The Atlantic Republishes Vance’s 2016 Op-ed on Trump in Attempt To Drive Wedge Between Them

The Atlantic republished Vice President JD Vance’s 2016 op-ed on Trump, ten years to the day, in a obvious attempt to drive a wedge between the President and the man widely considered to be his successor.

Vance’s op-ed ran on 4 July 2016, a few days after the publication of his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. The 2016 election campaign was in full swing, and Vance still worked for Peter Thiel’s venture-capital firm Mithril.

The magazine said it was republishing the article “on the occasion of its tenth anniversary, so that our readers can judge for themselves how well his assessment of the man he now serves as vice president has stood the test of time.”

Vance said Americans were turning to Trump as a “pain reliever,” referring to him as “cultural heroin.”

He said many supporters of the MAGA movement would eventually realize Trump was not the answer to their problems.

“Trump is cultural heroin,” he wrote.

“He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.”

The Atlantic claims that “one day” is now “today.”

THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY, while still quite dangerous, is also collapsing, cracking under the weight of its own choices. The main driver is the economy, which he sold as his strong point. We’re seeing tariff-driven price increases, gas prices that spiked from less than $3 to more than $4 a gallon during a 100-day war against Iran that America lost, wages failing to keep pace with the cost of living, and inflation ticking back up. Manufacturing jobs, which Trump promised to bring roaring back, are still being lost. Health care has gotten much more expensive on his watch, and millions have lost coverage.

“At the top of the nation’s health agencies sits Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who in a single year moved to cut the list of recommended childhood vaccines nearly in half, fired the government’s vaccine advisers and replaced them with skeptics, and presided over the worst measles outbreak in 30 years. The National Institutes of Health, the crown jewel of American biomedical science, has seen billions in research cut, clinical trials canceled, and labs closed, resulting in a “brain drain” that rival nations are racing to exploit. And the dismantling of USAID, along with the gutting of PEPFAR—the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the bipartisan AIDS-relief program credited with saving more than 25 million lives—has, by credible estimates, already cost the lives of hundreds of thousands, most of them children, with projections of as many as 14 million more by 2030 if the cuts hold.

“Americans are deeply divided and intensely polarized, with pessimism at or near a multidecade high. Faith in nearly every major institution—government, the press, universities, religious leaders—sits at or near the bottom of the modern record.

“It’s no surprise, then, that Trump’s approval rating is anemic. (In one recent poll, it’s down to 30 percent.) His remaining support is soft, while the unhappiness with him is intense. Republican members of Congress are beginning to break with him. His MAGA base is fracturing. Former stalwart supporters, such as Tucker Carlson, are openly mocking the president. (“Shut up, bitch! I don’t take you seriously,” Carlson said 10 days ago.) Trump looks weak and lost, a husk of a man still performing the same routine to a crowd that is drifting toward the exits. The country is finally waking to the comedown Vance predicted.”

Vance once described himself as a “never Trump guy,” and said to a friend he went “back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.” 

Vance’s success with Hillbilly Elegy, which sold three million copies, helped propel him to a Senate seat in Ohio.

He has acknowledged his earlier opposition to Trump and said his views changed when he saw Trump’s actions in office.