Trump just announced that Ohio Senator JD Vance will be his running mate. Vance, author of the book “Hillbilly Elegy,” pretends to be a champion of working people. But his real loyalty is with the corporate elite.
Vance is a big tech venture capitalist
Shortly after graduating law school, Vance moved to San Francisco to work in venture capital firms investing in tech companies. One of those was Mithril Capital, owned by Peter Thiel – the ultra-right wing founder of PayPal who is one of the richest men in the world. In 2017 Vance founded his own firm with one of the co-founders of AOL.
Another firm he started in 2019 with the co-founder of Google netted Vance $1.3 million in income in 2021, the vast majority of which he shielded from higher taxes by using the “carried interest loophole”.
Vance was elected to the Senate with money from billionaires
Vance’s main sponsor is his former boss Peter Thiel – who has a net worth of around 10 billion dollars. Thiel donated $15 million to Vance’s 2022 Senate run. Other billionaire donors include Rebekah and Robert Mercer – who pioneered computerized stock trading – and Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein – heirs to the Schlitz beer fortune who also own a major shipping corporation.
Vance is not a true opponent of the war machine
While he postures as a “non-interventionist” and opposes aid to Ukraine, Vance is fully in favor of the billions of dollars of U.S. military aid sent to Israel every year and supports the new Cold War against China. A supporter of the Gaza genocide, Vance said in May that the U.S. should place no restrictions on weapons sent to Israel and instead, “let them prosecute this war the way they see fit.”
