JD Vance Deconstructed: Analyzing Propaganda and Patriarchy in the VP's Remarks at Amerifest 2025

The MAGA heir-in-waiting delivered a fiery keynote at Turning Point USA's first conference since the death of Charlie Kirk

I’m not a fan of Vice-President JD Vance’s politics, or his ideology. Not even a little bit. I especially disdain his frequently derisive comments about progressives and feminists, which I consider to be not only wrongheaded, but often embarrassingly reductive.

Nonetheless, I do appreciate something about the vice-president’s approach to public life: his chutzpah. He boldly puts forth arguments that he knows are contentious, and not likely to be received warmly by large segments of the intellectual/academic elite, on both sides of the Atlantic.

A graduate of Yale Law School and best-selling memoirist, Vance clearly fancies himself part of the tradition of politician-intellectuals, someone who uses the public stage not only to promote specific policies, but to advance a set of ideas on a range of important social and political issues.

In her new book Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right, Laura Field positions Vance as part of the “post-liberal” wing of the movement, one that she describes as “sober, traditionalist, and highbrow.”

Notwithstanding that generous characterization, Vance seems to take special pleasure in attacking – and mocking -- the liberal intelligentsia. For example, he delivered a speech entitled “The Universities are the Enemy” at the National Conservatism conference in 2021.

Vance’s meteoric political rise was bankrolled and promoted by the right-wing Silicon Valley investor and billionaire, Peter Thiel. The vice-president of the United States is considered Thiel’s protégé, but his political career has also benefitted from the support and advocacy of Elon Musk, David Sacks, and other influential tech-bros, who believe he possesses the skills necessary to harness right-wing populist energy for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful.

Vance does this, in part, through his relentless attacks on “wokeism.” That word has become a catchall on the right, and even in the political center, for initiatives that promote racial and gender equity on university campuses, the workplace, the military, etc.

His attacks often come in the form of speeches that receive a great deal of attention, mainly because he’s only “one heartbeat away” from the presidency. It’s certainly his right, and prerogative, to share his views. But it’s up to us – his audience -- either to accept or push back on those frequently controversial takes.

That’s what I’m doing here.

Vance Channels Charlie Kirk at Turning Point

Vance gave the closing keynote speech at Turning Point USA’s Amerifest 2025 conference in Phoenix on December 21. It was the first TP gathering since the right-wing organization’s co-founder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated in September, and thus bound to attract an extraordinary amount of media coverage and commentary.

Much analysis of Amerifest – both inside and outside the conservative infotainment complex -- focused on the internecine struggles in the MAGA coalition between right-wing luminaries such as Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, and Tucker Carlson, especially in light of the increasingly brazen expressions of anti-Semitism in the movement.

One catalyst for the tensions currently roiling the right is the growing popularity of the openly racist and anti-Semitic Nazi-sympathizer Nick Fuentes, a once-fringe, far-right figure who has graduated into a bold-letter name.

At Amerifest, Vance famously refused to insert himself directly into the fractious debate over anti-Semitism on the right. As a likely top-tier contender for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, he sought to position himself “above-the-fray” by refusing to criticize this ominous development – which would carry the risk of alienating potential far-right supporters. “I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform,” Vance declared. “…We have far more important work to do than canceling each other.”

Instead, he cycled through a laundry list of right-wing Christian nationalist gripes about Democrats and the “left.” Like so many other right-wing figures in the current era -- public officials and media influencers alike -- he returned repeatedly to MAGA talking points about white masculinity under siege, and the urgent need for those on his “team” to fight back.

This was certainly to be expected, especially at this venue. One of Charlie Kirk’s and Turning Point’s main organizational goals from the beginning has been the reinforcement of white male centrality and power. Kirk himself was masterful at convincing young men – especially young white men -- that an oligarchy-friendly right-wing policy agenda was both in their interest and their path to salvation.

It is also notable, though not surprising, that almost every gendered reference throughout the speech was directed toward men. Women play a role in MAGA, but not a leading role.

Deconstructing Vance

Below is a sampling of Vance’s “important work” at Amerifest, followed by my brief reflections/rebuttals. I’ve arranged Vance’s comments in the order in which they appeared.

Please note that while Vance did address other matters, I’ve chosen mainly to highlight his remarks about gender/masculinity. I’ve done so for two reasons. 1) this topic constituted a major throughline in his speech, and 2) it’s a major area of focus in my work.

Also, due to the cherry-picked nature of what I’ve highlighted -- in italics -- I realize that I’ve possibly omitted some useful, or perhaps even necessary, context. The transcript of his remarks is readily available online; readers who are so inclined can judge for themselves whether the quotes I pulled from the VP’s speech represent his views accurately enough for this exercise.

Let’s jump right in:

Vance: People of every faith come to our banner because they know that the America First movement will make their lives better, and they also know that the Democrats don’t care about anything other than maybe transing their kids.

Let’s put aside the snarky and trollish quality of this statement. In the era before Donald Trump, it would have been regarded as wholly inappropriate for a senior public official to say something so ludicrous, much less a person with serious intellectual pretentions. Nonetheless, this passage captures, in a nutshell, the essence of right-wing culture war propaganda.

The conservative side of this “war” manifests itself, on gender-related topics, as a full-throated defense of traditional masculinity in the face of feminist critiques. “Transing their kids” does a lot of work here, beyond its obvious appeal to anti-trans sentiment and bigotry. Right-wing attacks on Democratic support for transgender rights also help to convey a cartoonish stereotype about liberals and progressives: that they have special contempt for heteronormative, heterosexual men.

Meanwhile, Vance’s dismissive smear about Democrats shifts the focus away from core economic issues and evades a critical question that MAGA supporters have a tough time answering: how exactly does the America First movement intend to make the lives of working people better?

The reality is that the Republican Party and the Trump-Vance administration have enacted massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and made devastating cuts to programs that serve the working and middle classes. All the while, they’ve claimed to represent the interests of the working class.

But what steps have they taken to help accomplish this goal? What legislation do they support that would materially benefit the MAGA base? It’s largely left unsaid, beyond the usual complaints about immigrants taking the jobs of so-called “heritage” Americans. What is said, and implied, is that Democrats are elitists that don’t care about the plight of working people, and are only concerned about “identity” politics issues that affect a tiny percentage of the population.

The left has long criticized the Democratic Party – sometimes bitterly -- for its cautious centrism on issues of economic justice. But aren’t the big-tech, finance, and crypto-bro supporting Republicans even more elitist? Compared to the billionaire-friendly Republicans, the Dems are consistently more pro-worker on everything from raising the minimum wage, to labor organizing, job safety, health care, child-care, family leave, consumer rights, support for public higher education, and so many other issues that affect working families.

And we have finally made it clear that in the United States, we believe in hard work and merit. Unlike the left, we stand against treating anybody…we don’t treat anybody different because of their race or their sex. So we have relegated DEI to the dustbin of history, which is exactly where it belongs. In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore…We don’t persecute you for being male, for being straight, for being gay, for being anything. The only thing that we demand is that you be a great American patriot. And if you’re that, you’re very much on our team.

This is the distilled essence of MAGA’s appeal to racial and gender grievance: hard-working white Americans, especially white men, have rightfully earned their status. And they resent it when undeserving women and people of color try to shame them in order to get more for themselves.

The phrase you don’t have to apologize for being white any more succinctly captures one of the animating energies of Trumpism, as well as a staple of contemporary right-wing propaganda: that white people and men have been made to feel guilty -- by liberals and progressives -- since the 1960s.

Writing about Vance, the scholar and social critic Kristoffer Ealy says that “when a guy like that stands on a stage and tells a crowd ‘you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore,’ he’s not confused. He’s not lost. He’s not misinformed. He’s running a psychological con.”

Ealy refers to Jennifer Freyd’s concept of DARVO: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender, a courtroom tactic often used by men who use violence in their intimate relationships with women (and others).

“It’s a way to take a real grievance (the harm inflicted on marginalized groups),” Ealy writes, “deny the underlying reality, attack the people raising it, and then flip the roles so the dominant group gets to claim victimhood.”

By contrast to the supposed guilt-tripping from the left, MAGA Republicanism offers white men both absolution and redemption, even if it has to be delivered via the unlikeliest of messengers: a wealthy real estate nepo baby from New York City who is also amoral, misogynous, and a malignant narcissist.

It’s also worth noting that, consistent with his attacks on “the universities,” Vance’s hostility to DEI conveys disrespect, even contempt, for more than a century of sociological theory and research that demonstrates clearly the deep structural roots of social inequality.

And to honor Charlie, but also to honor all of you, we’re working to end the scourge of left-wing violence in the United States of America. We’re going after the far-left crime networks, but we’re also going after the monsters that fund them. We don’t just want to go after the Antifa member who threw a brick at an ICE agent. We want to know who bought the brick, and we’re going to prosecute them, too.

For years, commentators and influencers in conservative media have pushed the false narrative that “left-wing violence” is a major problem in the US. It’s tempting to attribute this to pure projection, coming from the side that gave us the January 6 insurrection, proliferating right-wing militias, and the Proud Boys, not to mention the Trump Administration’s deployment of the national guard to American cities, the performative, violent cruelty of ICE, and other jacked-up, aggressive uses of state power.

I’ll opt instead for the words of the sociologist Cynthia Miller-Idriss, director of the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University:

“It’s so important to fact check this. There is recent data [from the Center for Strategic and International Studies] showing increases in far-left violence in the U.S., but the numbers the reports are relying on are so small (five events in the first half of 2025) that there is no way to draw any kind of statistical conclusion from them. What is clear is that over the past decade, with tremendous consistency, the vast majority of political violence, and the most lethal attacks, have come from supremacist and anti-government movements associated with the far right. There just is no equivalency to attacks from the far left—even though there has been a recent increase in far-left violence.

It’s critical to not ignore the possibility of continued or spiking violence from the left, especially given data showing increasing willingness of Americans across the spectrum to support the use of violence to achieve political goals in some cases. But the facts on this are very clear and it’s essential to speak with clarity to the public about where the continued sources of threats come from in terms of the biggest risks.”

But ask yourself, what do all of these people have in common? And the unfortunate answer is they are puppets. They don’t actually matter. They are cogs in a machine that wants to make you poorer, that wants to make you less powerful, and wants to make you less safe in the country your ancestors built. And while President Trump and I are doing everything we can to break that machine, the left is still there, my friends, and they are still very powerful. Don’t delude yourselves.

Note Vance’s intentional and repeated use of the word “machine.” For many years, MAGA propagandists have tried – in an impressive feat of mental gymnastics -- to co-opt left-wing language about solidarity with the working-class. As if the GOP (!) was the true party of working-class resistance to concentrated wealth and power.

(Bonus thought exercise: try to imagine Rage Against the Machine appearing as invited performers at the Republican National Convention!)

This Orwellian inversion – the notion that the GOP is the authentic pro-worker party – is how you get Trump-supporting right-wing manfluencers like Andrew Tate positioning himself on the side of young men against the “matrix,” the term he uses for the machine. Tate, the deeply misogynous and alleged rapist/sex-trafficker, tells his millions of young male followers that one way to counteract the dreaded system of wage-slavery is to support right-wing politicians!

Vance claims that he and Trump want to “break the machine” that makes people poorer and less powerful. How, exactly, do they intend to do this? They have installed numerous officials who are committed to busting labor unions and dismantling worker protections. They have appointed a multitude of judges to the federal bench who routinely rule against workers and consumers in favor of the rich and powerful. They have sought to undo a century’s worth of laws designed to regulate the behavior of wealthy corporations in favor of the public interest.

In what way does any of this help average people struggling to make ends meet?

Think about it. (Tyler Robinson) has everything that the far left wants from our young men. He rejected the conservatism and the spirituality, the values of a small-town family. He moved into a small apartment, he became addicted to porn, he became addicted to hate, and he ended up sleeping with somebody who doesn’t know whether they’re a man or a woman. That is the nightmare scenario, but that is the scenario that the left has actively advertised they want for American families, and the young men in the audience in particular. That is exactly why we have to fight them.

Reality check: the vice-president of the United States actually said that the left wants young men to be just like Charlie Kirk’s killer. An alleged murderer. Rejecting small town values and religion. Becoming addicted to porn and hate. Being sexually confused.

Right-wing propaganda has long promulgated the specious idea that liberals and progressives hate men, especially white men. Sadly, this rhetorical strategy has worked. It’s one of the primary reasons why the Republican Party continues to roll up huge electoral majorities among white men, especially working-class white men.

But let’s be clear: Vance’s statement does not represent a serious argument about the sort of policy agenda that would most benefit young men. It’s a smear job, designed to taint what he alternately refers to as the “far left,” “the left,” and the Democrats as depraved and degenerate, and thus worthy of scorn and contempt.

The fruits of true Christianity are men like Charlie Kirk. The fruits of true Christianity are good husbands, patient fathers, builders of great things, and slayers of dragons. And yes, men who are willing to die for a principle if that’s what God asks them to do. Because so many of us recognize that it is better to die a patriot than live a coward.

Vance’s speech was peppered with religious language and references to Christian belief and practice. In fact, one of the most quoted – and controversial -- lines in his speech was that “we have been, and by the grace of God, we always will be, a Christian nation.”

Like Charlie Kirk, Vance issued explicit appeals to young men in the vernacular of Christianity, an increasingly popular right-wing tactic. A growing body of research data has shown clearly that these young men long for a deeper sense of meaning and purpose. Nonetheless, it’s important to note that what JD Vance refers to as “the fruits of true Christianity” are in no way the sole province of the political right.

In fact, countless scholars of religion, in our time and long before, (e.g. Martin Luther King, Jr.!) have argued that Christian teaching is actually more compatible with left-wing and feminist ideas about compassion, equality and justice than it is with conservative ideas about protecting and reinforcing existing hierarchies of power and privilege.

One takeaway for liberals and progressives is that they too, should consider issuing appeals to young men as “good husbands, patient fathers, builders of great things, and slayers of dragons. And yes, men who are willing to die for a principle if that’s what God asks them to do.”

None of that is incompatible with progressive ideals of fairness and democracy, provided it’s presented in a way that allows for a more expansive and inclusive vision for what young men – and everyone else – can aspire to be.

In the post-Charlie Kirk era, JD Vance and others in MAGA world will continue to market themselves aggressively to young men, especially young white men. The reason why is obvious: their electoral math depends on winning big among those voters.

A growing number of Democrats, and Democratic Party strategists, seem to have figured this out -- or at least some of it. They recognize the urgent need to speak directly to and with young men. They understand that they have to provide these young men with a different — and healthier — path to validation than the fake news on offer by the right: a promise that they can regain lost glory by blaming and scapegoating women, LGBTQ people, and others.

If they can do this, and pull back some of the young men drawn into the MAGA universe over the past decade, right-wing attempts to roll back the democratic gains of the past half-century will come up short, and this country can once again begin to move forward.