J.d. vance

Wednesday

Damian Thompson

Christianity, culture wars and J.D. Vance: a conversation with James Orr

62 min listen

James Orr was living the life of a young, high-flying lawyer when, after a few drinks at a New Year’s Eve party, he asked for signs that God existed. The signs came; among other things, he narrowly avoided a fatal skiing accident. Now he is a passionate Christian and a conservative culture warrior who helped defeat an attempt to impose the tyranny of critical race theory on Cambridge University, where he is an associate professor of the philosophy of religion. He’s also an intellectual mentor to the vice president of the United States; Politico describes him as ‘J.D. Vance’s English philosopher king’. Dr Orr says Vance is ‘extremely articulate, but he takes

Thursday

Charles Moore

The bully-boy tactics of Trump and J.D. Vance

Just before Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping announced a ‘friendship without limits’. The phrase seems to apply equally well to Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Has Trump ever breathed a word of serious criticism of Putin, questioned his democratic mandate, challenged his right to invade an independent country, condemned his kidnapping of children? Before his inauguration, Trump stepped in on behalf of ‘the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely and against their will in the Middle East’. He warned Hamas that there ‘would be ALL HELL to PAY’ for the perpetrators and that they must ‘RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!’. But although Ukraine is,

Tuesday

Freddy Gray

Vance criticises Britain: is this a new era for free speech?

15 min listen

The fallout continues from US vice-president J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference. Criticising Europe over what he sees as the retreat of free speech, he singled out the case of Adam Smith-Connor in the UK as something that worries him about the direction that Britain is heading in. Smith-Connor was arrested in 2022 and prosecuted for breaching an abortion buffer-zone in Bournemouth. Freddy Gray speaks to Paul Coleman at the ARC conference in London. Paul is executive director of ADF International, a faith-based legal advocacy organisation that has been advocating for Smith-Connor. What is the truth behind abortion buffer-zones? Is this part of a wider ‘censorship industrial complex’?

Thursday

James Orr

J. D. Vance is the future of MAGA

The vice-presidency of the United States has always been the butt of jokes. ‘I don’t plan to be buried until I’ve died,’ quipped Daniel Webster when he declined William Henry Harrison’s offer of the role. John Nance Garner, who served as FDR’s vice-president, dismissed it as ‘not worth a bucket of warm piss’. Even John Adams, the first to hold the office, was equivocal: ‘I am Vice-President. In this I am nothing, but I may be everything.’ He may prove to be a more effective standard bearer for Trumpism than Trump himself That ‘everything’ has proven elusive. Fewer than a third of vice-presidents have gone on to occupy the Oval

Thursday

Mary Wakefield

We need to learn to pray again

In The Spectator’s basement kitchen a few weeks ago, I cornered a young colleague, Angus Colwell, and asked him what he made of Rod Dreher’s new book Living in Wonder. The thrust of it is that we are not in an age of enlightenment so much as ‘endarkenment’ (Dreher’s term) and that, having turned our backs on God, we have become easy pickings for demonic forces. ‘Oh Lord’, said Angus, turning wearily away, ‘I’m so sick of demons.’ This delighted me then and still delights me, both because it’s so surreal and also because it rings so true. If you’d told me ten years ago that young political types in

Deborah Ross

Like a never-ending episode of The Jerry Springer Show: Hillbilly Elegy reviewed

Hillbilly Elegy is an adaptation of the best-selling memoir, published in 2016, by J.D. Vance and it’s quite a story. He was brought up in the American rust belt amid poverty, violence, addiction, trash heaps, burning cars, hopelessness and, on top of all that, a grandma who, we now know, was the spit of Catherine Tate’s Nan. (It’s Glenn Close, but check it out.) Still, if you can get past Nan — if, if — this film should be an emotionally stirring and moving account of, ultimately, achieving the American dream. (Vance went on to Yale and became a successful investment banker.) But as directed by Ron Howard it isn’t

Monday

Freddy Gray

Can Trump ‘Get Out the Vote’?

35 min listen

Freddy keeps up Americano tradition by speaking to Daniel McCarthy ahead of the election. On the podcast they discuss how Trump’s get-out-the-vote project is working and the impact low-propensity voters could have on the result, whether this election will be plagued by inefficiencies in the American electoral system and if J.D. Vance is actually the heir apparent to the MAGA title.

Friday

Freddy Gray

Which campaign has the better ground game?

Republican strategist, and friend of Americano, Luke Thompson joins Freddy Gray to talk about the ground game of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. From postal voting, to party registration, to machine politics, whose is better? And what impact did Biden’s exit from the race have on the organised parts of the Democratic Party?  With Luke’s unique insight working on two current senate races, and as a longtime consultant to Vice-Presidential nominee J.D. Vance, they analyse the state of an election that continues to be unpredictable.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Tuesday

Katy Balls

Two-child benefit cap row – Starmer’s first big test?

13 min listen

Keir Starmer is coming under pressure to commit to scrapping the two-child benefit cap, introduced in 2017 by the Conservatives. Plaid Cymru, the Greens, Nigel Farage, the SNP, and now some Labour backbenchers are all calling for its removal. Can Starmer hold the line? Elsewhere: in Wales, First Minister Vaughan Gething has resigned after four months in the job, and in the US, Donald Trump has chosen the junior senator from Ohio J.D. Vance as his nominee for Vice-President. What could these developments mean for Labour? Lucy Dunn speaks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.

Thursday

Taki

Is Klaus Schwab the greatest threat of our time?

New York Alexandra rang me from London to enquire about a man by the name of Klaus Schwab: ‘He sounds like the greatest threat of our time. Should I be worried?’ ‘Nah,’ I answered. ‘He’s just another typical smooth-talking, smarmy Davos Man. ‘That’s what scares me,’ said the wife. For the very few of you who have not heard of Klausie baby, he is the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, or WEF, a grandiose title and well deserved to be sure, although it once created a social media video that contained the slogan: ‘You will own nothing, And you’ll be happy.’ The WEF is where technocratic