Former President Donald Trump announced anti-LGBTQ U.S. Senator JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his 2024 running mate in a Truth Social post on Monday, the same day Trump officially became the Republican Party's presidential nominee this year.
Vance was also officially nominated by the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday, shortly after Trump's announcement.
A political neophyte who was first elected in 2022 thanks to Trump's endorsement, Vance once compared the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to Adolf Hitler, also calling him "cultural heroin" and "an opioid of the masses."
The Ohio senator's journey from critic to acolyte was cemented over the weekend.
After Trump walked away from an assassination attempt and both of the major candidates said it was time to turn down the rhetoric, Vance went further than many on the right and directly blamed President Joe Biden and his campaign for the gunman's actions.
"The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs," he wrote on X. "That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination."
It has since come out the gunman, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was a registered Republican who three years ago gave $15 to a progressive political action committee, the Associated Press reported.
Log Cabin Republicans were pleased with Vance's selection.
"Incredible pick!" the conservative LGBTQ organization wrote on X. "Log Cabin Republicans are FIRED UP to elect [President Donald R Trump] and JD Vance. Make America Great Again!"
Ric Grenell, a gay man who served as an ambassador during Trump's first term, was also excited about the selection.
"@JDVance1 is the living example of the American dream," Grenell wrote on X. "His story gives everyone hope that this is the land of opportunity."
As the San Francisco Chronicle noted, Vance lived in San Francisco after graduating from Yale Law School in 2013, and worked in the Presidio close to the Golden Gate Bridge as a venture capitalist at gay Republican Peter Thiel's Mithril Capital Management. Vance first shot to national stardom with the publication of his "Hillbilly Elegy" in 2016 about his childhood in southern Ohio and Kentucky.
It was pretty clear Vance, 39, would be Trump's selection after it was reported earlier that the two other favorites, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, were informed they would not be chosen as Trump's running mate.
On Threads, gay Congressmember Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), was critical of Vance's selection.
"JD Vance is an extremist with views that are completely outside the mainstream," he wrote. "The fact that he immediately politicized the assassination attempt against former President Trump and blamed Democrats is shameful. There couldn't be a more irresponsible pick."
Two other LGBTQ organizations and advocates issued statements on Monday blasting Trump's vice president pick.
"Donald Trump has been a bully for years — and his pick of MAGA clone JD Vance is a reminder that nothing has changed. This is anything but a unity ticket," Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson stated.
"We are not simply choosing between two campaigns. We are choosing between two fundamentally different visions of America. One, with Trump and MAGA 'yes man' JD Vance at the helm, where our rights and freedoms are under siege. And the other, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris leading the way, where we are advancing toward freedom and equality for all," she added.
"Everything is at stake and the contrast could not be clearer. We must defeat Trump, Vance, and their brand of chaos and division, and send Joe Biden and Kamala Harris back to the White House," stated Robinson.
In a news release, HRC listed some of the ways in which Vance has denigrated LGBTQ people.
GLAAD, meanwhile, has a lengthy entry for Vance in the GLAAD Accountability Project. Positions, statements, and actions by Trump's running mate that were noted by the two organizations include:
His endorsement of the "groomer" slur against Democrats for their support of LGBTQ people,
His statement "strongly disagree[ing]" that LGBTQ people should be protected from discrimination,
His opposition to the Equality Act, which would federalize and codify LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination protections,
His anti-abortion rights views, including opposition to exceptions to abortion restrictions for victims of rape and incest and opposition to IVF,
His introduction of a bill to charge health care providers with a felony for providing medically necessary health care to transgender youth,
His statement that he would have voted "no" on the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified federal protections for married same-sex couples and was supported by a dozen GOP senators,
His defense of Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) for appearing at a white supremacist conference with host Nick Fuentes, who has spread racist, antisemitic, and anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theories, and
His claim, a week before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that Biden was risking war with Russia because President Vladimir Putin doesn't believe in trans rights.
The Bay Area Reporter contributed reporting.
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