‘Somehow it’s fundamentally racist:’ JD Vance can’t understand why his racist anti-Muslim comments are deeply racist
Senator JD Vance’s recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast revealed his calculated, ongoing rhetorical strategy that frames xenophobia as intellectual discourse. As he and Rogan trafficked in wild xenophobic conspiracy, Donald Trump’s running mate expressed bewilderment at being called racist while explicitly advocating for excluding people based on their “backgrounds” from entering America.
“That starts getting real weird,” Rogan told Vance. “When you have people openly saying our goal is … to outbreed everyone who is not Muslim.”
“Scares the hell out of me,” Vance replied. “That’s what to me is so crazy…about some of the hyper left-wing reaction. Where you see actual religious tyranny is increasingly in Western societies where you’ve had a large influx of immigrants who don’t necessarily assimilate into Western values but try to create, I think, a religious tyranny at the local level.”
“Somehow it’s fundamentally racist to say, well, we don’t want certain people of certain backgrounds to be in the United States of America,” Vance said, deploying air quotes around “racist” while promoting discriminatory immigration policies. Rogan did not oppose the disqualifying comments in any meaningful way.
The Ohio senator’s comments build on a historically established pattern of positioning bigotry as rationality. During the vice presidential debate, he dismissed Ph.D. economists’ completely reasonable and fact-checked critiques of Trump’s “concept” of an economic plan by claiming they “don’t have common sense, and they don’t have wisdom.” This rhetoric attempts to elevate and intellectualize gut feelings over actual expertise.
Vance’s podcast appearance centered on stoking fears about Muslim Americans, suggesting “actual religious tyranny” emerges in Western societies with Muslim immigrants. He seconded Trump’s travel ban on majority-Muslim countries, pledging to run it back as soon as he can.
The senator’s rhetorical technique mirrors a nasty historical precedent: wrapping prejudice in rhinestone-encrusted pseudo-intellectual packaging. In positioning himself as a clear-eyed pragmatist—in juxtaposition to the bizarro firebrand that is Trump—battling overeducated elites, Vance attempts to legitimize xenophobia through faux-academic framing. He is a hop and a step away from going back to measuring skulls to assess intelligence.
His “common sense” appeals deliberately sidestep factual discussion. When addressing immigration, Vance asked rhetorically about certain immigrants: “If the answer is we don’t benefit, then why would we bring them into the country?” The word-salad framing presupposes discrimination as logical while avoiding evidence-based debate—which is the deeper point of Vance’s angle in fake intellectualism.
The strategy also proves particularly insidious as it presents bigotry as reasonable skepticism. Vance’s comments frame Muslim Americans as inherently threatening and, therefore, reasonably ripe for public scapegoating while throwing his hands up and positioning himself as merely asking uncomfortable questions. He portrays anti-Muslim sentiment as practical concern about “religious tyranny at the local level.”
This rhetorical sleight-of-hand— in recasting racism as a devilish realism—provides intellectual cover for discriminatory policies. By positioning his ‘expertise’ as a sort of grounded layperson elitism and prejudice as buttoned-up pragmatism, Vance attempts to make bigotry palatable to mainstream discourse. It sounds only just smart enough for his base to understand, which is all that he cares about.
The senator’s disingenuous confusion at being called racist while promoting racist policies reveals either the most absolutely profound cognitive dissonance to exist or calculated bad faith. Either way, his “common sense” serves as bad window dressing for the same old prejudices, now zip-tied to academic-seeming rhetoric that attempts to legitimize discrimination through pseudo-intellectual framing.
Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com
