JD Vance: The 'nerve centre' of a movement now set to become US vice president

JD VANCE WENT from being a fierce conservative critic of Donald Trump to entry into his camp, with the prize for that U-turn seeing the Ohio native becoming vice president.

But what is the author-turned-senator likely to push in his new role over the next four years?

The 40-year-old has made clear he’s set to support Trump as he works to implement his headline issues, from slashing taxes for the richest, to cracking down on immigration.

Vance has also gotten behind protectionist trade policies that have long formed part of Trump’s ‘America first’ vision, which include imposing tariffs on imports from China and other nations as a way to promote US manufacturing.

But it looks likely that Vance will also champion various conservative culture war issues as part of Trump’s return to the White House.

Vance himself has been held up as the “nerve center” of the wider MAGA movement – a glowing recommendation from no less a figure than former senior Trump advisor Steve Bannon.

His track record as a senator included a bill criminalizing gender-affirming care for transgender youth, a ban on pandemic-era mask mandates and a crack-down on affirmative action policies designed to promote greater opportunities for minority workers at colleges and universities.

Vance has also supported a 15-week abortion ban with exceptions for rape, incest and threats to the life of the mother.

In his own words, Vance told a podcast in 2022 that the Republican party would “have to get pretty wild” and go in “directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with” if they were to implement their broad agenda.

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To achieve this, Vance suggested that Trump should fire all civil servants and replace them with “our people” – a proposal that sounds similar to plans laid out in the Project 2025 document. This is a set of extra-conservative proposals, with its call for political appointees to replace thousands of government employees among the most eye-grabbing.

While Trump sought to downplay links with Project 2025, Vance had close ties to senior figures behind the manifesto; he even penned the foreword to a book by the architect of the Project 2025 document.

Referring to his predecessor Mike Pence in one interview, Vance also claimed he would not have certified the results of the 2020 election as Mike Pence did in 2021 when Joe Biden won that White House contest.

Best-selling memoir

Vance made his name in the US with the 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” an account of his modest upbringing in an Appalachian family in a rural, working-class region.

A year after the release of Vance’s memoir, it got the big picture treatment thanks Hollywood director Ron Howard. A film starring Amy Adams was released on Netflix in 2020.

Vance’s outline of his life story before his entry into politics – from humble beginnings in the Rust Belt to military service, an Ivy League education and a career in Silicon Valley – marked him out as a figure to US conservatives.

In 2014, he married Usha Chilukuri, a law school classmate and daughter of Indian immigrants. They have three children.

It was in November 2022 when Vance won an election to become Ohio Senator.

Just a few years earlier, in 2016, Vance claimed he was a “Never Trump guy” and suggested that Trump was “America’s Hitler.”

As with many in America’s right, he reversed that stance and became a standard- bearer for Trump in recent years, culminating in last night’s success.

With reporting by Diarmuid Pepper

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