of people” of people who built and fought for this country. The country they feel “in their bones.” Usually in a convention there’s at least lip service to the other types of people who also built and fought for this country, with other images and vistas of being American. But Vance’s view is parochial; he makes it clear it’s about his type of people. To be sure, this is softened by a dose of cosmopolitanism: his “immigrant” wife and mixed kids. His wife’s family might be “great people,” but they come second, not first.
> Vance surely knows, like other educated people who manipulate these symbols, that race is not real thing but rather a useful reactionary mythology. As John Thomason [pointed out](https://thenewinquiry.com/hillbilly-ethnography/) back in 2016, Vance has always had a strange preoccupation with blood. Race science lurks throughout *Hillbilly Elegy*. So maybe he believes the mythos a little bit. And it’s likely that Vance’s version of American *völkisch* just too watered down for the real hard core. But the smarter ones of them know about him what they knew about Trump: he’s singing their type of music.
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> J.D. Vance’s convention [speech](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/us/politics/read-the-transcript-of-jd-vances-convention-speech.html), with a few moments of performative pugilism aside—a clenched fist, a set jaw, a raised voice—could appear anodyne and normal. It even tried to be sweet: They clearly wanted Vance to soften his image by his references to being a loving husband and dad. It was not nearly as steely or menacing as Pat Buchanan’s 1992 “Culture War” speech. It hit the requisite populist notes: all the stuff about fighting Wall Street and multinational corporations, poses that are somewhat belied by a recent mass defection of Silicon Valley capital to Trump’s G.O.P. (Perhaps those are the good “American” businesses not the evil globalist ones.) But the thing that struck me most was the nationalism. You might say, “Well, it’s a convention speech of course it’s gonna be patriotic.” No, not patriotic. Nationalist. Far more than Buchanan’s speech 32 years ago, Vance openly embraced “America First”—a slogan Pat still dared not say at the podium in Houston—and the type of nationalism championed by the paleoconservatives. Here was the pivotal moment of the speech for me:
> > You know, one of the things that you hear people say sometimes is that America is an idea. And to be clear, America was indeed founded on brilliant ideas, like the rule of law and religious liberty. Things written into the fabric of our Constitution and our nation. But America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.
> He represents those with “similar stories.” America is *their* homeland. This is what the French historian Michel Winock once called “mortuary nationalism.” There’s the soil one’s ancestors are laid to rest in. And the continuity of the blood: The “seven generations of people” of people who built and fought for this country. The country they feel “in their bones.” Usually in a convention there’s at least lip service to the other types of people who also built and fought for this country, with other images and vistas of being American. But Vance’s view is parochial; he makes it clear it’s about his type of people. To be sure, this is softened by a dose of cosmopolitanism: his “immigrant” wife and mixed kids. His wife’s family might be “great people,” but they come second, not first.
> Vance surely knows, like other educated people who manipulate these symbols, that race is not real thing but rather a useful reactionary mythology. As John Thomason [pointed out](https://thenewinquiry.com/hillbilly-ethnography/) back in 2016, Vance has always had a strange preoccupation with blood. Race science lurks throughout *Hillbilly Elegy*. So maybe he believes the mythos a little bit. And it’s likely that Vance’s version of American *völkisch* just too watered down for the real hard core. But the smarter ones of them know about him what they knew about Trump: he’s singing their type of music.
!ping EXTREMISM