Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance's worldview shaped in his youth | Opinion

Bold opinions about U.S. foreign policy voiced these days by Ohio’s Republican senator were shaped by the experiences of his late teens and early 20s. That’s when J.D. Vance, now 39 and believed to be among potential running mates being considered by Donald Trump, left a Middletown hometown hard hit by the globalization of manufacturing for service in the Marines that would land him in the U.S. war in Iraq.

Early in only his second year in Washington, Vance has emerged as a high-profile opponent of continuing to provide billions in U.S. aid to Ukraine for its war with Russia instead of focusing on China’s global power. He explained why in a recent interview.

"I didn’t necessarily plan on coming in to take that role, and I’d much rather us be making smarter decisions," Vance said. "But I am comfortable that I’m in a position of public leadership and the people of Ohio elected me to do a job, and part of what they elect you to do is to follow your conscience."

Vance has recently compared U.S. Ukraine involvement to the Iraq War, including in an April 23 Senate floor speech. The George W. Bush administration attacked Iraq in 2003, citing the perceived growing threat of Saddam Hussein as part of what Bush called an "axis of evil" and hyped claims that Iraq was arming itself with "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Vance, who enlisted in the Marines out of high school that year, was later deployed to Iraq for two years. In the years after his service, he concluded it was an ill-advised and costly years-long overseas entanglement with negative consequences.

"Like any self-respecting hillbilly," he had wanted to go to the Middle East to kill terrorists in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City, Vance wrote in his 2016 bestselling memoir "Hillbilly Elegy." He now sees unsettling similarities between the run-up to the Iraq War and current calls for more U.S. support to Ukraine. Some in favor warn that unless the United States helps repel Russian invaders there, they will conquer Ukraine and Russian leader Vladmir Putin will then seek to take more of Europe, as Adolf Hitler did nearly nine decades ago.

Vance rejects 'Domino Theory' in Europe

"The domino theory of politics that I guess probably goes back to the Vietnam War certainly was true in Iraq and now is definitely true with regards to Ukraine; there’s kind of like this sense that we’re constantly back in the 1930s … if you don’t stop the bad guy, he’s going to keep on taking territory."

Of the threat of Russian expansion into other European countries, Vance said: "We have to sort of analyze these things in their own historical context. And Vladimir Putin might be a bad guy, and in fact I think he is, but he’s not nearly as powerful in relative terms as Hitler‘s Germany was in the late 1930s. So the idea that he poses a risk to the broader European continent is just absurd to me."

Vance has seen himself called at best someone misled by Russian propaganda and at worst a "Putin puppet." He said suggesting he has some affinity for Putin is ridiculous, and that he’s even been banned from Russia. The kind of sharp criticism he gets also reminds him of the Iraq War days.

"There was this weird sentiment that if you didn’t support everything the United States was doing, then you were on the side of America’s enemies, in that case Saddam Hussein … and we’ve seen that a lot in the context of the Russian-Ukraine conflict."

He said it’s "an extraordinarily bad way for us to make decisions for our country when people who question a particular policy are accused of disloyalty."

He said some of the same people who are most hawkish on Ukraine were the most hawkish on Iraq, showing lack of humility about their previous misjudgment.

Vance had previously been making the Iraq comparison in private with his Washington colleagues, he said, and thinks there is growing skepticism about U.S. Ukraine involvement and more belief that our European allies should do more.

"I’ve been trying to make sure we don’t take an escalatory posture," Vance said. The best role for the United States, he said, is to help facilitate a peaceful resolution to the Russian-Ukraine conflict − which Trump claims he could do as president − and "prevent this thing from escalating into World War III."

Vance urges more focus on 'powerful' China

"… We have to pivot to Asia. China is the most powerful competitor the U.S. has had since we became a world power. We need to focus on Asia; we need to let the Europeans focus on Europe."

"Hillbilly Elegy" describes the impact of globalization on Middletown, in Butler County just north of Cincinnati, where many of the once-plentiful steel and other factory jobs had moved offshore and left a community struggling economically and with substance abuse issues.

"I think the most important lesson is that America is like a house, and the foundation of that house is our own people and our own manufacturing base … we’ve allowed that industrial base to atrophy," Vance said. "Until that foundation is repaired, I don’t want to hear about us being the policeman of the world."

That means "putting more people to work, rebuilding our industrial base, building more stuff, producing more of the things we can rely on … is a better use of American dollars."

The Yale Law School-educated product of challenging childhood circumstances, as recounted in "Hillbilly Elegy," still feels in tune with the struggles of working-class Americans, and able to offer fresh perspectives in Washington for addressing their concerns about inflation, pay, and ability to own a home.

He expects to keep facing insults and cynicism about his foreign policy views, and is undaunted.

"We should be asking ourselves what is in our best interests as a country, and how do we accomplish the goals that we have as a nation, and that is what has driven me in this policy and that’s what I’ll keep doing.”

Extra Point

Former 'Never Trumper' has become dependably loyal Trump defender

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance on Monday joined former President Donald Trump’s entourage in the New York courtroom for Trump’s ongoing hush money trial. Vance is also billed as a “special guest” for a Trump fund-raising luncheon scheduled Wednesday in Cincinnati. And he's been a busy Trump surrogate on national talk shows, adding to speculation that he’s on Trump’s short list of possible running mates.

Quite a jump for a first-time candidate who a little more than two years ago was struggling in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary race. Trump’s endorsement helped lift Vance to the nomination, and he went on to victory in November 2022.

Vance said that while he would give a VP offer serious consideration, Trump hasn’t made it and his listing among top contenders “probably speaks more to the media’s fascination” with the speculation.

“Of course, I’ve seen the same reports as everyone else has seen and I understand there is some sort of process there in the background, but no, I have not talked to the president (about it),” Vance said in a telephone interview last week, adding jokingly: “And if I do, we’ll certainly let you know.”

Trump has said he doesn’t plan to make a choice until near the GOP convention in July.

Trump has carried Ohio handily twice, so adding Vance doesn’t boost him in a crucial swing state; nor would it add demographic appeal as a female, Black or Latino running mate might.

But Trump and Vance, only 39, seem when together in public to have a comfortable relationship, no doubt helped by Vance’s friendship with Donald Trump Jr. And Vance, a one-time “Never Trumper” turned supporter, has been a dependably loyal Trump defender in his recent media appearances.

Some critics scoffed at his answers under contentious questioning May 1 by Kaitlan Collins on her CNN show. Among other topics, she asked if he would hesitate to be Trump’s running mate given the danger Trump put Vice President Mike Pence in on Jan. 6, 2021. Vance replied that he was skeptical Pence’s life was ever in danger and that “in politics, people like to really exaggerate things from time to time.”

Collins commented: “I think that Mike Pence would disagree with that, senator.”

In our interview, Vance played down evidence that Trump plans a more authoritarian approach to governing if elected to a second term.

“My view on this is a lot of things that Trump says, people have a tendency to take it wildly out of proportion, wildly out of context,” he said, offering Trump’s line about being dictator for a day as what Vance said was obviously a joking comment that drew outsized reaction.

Whatever Trump decides on a running mate. Vance will be supporting his presidential bid.

“I think in a lot of ways, Trump speaks for a large segment of the country,” Vance said. “I think people are very frustrated with the Biden presidency and Trump I think presents an opportunity to turn the page and take the country in a different direction.”

The New York Times reported Monday that Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the former University of Cincinnati football coach and a close Trump supporter, was also in court as former Trump attorney and now star prosecution witness Michael Cohen took the stand. Vance was critical of Cohen's credibility in comments to reporters outside the courtroom.

Dan Sewell is a regular Opinion contributor. Contact: dsewellrojos@gmail.com

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Iraq service, hometown helped form Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance's views