Kent County in western Michigan is anchored by Grand Rapids and it's the fourth most populous county out of 83 in the state. (Yes, that is too many fucking counties.) Byron Center is a suburb of Grand Rapids, just 20 minutes from downtown, not some rural enclave. You'd have to be a vapid couchfucking clown to pretend otherwise.
So, of course, JD Vance, the vice presidential candidate and Yale Law School's most embarrassing grad since Samuel Alito, acted like he was out in a field in the ass-end of nowhere, which does exist in Michigan, but without easy access to a decent airport. Vance was there to give a speech to the extremely white locals (the town is like 95% white) sitting outside at a trucking company. And by "speech," I mean, "bitching about bullshit."
Vance, who always sounds like a smug asshole trying to talk so the yahoos understand what he's saying, blathered about allegedly horrific damage done to places like Byron Center by the Biden/Harris administration: "Byron Center has been cast aside, and a lot of places in this country have been cast aside by America’s ruling class in Washington D.C. Now, politicians come into places like Michigan. They say nice things, but they crush our industries, they offshore our jobs, and they undercut American wages with illegal labor. You, my friends, have been betrayed."
Betrayed how exactly? The unemployment rate in Kent County is 4%. It's one of the lowest in the state, ranking sixth out of, once again, 83 counties. The median income in the county is $77k. The poverty rate is 10%, lower than the state or the country. The population is growing there and expected to keep growing. Home ownership is at 75%. And all of those trends have improved or stayed steady during the Biden administration. So what the fuck is Vance even talking about? And what the fuck were the gathered white people clapping for? Oh, wait. There has been an uptick in the number of immigrants, and the population is getting more diverse. That must be the fucking nightmare.
By the way, Kent County went for Biden in 2020, 52 to 46 percent. He won Grand Rapids by over 30 points. He's the first Democrat to win by a margin that big there since LBJ. Obama won by just 2000 votes in 2008.
Since Vance is running with Donald Trump, a man for whom the truth and reality are as sacred as wedding vows, of course he lied continuously. Here's what the gopher-looking motherfucker said about electric vehicles and battery manufacturing: "[Harris] supported these EV mandates that taxed you, took your money, and sent it to electric vehicles that are made in China instead of made right here in the state of Michigan, destroying thousands of Michigan auto jobs in the process. And it’s not just the car jobs themselves. Y’all know this. It’s the carburetors. It’s the transmissions. It’s the people who are making the components. They are the ones who suffer when Kamala Harris sends your tax dollars to Chinese-made cars." Just to put on my perfesser hat for a hot sec, the way the end of that is stated makes it sound like carburetors and transmissions are suffering, which is, yeah, weird.
But, see, the Biden administration (and, sorry, Harris is not president right now) is helping Michigan get massive investment from companies so that, according to one analysis, the state will be one of three that will "dominate" EV battery manufacturing by 2030. The state has received billions of dollars from the Inflation Reduction Act and from auto corporations. There have definitely been some bumps along the way (as there always are), not the least of which is Republican antagonism to electric vehicles, as if there's something anti-American and un-manly about them. No, they don't go "vroom." But the future is going to involve EVs, and you're either ready for that future or you can go fuck yourself into poverty with your carburetor.
Also, being Trump's mate means that everything your opposition does is either the worst thing in the history of everything or it's a hoax of some sort. Beardy Buzzkill here said, "When she does these rallies and does these events and does these fake dances, remember that there are parents who lost their children to drugs or violence who will never see their children move again, much less dance again." Honestly, that's like some asshole on social media who says, "Yeah, but what about climate change?" when you post that you had a good time with your husband this past weekend. And, for fuck's sake, Trump enters every Nazi rally of his by doing the double hand-job boogie, waddling like a walrus on a floating dock, and the gathered Nazis cheer like he's Simone Biles doing her floor routine. That's a fake fucking dance.
The bitterness that Vance and Trump have towards Harris is stunning, like they're insulted that they have to run against a non-white woman. Vance went on, "Everything about her campaign is fake, a fake joy that comes from being promoted to a new position, instead of using the position you already have to do your job and make the lives of the citizens of this country better. It’s a fake ticket that never earned a single Democrat primary vote. It’s a fake platform that offers no specifics about how to do the people’s businesses, and a fake promise to change the government." You know, it takes a level of self-delusion that approaches psychopathic to call anyone or anything "fake" when you are running for office alongside someone who has been found, multiple times, to have committed actual fucking fraud.
In the entire speech, Vance put forward almost no policies while criticizing Harris for running on slogans instead of policies. The idea that was just, well, weird was that the way to control inflation is to stop printing so much money. No, really: "We ought to do is stop printing trillions of dollars that we don’t have and sending it to China. We should keep our money right here at home, build in America, buy in America, manufacture in America, and that gives Americans the wages necessary. But it also means that you’re not printing a bunch of money, which makes our dollar more and more worthless." Yes, money has been printed at a higher rate (which doesn't necessarily mean actually making more bills, but releasing...you know what? Google that shit) but that's because the world relies on the dollar and needs more dollars. To say it's a major factor in inflation is just one of those things you put out there because stupid people understand it (not to mention that inflation is way down now).
This was in answer to a question (from the Epoch Times, so fuck them generally) that was simple: "What other steps besides drilling can the Trump-Vance administration take to lower those grocery prices for people?" Other than not printing more money, Vance had nothing. Not a single goddamn idea. I mean, shit just got embarrassing when he was asked by a local reporter what the Trump campaign would do in Kent County specifically to get votes and his answer was, more or less, "Fuck all." He really replied, "We think, look, the entire state of Michigan is important, right?" And then he talked about how they want votes in Detroit so they're working more there, which is always what someone in Grand Rapids wants to hear. One topic that he avoided was women since everything he says about women is some Handmaid's Tale-level oppression and subservience.
JD Vance is a fucking empty-headed weirdo, to be sure. But he's also an arrogant, preening dipshit desperately attempting to sound smart, folksy, and tough, like Trump without whatever panache we used to ascribe to Trump. He's the gleeful fuck toy of billionaires (or putative billionaires), and he seems to relish the role of trying to be as cruel and dismissive of any opposition as Trump is, all while attempting to act like he gives a damn about other humans.
But, goddamn, he's so fucking transparent about it that everyone can see right through him.
