JD Vance's dark vision of a "common good conservatism"

Donald Trump’s selection of Sen. JD Vance as his vice-presidential running mate is both an attempt to secure the support of right-wing plutocrats and “Christian” right-wing authoritarians and a means of expanding his fake populist appeal among disaffected, alienated, racially resentful white voters who feel left behind. 

In this conversation, Bradley Onishi, president of the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement and professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of San Francisco, details how Vance’s journey to right-wing “Christian” extremism has shaped his views on politics and society — in particular hostility to gender equality and women’s rights and reproductive freedoms. Onishi, who authored 2023's “Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism," also explains why JD Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” narrative of his life is so compelling for White “Christian” “conservatives” and their fantasies and myths about America and their role in it.

At the end of this conversation, Onishi reflects on the role that the Christian community can have in defending American democracy by opposing Trumpism, neofascism, and the culture of cruelty and contributing to a renewal of the country’s democratic culture more broadly.

This is the second part of a two-part conversation. 

What do we know about JD Vance’s religious beliefs and how they impact his politics?

Since JD Vance was announced as the vice-presidential candidate we have discovered a lot about him, whether it's his biography and background in certain parts of the country, or his connections to Silicon Valley. One of the things that I've been really attentive to is Vance's conversion to Catholicism in 2019. Vance grew up exposed to Christianity, but when he was at Yale Law School, he described himself as an atheist. But Vance also says that Catholicism began to appeal to him because of its intellectual approach to religion and faith.

Vance was also influenced by Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley magnate and PayPal founder who has been his campaign patron and mentor for many years now. One of the things to notice, though, about Vance's Catholicism is it's seemingly a conversion to a certain kind of reactionary Catholicism. In 2021, he attended the Napa Institute's national meeting. The Napa Institute is a network of Conservative Catholics who often defy the Pope, and are largely opposed to Vatican II; MAGA billionaire donors back them and very sympathetic to a Christian nationalist vision. Vance has also shared how he believes that abortion is a societal problem and that businesses that articulate a “pro-life agenda” should be punished.

In the same year, Vance was part of Teneo, which is an organization started by a man named Evan Baehr, also a Thiel disciple. Teneo was also started in part by Josh Hawley, the Republican senator from Missouri. Teneo is a kind of Federalist Society for venture capitalists. It's a place that is supposed to bring together CEOs who want to push back on what they take to be the kind of liberalism of Silicon Valley and the tech world more generally. Teneo is an organization that was not doing well until Leonard Leo got involved. When Leonard Leo stepped in a couple of years ago, it went from an organization that was doing business in the six figures to a multi-million-dollar budget. It's now funded by money from Leonard Leo's dark money networks. You have the Charles Koch Foundation. You have the DeVos family and other big donors. It's become a kind of conduit for Leo and his conservative Catholic agenda.

Ultimately, when I think of JD Vance I think of that right-wing and very conservative type of Catholicism. And I also think of the ways that Vance continues to talk about family and reproductive rights and childless cat ladies and all of the things that have come out over the last couple of weeks. The most illuminating dimension of these issues is his relationship with Kevin Roberts, the leader of the Heritage Foundation — one of the most influential think tanks on Capitol Hill — and the publisher of Project 2025. Kevin Roberts is also a reactionary Catholic. Roberts' book was supposed to come out recently, but it has been postponed until after the election. Vance wrote the foreword to that book. In that book, Roberts says that contraception is a revolutionary technology that has weakened the foundations of a working human society. He talks about coming for teachers. He labels them as radical or insane. Roberts also discusses the ways that he wants to take back America. Kevin Roberts was at the center of recent controversy because he said that a “second American Revolution” is underway, and it will remain bliss but if the Left interferes there will be violence.

How does JD Vance’s "Hillbilly Elegy" resonate with the right-wing "Christian" imagination?

The “Hillbilly Elegy” narrative that we get through JD Vance is one that is a classic appeal to rural America as the “real America”. This has long played in conservative Christian circles, where their imagination is one where “real Americans” are those who live in rural areas, who are connected to the land and whose families have been farming that land for generations and generations. Those themes are present in Vance's comments when he accepted the vice president nomination, and his comments elsewhere. This narrative by Vance is drawn from the racist and nativist “blood and soil” logic where only certain people of a certain racial stock have a rightful claim to the nation. Vance’s claims here, implicitly if not explicitly, exclude non-white people.

What role, both positively and negatively, can Christians play in the struggle to defend the country’s multiracial pluralistic democracy?

When I think of those Christians who are working to protect democracy and the rights of every person here, I think of Amanda Tyler and the organization Christians Against Christian Nationalism. I think of Reverend Barber and the Poor People's campaign. And I also think about those unsung communities and small churches and parishes in Louisiana, rural Georgia, and Eastern Kentucky where people are banding together to say that loving our neighbor means welcoming the stranger that to follow Christ means to practice a form of radical hospitality.

There are so many communities of faith that understand their role, not as dominating those around them or imposing their religion on others, but as enshrining pluralism and democracy, and the values that allow all of us to practice our faith, or to have no faith at all. Those are the people I love working with and who inspire me to keep doing this work.

What do you believe that those of us who are outside of the "Christian" community in America misunderstand about its members and their values and politics?

I have the privilege of speaking across the country, at both progressive and liberal houses of worship, and to a lot of secular and atheist organizations. There's often a deep misunderstanding on the part of both communities. Believe it or not, the members of all of those organizations, while they are religiously divergent from one another, are often discussing the same exact things such as protecting reproductive rights and fighting systemic racism. There's an emphasis in both communities on democracy, on freedom, on equality, on inclusion, on having a public square where we can all exist as who we are, and not be persecuted or live in fear.

So, for those who are not in a religious community, I would say the following: don't buy the idea that all people of faith are following one myopic form of the Christian tradition or any other. For those who are of those religious traditions, I would say this: please understand that the people who are in humanist and agnostic and freethinkers’ societies and groups spend most of their time organizing, mobilizing, and finding ways to combat the anti-democratic, racist and xenophobic movements in their communities.

What is the good society as imagined by the Christian right, and especially the Christian Dominionists?

A good society as envisioned by Christian Trumpists is varied. There's no way to reduce it to one vision, but I do think we can draw broad outlines of what they would like in some form. There's a sense that this should be a Christian nation that is run by Christian people, and those Christian people, in large part, should be willing to buy into the vision of what it means to be American that recognizes that white people “founded” the country, they were the ones who established the United States, that there is a social hierarchy that recognizes Christianity implicitly. They also believe that White Christian men are the authorities in this nation and that society should be structured according to their values and beliefs that pertain to how we order our public schools, our laws, our approaches to reproductive rights, and our understandings of sexuality and gender. An America structured around White male Christian authority would extend to all areas of society and politics including the border and foreign policy of course.

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What is really essential to understand in this moment of democracy crisis is that this is not a conservatism based on small government. This is no longer the fusion of libertarian ideals and Christian identity as with Buckley or Reagan. This is a conservatism based on big government. It's what JD Vance and his Catholic intellectual interlocutors would call a "common good conservatism." They believe they know what is good for everybody, and want to make sure that society is ordered according to that vision.

If you disagree or otherwise oppose or resist their version of society and the common good, then you are viewed as working against the United States.

Here is what is even more troubling: these right-wing claims about common good conservatism would directly impact our individual rights and liberties and freedoms on a deeply personal and intimate level. The advocates of this type of Christian nationalism and Christian supremacy believe that your personal life choices should be in agreement with what they think is the common good. This attempt to restructure American society is seen in Project 2025 and plans for mass deportations and deploying the military domestically, and to remake the country’s educational system in keeping with this Christian nationalist authoritarian plan. This is a big, active, and violent form of conservative government envisioned by certain Christian Trumpists.

What gives you the most hope in this moment (if anything)?

Human beings all have rights. We all deserve to be safe. We should follow scientific reasoning and data and the facts. We should allow people to love who they want to love, and we should agree to share power as a democracy. If we can agree on those things, then we can pursue a more perfect union. I see folks who are religious and non-religious, of all stripes and perspectives, pursuing that goal and that is inspiring.