VP Vance’s Splinter Problem

Peloni:  It is a worrying reality that so many of the Republican establishment have moved to close ranks around Tucker Carlson as his campaign of promoting the normalization of Jew Hatred has had so much success.  Yet, while political talking heads on the Right are in large numbers failing to directly chastise Carlson’s antisemitism, for VP Vance to adopt such a reckless and inexcusable position is a far more threatening reality, as he is not only a very significant contender for the 2028 Republican primary, but he also stands only one heartbeat away from the presidency in his current position as vice president.  America has developed a very serious antisemitism problem, both within the youth, but also within the leadership of both sides of the political aisle.  While it has become commonplace and systemic throughout the Left, Jew Hatred speaks through the talking heads of the likes of Carlson on the Right and has a growing presence, normalizing Jew Hatred as was once the situation on the now entirely rabid Jew Hating Left.  Only by addressing this problem openly, directly, courageously and without condition might the Right rid itself of this rank cancer which is growing among its adherents.  Failing to do exactly this, something which Vance has yet to do himself, will see the poison of Jew Hatred continue to consume the American Right as it did with the Left.  The lack of credible leadership failed the American Left due to their lack of moral fortitude.  Is this to be paralleled within the American Right as well?

by Joan Swirsky | The Post Email | ©2025

Image via AI

At one time in my life, I was an operating-room nurse, both participating in and witnessing the things that just about every person on earth can’t stand to think about.

So, I can say with some authority that splinters in particularly sensitive areas of the body––often the kind that happen when sitting on a fence––can cause significant discomfort. And removing them requires a recovery period that involves quite a bit of post-op pain.

Metaphorically speaking, VP JD Vance has been sitting for quite a while on a splintery fence, trying to camouflage his dislike of Jews and Israel with fancified language, while at the same time, none-too-subtlety affirming the thinking and virulent attitudes of the most malignant anti-Semites in our current body politic. A dramatic example is his utter failure to condemn the ongoing––indeed, daily––manic rantings of Tucker Carlson, who appears to have been born again as a rabid Jew- and Israel-hater.

In several recent incidents in which Carlson’s blatant Jew hatred was on display, VP Vance’s reaction was as bland as white bread. He didn’t want to take part in Republican “infighting,” he said. And when Politico exposed racist and antisemitic text messages sent by members of Young Republican clubs last month, VP Vance said that the repulsive behavior of these 20- and 30-year-old full-grown adults––many of them married and with children––were “what kids do.”

Similarly, Mr. Vance was thunderously mute after learning that his close friend, Mr. Carlson, was interviewed recently in Doha, where he claimed that Israel was “a completely insignificant country,” with “no resources” and … that the US has “no overriding strategic interest” in Israel, and then went on to ask: “What are we getting out of this? Nothing.”

ONE-WAY CLUELESSNESS

Mr. Vance––in a stunning display of political cluelessness––obviously thought that his waffling and double-talking––his fence-sitting––was working. But it wasn’t. And it didn’t take long for numerous media outlets, among them Newsmax.com,  The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), TimesofIsrael.com, et al, to start questioning what appeared to be a distinctly negative attitude toward both Jews and Israel.

This has been followed by somewhat of an avalanche of articles––from publications left, right and center––questioning not only Mr. Vance’s judgement and credibility, but also, by inuendo, his sanity!

• Leaders excusing antisemitism dig their own political grave | The Jerusalem Post
• J. D. Vance’s Bad Answer to an Anti-Semitic Question – The Atlantic
• JD Vance’s Israel Tightrope Is Fraying | Perspective – Newsweek
• American conservatism and “the Jewish Question” by Melanie Phillips

In Why Jews know they can’t trust JD Vance anymore, writer Adam Scott Bellos opines that, “There are moments in politics when a man’s silence is louder than anything he has ever said. JD Vance has reached that moment.”

“For months now,” Bellos continues, “Jews who have long identified with the conservative movement — philanthropists, activists, donors, veterans of the Reagan, Bush, and Trump eras — have tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. We told ourselves he was new, that he was ‘finding his voice,’ that his flirtation with isolationist rhetoric and his awkward handling of antisemitism were simply missteps. But at a certain point, ambiguity becomes its own kind of message. And in 2025, ambiguity about antisemitism and Israel is not caution. It is complicity.”

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

I, for one, hope that the entire American electorate realizes that Mr. Hillbilly Elegy is deeply unfit for the U.S. presidency he aims for and, in fact, has brought shame to the august office of the vice-president by failing to condemn his famous and famously racist friend Tucker Carlson, whose entire career, it appears, is now committed to obsessively, even fanatically, vilifying, lying about, and condemning both Jews and Israel.

But VP Vance––who employs Carlson’s son as his Press Secretary––finds it difficult, actually impossible, to cut off his relationship with this colossal anti-Semite, in the same way, it is obvious, he would not cut off his relationship with a “friend” who used the “n” word every time he referred to a Black person or who used the expression “raghead” every time he spoke of a Muslim.

But he certainly wasn’t shy about lambasting Nick Fuentes, the Hitler-infatuated, Stalin-admiring political commentator when he called Vance a “race traitor” for marrying Usha Vance, a Yale-educated lawyer of Indian descent.

In fact, demonstrating yet another facet of his personality, VP Vance clearly rejected the King’s English when during a recent interview, he pronounced that, “Anyone who attacks my wife, whether their name is Jen Psaki or Nick Fuentes, can eat s***. That’s my official policy as vice president of the United States.”

Can you imagine the universal cringing that would take place if he was on an even bigger world stage than he has now blurting out such vulgarity?

But at the same press conference, VP Vance, clearly smelling the anti-Vance sentiment in the country, finally addressed the one form of bigotry about which he has had nothing to say. “Antisemitism and all forms of ethnic hatred have no place in the conservative movement,” he announced, somewhat robotically, as if the words were written for him and he had to spit them out, as he would after gargling, or perhaps more accurately, as he would after an acid-reflux episode.

IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK…

According to Jonathan Tobin, editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate, at the recent Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, AZ, VP Vance “had a chance to distinguish his national conservative vision from the views of Fuentes and Carlson, who seem to have a lot more in common with left-wing antisemites and anti-Zionists like New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani than with Trump or other conservatives these days.

“It wouldn’t have taken much to do so…. But he didn’t… by passing on a golden opportunity to draw a line in the sand between his ideas and those of right-wingers who share the left’s hatred for Jews, he’s telling us that he wants their votes.

“… Vance picked a side,” Tobin goes on. “And it was the one that did not seek to establish any limits that might exclude those who have articulated antisemitism or, like Carlson, are at war with the idea of a Judeo-Christian heritage, which is the foundation of political conservatism.”

PREPPING FOR THE PROCEDURE

It could be that Mr. Vance’s white-bread disclaimer about anti-Semitism is a signal that he is ready for a splinterectomy, ready to stop waffling and to start rejecting the florid racists in his own Party.

It could even be that he has already undergone the procedure and was able to attend Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest because the anesthesia had not fully worn off… or the pain medication had successfully kicked in.

We will only know if he stays the course, and we will also know by what he says and does if he scales that fence again and invites another bundle of splinters into his, um, body.

THE COMPETITION

With so many strong contenders for POTUS in the wings––Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, and possibly others––President Trump will have an easy choice if VP Vance gets back on that fence. He took a huge chance selecting him for VP in the first place, knowing that Mr. Vance spent years, according to Antonio Pequeño IV of Forbes Magazine, calling President Trump  “reprehensible,” “cynical” and privately suggested he could be “America’s Hitler.”

Adam Scott Bellos describes the ideal scenario for people who consider the American-Israeli relationship vital to our national security and the Trump-style support for Jews and Israel literally life-saving, especially since Jews all over the world are now weathering the greatest pandemic of anti-Semitism since the 1930s and 1940s when Hitler’s deadly Holocaust murdered fully one-half of the Jews in the entire world.

“What the Jews need from JD Vance is not perfection,” Bellos writes. “We do not need him to memorize every Israeli talking point or endorse every policy of any government in Jerusalem. We need something far more straightforward and far more foundational: We need to know that the man who may soon lead the Republican Party does not see Jews and the State of Israel as a problem to be ‘managed’ in his coalition — but as allies central to his vision of America.”

Joan Swirsky is a New York-based journalist and author. Her website is www.joanswirsky.com, and she can be reached at joanswirsky@gmail.com.