Donald Trump’s selection of Sen. JD Vance as his vice-presidential running mate is both an attempt to secure the support of right-wing plutocrats and “Christian” right-wing authoritarians and a means of expanding his fake populist appeal among disaffected, alienated, racially resentful white voters who feel left behind.
In this conversation, Bradley Onishi, president of the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement and professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of San Francisco, details how Vance’s journey to right-wing “Christian” extremism has shaped his views on politics and society — in particular hostility to gender equality and women’s rights and reproductive freedoms. Onishi, who authored 2023's “Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism," also explains why JD Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” narrative of his life is so compelling for White “Christian” “conservatives” and their fantasies and myths about America and their role in it.
