The Gift That Keeps Giving

​And that can only mean that JD Vance is back.

But, honestly, did he ever really leave?

The day after Trump dissed him (being asked if Vance was ready to be president on Day 1, Trump not only didn’t say “Yes, of course,” which is the only requirement of a vice president, but instead didn’t answer the question at all and instead explained how unimportant the vice presidential candidate is in an election), Vance was asked if he thought Kamala Harris was Black.  And he not only didn’t answer the question and say “Yes, of course” (apparently this is a difficult answer for MAGOPs), but instead went on a rambling answer about how Kamala Harris lies and changes her personal story and changes who she is and is just a chameleon who we don’t really know.

Putting aside that Vance’s running mate has 30,000+ documented lies and Kamala Harris has long been completely upfront about who she is, JD Vance is not actually JD Vance.

No, really.

“JD Vance” was born James Donald Bowman.

He later changed his name to James David Hamel, after his mother married her third husband.

He then changed his name to a third incarnation, this time James David Vance, taking his grandparents name, before graduating from Yale. (However, when writing about it in his book, he lied and said it happened later, when he got married).

If one wants to stretch things further, he subsequently began going by JD Vance.  In fairness, that’s just shortening his name, though if we’re talking about slamming people for changing their identity, it’s a cousin.

But it goes further than that with “JD Vance”.

That’s because he wrote in his book Hillbilly Elegy about his Appalachian upbringing, given the sense of his youth growing up in the backwoods of Kentucky.  In fact, “JD Vance” was not born or grow up in Appalachia, his grandparents did, and then moved.  “Vance” (born Bowman) was born and grew up in a suburb of Cincinnati!  Now, yes, it was a poor and rough upbringing.  But it wasn’t the hills of Kentucky. And there are many people who grew up in poor, difficult, abusive environments, but that doesn’t make them from Appalachia.  And there are many millions of people whose grandparents were from other states and countries, and that doesn’t make their grandchild from there as their upbringing.  How much is "JD Vance" not actually from Appalachia?  There is actually a mocking phrase in Kentucky directed specifically at him.  It's "Ain't from here."  In fact, not long after Trump named him his VP pick, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear used it on camera --

​And it goes even further.  Because this is “JD Vance,” after all.

And that’s the fact – the reality – that as most people know by now, “JD Vance” is the person who said that Trump is “America’s Hitler” and that “I’m a Never Trump guy.  I never liked him” and then threw out his strongly held, personal beliefs and self-respect – tossed them all in the dumpster, poured on gasoline, and dropped a match to incinerate them, poof!” into oblivion -- and instead prostrated himself at the Trump altar, began fawning on Trump in total, all for political gain to become his partner, joined at the hip on the Republican ticket.

Honestly, I’m okay with a person changing their name, even multiple times, to put a difficult upbringing behind them.  And I’m okay, too, with someone distancing themselves from their past, though for a politician it makes it more difficult to understand their core values.  And I’m even okay with a person changing their beliefs, it happens as people grow – however, when a politician does it, not because their beliefs actually changed at all but solely for opportunistic political gain, it makes who they are empty.

But when a person attempts to slam another for being nothing more than a “chameleon,” always changing, not having any values – most especially when making such claims without merit -- and they themselves are the ones whose lives are a façade, then every question of their past is not only fair, but required.  And “JD Vance” has changed so much of his life that even chameleons would likely be so mortified they’d throw him out of the tribe.