JD Vance heard Peter Thiel speak at Yale. I heard a barista on South Lamar. Only one of us ended up with a super PAC.
Until Wednesday I had the best conversion story at this publication. I voted for Obama in 2012 (I was 23), and in 2021 a barista on South Lamar corrected my “you guys” to “you all,” and I walked out of that coffee shop a free man. Then Vanity Fair reported that JD Vance, while calling himself a Never Trump guy in 2016, was privately passing advice to the Clinton campaign. I read it twice in my car outside that same coffee shop and felt something I haven’t felt since 2021, which is outranked.
What Vance Told the Clinton Campaign
Chris Whipple, who writes for a magazine I canceled the week I woke up, got it from a go-between. Vance called twice trying to reach the Clinton campaign, and on the second call, according to the go-between, he said, “I hate Hillary. But I hate Trump more. Trump can’t win.” He wanted her in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania “instead of being down with Beyonce in Miami.” Six weeks before the election he was talking to Jake Sullivan directly about fixing the deplorables line.
I was on the left for one election cycle and never got within a phone call of Jake Sullivan. I got an NPR tote bag. Vance’s office says a lot of people asked him for advice in 2016, which I believe, because nobody has ever asked me. He also left the whole thing out of “Communion,” the conversion memoir he published in June. I worked in digital marketing, so I understand. You save the best material for the sequel.
Nobody Bought JD Vance, and I Have the Dates
Steve Schmidt read the story about Vance and the Clinton campaign and called JD “a kept man” and “a bought man.” As a former Democrat, I know how they operate. When Hillary took $675,000 for three speeches to Goldman Sachs in 2013, I called it a speaking fee, because I was on her side at the time.
And the dates clear him. Peter Thiel’s first $10 million went into a super PAC for JD in March 2021, and JD didn’t go on Fox to say “I regret being wrong about the guy” until July. Nobody can buy a conversion that hasn’t happened yet. Don Jr. and Bettina put it best in their statement about the Bahamas: “Generosity doesn’t automatically come with an agenda. And sometimes a wedding gift is simply a wedding gift.” Sometimes a super PAC is simply a super PAC.
The president explained conversion better than anybody, at a 2022 rally in Youngstown: “Yeah, he said some bad things about me, but that was before he knew me, and then he fell in love.” He said the same thing about Kim Jong Un. I’ve never been in better company.
My Conversion Was Never for Sale
JD called Peter Thiel’s 2011 talk at Yale “the most significant moment of my time at Yale Law School.” Mine came from a barista making $11 an hour. Since then I’ve given my testimony at nine church basements, two county party dinners, a gender reveal and a boat dealership in Round Rock, and not one billionaire has been in the room. My booking page has a rate card ($350, negotiable) and a box you can check to have the testimony adjusted for your audience. Nobody has checked the box. My old friends called me a sellout on Facebook in 2021, which was premature, since nobody had bought anything.
The midterms are six weeks out, and the polls are what they are. My convictions haven’t moved an inch since the barista, and the Obama sign in my garage is there for sentimental reasons.
It’s still in the plastic.
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