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How JD Vance sees the world - and why that matters

Discussion in 'News from the UK, Europe and the rest of the World' started by John Surrey, Mar 12, 2025.

  1. John Surrey
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    John Surrey Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    Not a popular guy at the moment but Interesting stuff...

    Seems to be clear about where he's coming from:

    [Using] his debut on the international stage to berate close US allies about immigration and free speech, suggesting the European establishment was anti-democratic. He accused them of ignoring [regarding immigration] the wills of their people and questioned what shared values they were truly banding together with the US to defend.

    Not only is he a former "Never Trumper" who described the US president in 2016 as "reprehensible" and "an idiot" , his book places much of the blame for the plight of the rural poor squarely on the choices made by individuals.

    More recently he's shifted that blame to elites – a group he's variously defined as Democrats, conventional Republicans, liberals, corporate leaders, globalists and academics.

    In Vance's view, the Trump administration's priority should be to make life better for Americans who have been in the country for generations, and yet have little of the nation's vast wealth.

    Vance's thinking arises from a belief that "moderate normie Republicans… failed to offer anything to stop the so-called forever wars, and they also failed to offer anything to ordinary Americans like where he comes from, who are suffering economically from globalism and from the effects of mass migration and fentanyl".


    Most or all of which I find easy to agree with... especially bloody Europe who should have listened to ordinary people regarding immigration (if they had I suspect the UK would still be in it), invested more to defend their own borders and not gone down the route of pandering to every bloody LGBTQ minor group etc. etc. etc.
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2025
    John Surrey, Mar 12, 2025
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  2. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Open question to all of you on this forum, who are these elites, define what you think qualifies someone as a member of 'the elite'.
    oss, Mar 12, 2025
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  3. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    I think Vance and Trump are both buffoons and not worth trying to unpack their views.
    Doing this would make our brains as addled as theirs!
    What a sh&t-show the government of the USA has become.
    aposhark, Mar 12, 2025
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  4. John Surrey
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    John Surrey Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    Today's "elite" encompasses various groups with significant wealth, power, and influence, including government leaders, financial experts, tech innovators, and top corporate executives, who control resources and shape policies.

    It's fluid but normally refers to those who hold considerable power and influence within society.
    John Surrey, Mar 12, 2025
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  5. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    I'll wait and see if anyone else replies.
    oss, Mar 13, 2025
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  6. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Yeah so the rest of you don't want to define 'elite'.

    It's used to denigrate anyone that any faction wants to disagree with, you want to hate a scientist call them 'elite', you want to hate a politician call them 'elite', you want to hate a lawyer call them 'elite', you want to hate an artist call them 'elite' you want to hate a freedom fighter call them 'elite', you want to hate anyone supporting sexual freedom call them 'elite', you want to hate anyone fighting for women's rights call them 'elite'.

    Let's be honest the 'elite' is anyone that disagrees with you, that earns more than you, that want's more fairness than you think people should have, that wants to save the planet from climate change, anyone who maybe thinks that the world would be a better place if we helped each other rather than kicking the sh*t out of each other, anyone who suggests that people in other countries should have a fair shot at accessing the world's resources.

    It's a nice big amorphous word that can be bent to whatever your prejudice happens to be.

    Let me be clear, I am not using the word 'you' pointing at any of you here on this forum but I'm asking you to at least think about the way this word is used in social media and in public discussion, the left wing and the right wing both use it and it means totally different things to people in both groups.

    Meanwhile those with genuine money and those with genuine power use it to keep you all blaming each other and never blaming them, they own your minds through their media.
    oss, Mar 15, 2025
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  7. John Surrey
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    John Surrey Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    I think wiki's answer is better :like:

    btw - I couldn't get on the site yesterday was there some kind of outage ?
    John Surrey, Mar 15, 2025
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  8. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    No outage that I'm aware of.

    The Wikipedia definition is not the general usage of the word that I grew up to understand, in my naivety as a youth I was not very politically minded I would have taken the word to mean the best of the best.

    The Wikipedia definition is basically saying 'Aristocracy'.

    My post above is about the corruption of the word, it's not being used in the sense of 'political elites' it's being used to demonise and isolate, to divide and conquer, to destroy fact based reality.

    I just heard Maria Ressa state that 'when there is no fact based reality, the only kind of government that can survive is dictatorship' and I agree.

    'Elite' is just one of the many reality distortion terms in use right now, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, right wing blogging and podcasts and other so called social media have one job and only one, bend and destroy reality sell dozens of different distorted fake realities to anyone who will listen and as Maria Ressa also said and I'm paraphrasing 'what do you call a group of people with 20 different realities.....An Insane Asylum'.
    oss, Mar 16, 2025
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