The US Vice President, Opus Dei adherent J.D. Vance, has thoughts on dealing with the “soulless and evil” left his mind somehow conjured up

Dick Cheney, longtime conservative Washington operator, CEO of Halliburton, and Vice President under Shrub Bush 2001-2009, became the Dark Lord of that Administration. In his work as a Congressman, he was able to articulate his Constitutional doctrine of the “independent Executive” – a high-fallutin’ phrase for “the President doesn’t have to obey the law.”

The current Vice President JD Vance may or may not be able to carry the Trump cult forward into it “next level,” to borrow a bit of corporate jargon. But he’s certainly trying. A protégé of TechBro dystopian billionaire Peter Thiel – a man with morbid fantasies of domination and apocalyptic calamities – is clearly trying to qualify as the post-Trump cult leader. His preferred approach seems to be more like that of old-fashioned Catholic reactionaries like the Opus Dei group with which he aligns than TechBro cyber-eugenics.

At the maudlin and demagogic cult fest Trump held in member of the man they consider they chief martyr of the moment, the recently-assassinated white supremacist and antisemite Charlie Kirk, The Christian nationalist rhetoric was very prominent. And Vance did his part: (1)

This is not a meaningful political defense of free speech. It’s cult demagoguery to lay the groundwork to justify the much wider political repression that the Trump-Vance regime clearly wants. The Trump crew went full cultish on this one. “Christo-fascism” would also be a reasonable description.

This stuff is not brand new for our Opus Dei Vice President. Molly Olmstead commented on JD’s recent appearance on Kirk’s podcast after his assassination:

[T]he tone shifted starkly at the show’s end, when Vance gave his closing monologue. In his final words, speaking with the weight of the vice presidential office, Vance insisted that the country must deal with what he described as a serious problem of organized, widespread, terrorist violence from the left.

“This is not a both-sides problem,” he said. “One side has a much bigger and [more] malignant problem, and that is the truth we must be told. That problem has terrible consequences.”

There could be “no unity” with Americans like this, he said. Ominously, after speaking of liberal journalists and Democratic donors, whom he blamed for Kirk’s death, he vowed that in the months to come “we will explore every option to bring real unity to our country and stop those who will kill Americans because they don’t like what they say.” (We still don’t know what, exactly, motivated Kirk’s killer.)

It was a drastic shift in tone from the rest of the two-hour radio show, most of which revolved around Kirk’s commitment to being tolerant and generous, as these White House officials and one conservative media star saw it. If you were a part of the MAGA movement, having Kirk on your side was, apparently, empowering. “He made you believe more in yourself,” said Stephen Miller, the mastermind behind the Muslim ban, the child separation policy, and Trump’s mass deportations, while discussing writing executive orders. “He would give me the strength and focus to get it done.” [my emphasis] (2)

And the invaluable Charlie Pierce commented a week ago on the poisonous legacy of the Charlie Kirk who JD Vance eulogizes as a religious martyr for American Christian nationalism. (3)

What the hell is going on in this country? If the authoritarian Right wants to make a cult of martyrdom out of an unforgivable act of public murder, it should go ahead and do so. But there is absolutely no reason for them to drag the rest of us into their rituals. Flags at half-staff and threats against local officials who decline to do so? Tributes at major league ballparks? A memorial service at the Kennedy Center? Professors fired over their reactions to the event on social media, most of which paled against the things that Kirk said, as a matter of course, that made him rich and influential. [my emphasis]

Wajahat Ali and Allison Gill spend an hour discussing Charlie Kirk as the Trump cult’s Horst Wessel moment I this podcast: (4)

Notes:

(1) Vice President JD Vance speaks at Charlie Kirk memorial service. ABC News YouTube channel 09/22/2025. (Accessed: 2025-22-09).

(2) Olmstead, Molly (2025): J.D. Vance Said Some Pretty Serious Things on Charlie Kirk’s Podcast Today. Slate 09/15/2024. <https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/09/charlie-kirk-jd-vance-show-podcast-death.html> (Accessed: 2025-16-08).

(3) Pierce, Charles (2025): Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Has Taken Us Down a Dark, Orwellian Path. Esquire Politics Blog 09/15/2025. <https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a66109768/charlie-kirk-assassination-thought-crimes/> (Accessed: 2025-16-09).

(4) MAGA's Horst Wessel Moment: Using Charlie Kirk's Murder to Advance Authoritarianism. MSW Media YouTube channel 09/22/2025. <https://youtu.be/L4GBmpH9Yew?si=KXOjjznAuErdwZPr> (Accessed: 2025-23-09).