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      Peter Thiel, the Right’s Would-Be Kingmaker

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      The wine flowed. Donald Trump Jr. mingled with the guests. And Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire and host of the event, had a message for the well-heeled crowd: It was time to clean house.The fund-raiser at Mr. Thiel’s Miami Beach compound last month was for a conservative candidate challenging Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming for a spot on the ballot in November’s midterm elections. Ms. Cheney, one of several Republicans who had voted to impeach President Donald J. Trump on charges of inciting the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, was the face of “the traitorous 10,” Mr. Thiel said, according to two people with knowledge of the event, who were not authorized to speak publicly. All of them had to be replaced, he declared, by conservatives loyal to the former president.Mr. Thiel, who became known in 2016 as one of the biggest donors to Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, has re-emerged as a key financier of the Make America Great Again movement. After sitting out the 2020 presidential race, the venture capitalist this year is backing 16 Senate and House candidates, many of whom have embraced the lie that Mr. Trump won the election.To get these candidates into office, Mr. Thiel has given more than $20.4 million. That essentially puts him and Kenneth Griffin, the chief executive of the hedge fund Citadel, in a tie as the largest individual donors to Republican politics this election cycle, according to the nonpartisan research organization OpenSecrets.What sets Mr. Thiel’s spending apart, though, is its focus on hard-right candidates who traffic in the conspiracy theories espoused by Mr. Trump and who cast themselves as rebels determined to overthrow the Republican establishment and even the broader American political order. These campaigns have raised millions in small-dollar donations, but Mr. Thiel’s wealth could accelerate the shift of views once considered fringe to the mainstream — while making himself a new power broker on the right.“When you have a funder who is actively elevating candidates who are denying the legitimacy of elections, that is a direct assault on the foundation of democracy,” said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at the left-leaning group New America, who studies campaign finance and hyperpartisanship.The candidates Mr. Thiel has funded offer a window into his ideology. While the investor has been something of a cipher, he is currently driven by a worldview that the establishment and globalization have failed, that current immigration policy pillages the middle class and that the country must dismantle federal institutions.Mr. Thiel has started articulating his thinking publicly, recently headlining at least six conservative and libertarian gatherings where he criticized the Chinese Communist Party and big tech companies and questioned climate science. He has taken issue with what he calls the “extreme dogmatism” within establishment institutions, which he said had sent the country backward.At an October dinner at Stanford University for the Federalist Society, he spoke about the “deranged society” that “a completely deranged government” had created, according to a recording of the event obtained by The New York Times. The United States was on the verge of a momentous correction, he said.“My somewhat apocalyptic, somewhat hopeful thought is that we are finally at a point where things are breaking,” Mr. Thiel said.Mr. Thiel, 54, has not publicly said what he believes about the 2020 election. But in Mr. Trump, he sees a vessel to push through his ideological goals, three people close to the investor said. The two men met recently in New York and at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla. Mr. Thiel also funded an app company run by John McEntee, one of Mr. Trump’s closest aides, two people with knowledge of the deal said.Unlike traditional Republican donors who have focused on their party’s winning control of Congress and the White House, Mr. Thiel has set his sights on reshaping the Republican agenda with his brand of anti-establishment contrarianism, said Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist.“I don’t think it’s just about flipping the Senate,” said Mr. Bannon, who has known Mr. Thiel since 2016. “I think Peter wants to change the direction of the country.”How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.Mr. Thiel’s giving is expected to make up just a small fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars that are likely to flow through campaigns this cycle. But the amounts he is pouring into individual races and the early nature of his primary donations have put him on the radar of Republican hopefuls.In the past, many courted the billionaire Koch brothers or Sheldon Adelson, the late casino magnate. This year, they have clamored for invitations to Mr. Thiel’s Los Angeles and Miami Beach homes, or debated how to at least get on the phone with him, political strategists said.Mr. Thiel personally vets the candidates he gives to, said three Republican strategists, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation. In addition to Harriet Hageman, the challenger to Ms. Cheney, he is backing Joe Kent and Loren Culp, both of whom are running against House Republicans in Washington State who voted to impeach Mr. Trump. He also gave to a political action committee associated with Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who is not up for re-election this year. More

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      Republicans Step Up Attacks on Fauci to Woo Trump Voters

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      G.O.P. candidates, tapping into voters’ frustrations with a seemingly endless pandemic, are stepping up their attacks on Dr. Anthony S. Fauci.COLUMBUS, Ohio — When Jane Timken kicked off an eight-week advertising campaign on the Fox News Channel in her bid for the Republican nomination for Senate, she did not focus on immigration, health care or the economy. Her first ad was titled “Fire Fauci.”Her target — Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser for the coronavirus — is also under attack in Pennsylvania, where Mehmet Oz, a television doctor who has entered the Republican Senate primary there, calls him a “petty tyrant.” Dr. Oz recently ran a Twitter ad calling for a debate — not between candidates, but between him and Dr. Fauci.In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis released an advertisement last month telling Dr. Fauci to “pound sand” via the beach sandals the governor’s re-election campaign is now selling: “Freedom Over Fauci Flip-Flops.” In Wisconsin, Kevin Nicholson, a onetime Democrat running for governor as a conservative outsider, says Dr. Fauci “should be fired and referred to prosecutors.”Republican attacks on Dr. Fauci are not new; former President Donald J. Trump, irked that the doctor publicly corrected his falsehoods about the virus, called him “a disaster” and repeatedly threatened to fire him. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, has grilled Dr. Fauci in nationally televised hearings, and Dr. Fauci — true to his fighter-from-Brooklyn roots — has punched back.But as the 2022 midterm elections approach, the attacks have spread across the nation, intensifying as Dr. Fauci draws outsize attention in some of the most important state and local races on the ballot in November.The Republican war on Dr. Fauci is partly a sign of Mr. Trump’s strong grip on the party. But Dr. Fauci, both his friends and detractors agree, has also become a symbol of something deeper — the deep schism in the country, mistrust in government and a brewing populist resentment of the elites, all made worse by the pandemic.And Dr. Fauci, whose perpetual television appearances have made him the face of the Covid-19 response — and who is viewed by his critics as a high-and-mighty know-it-all who enjoys his celebrity — seems an obvious person to blame.Dr. Anthony S. Fauci has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 and has advised eight presidents. He has never revealed a party affiliation. Tom Brenner for The New York Times“Populism is essentially anti: anti-establishment, anti-expertise, anti-intellectual and anti-media,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist, adding that Dr. Fauci “is an establishment expert intellectual who is in the media.”For the 81-year-old immunologist, a venerated figure in the world of science, it is a jarring last chapter of a government career that has spanned half a century. As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a post he has held since 1984, he has helped lead the response to various public health crises, including AIDS and Ebola, and advised eight presidents. He has never revealed a party affiliation. President George H.W. Bush once cited him as a hero..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Now, though, some voters are parroting right-wing commentators who compare Dr. Fauci to the brutal Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Candidates in hotly contested Republican primaries like Ohio’s are trying to out-Trump one another by supplanting Speaker Nancy Pelosi with Dr. Fauci as a political boogeyman. Mr. DeSantis has coined a new term: “Faucism.” In Washington, lawmakers are taking aim at Dr. Fauci’s salary, finances and influence.“I didn’t make myself a polarizing figure,” Dr. Fauci declared in an interview. “I’ve been demonized by people who are running away from the truth.”The anti-Fauci fervor has taken its toll on his personal life; he has received death threats, his family has been harassed and his home in Washington is guarded by a security detail. His standing with the public has also suffered. In a recent NBC News Poll, just 40 percent of respondents said they trusted Dr. Fauci, down from 60 percent in April 2020.Still, Mr. Ayres said, Dr. Fauci remains for many Americans “one of the most trusted voices regarding the pandemic.” In a Gallup poll at the end of 2021, his job approval rating was 52 percent. On a list of 10 officials, including Mr. Biden and congressional leaders, only two scored higher: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Jerome H. Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.Republican strategists are split on whether attacking Dr. Fauci is a smart strategy. Mr. Ayres said it could help rev up the base in a primary but backfire in a general election, especially in a swing state like Ohio. But John Feehery, another strategist, said many pandemic-weary Americans viewed Dr. Fauci as “Mr. Lockdown,” and it made sense for Republicans “to run against both Fauci and lockdowns.”Here in Ohio, Ms. Timken, a Harvard graduate and former chairwoman of the Ohio Republican Party who promises to “advance the Trump agenda without fear or hesitation,” is doing just that. Her ad shows a parent struggling to put a mask on a screaming toddler, which she brands “child abuse.”Ms. Timken is one of at least three Republican candidates for Ohio’s Senate seat who are going after Dr. Fauci.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThe spot, she said in an interview, was prompted by what she hears from voters who are resentful of vaccine mandates, confused by shifting public health advice and tired of being told what to do.“It taps into the real frustration they feel,” Ms. Timken said, “that Fauci claims to be the bastion of science, but I think he’s playing God.”She is one of three candidates with elite academic credentials who are going after Dr. Fauci in a crowded primary for the seat that Senator Rob Portman, a Republican, is giving up. The others are J.D. Vance, a lawyer with a Yale degree and the author of the best-selling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” and Josh Mandel, the former Ohio state treasurer, whose law degree is from Case Western Reserve University.Mr. Vance called Dr. Fauci “a ridiculous tyrant” during a rally with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Republican banned from Twitter for spreading Covid misinformation. Mr. Mandel has railed against Dr. Fauci for months on Facebook and Twitter, calling him a liar and “one of the biggest frauds in American history.”Ohio Republicans are split between the Trump wing and centrists in the mold of John Kasich, the former governor. Those tensions were on display last week at Tommy’s Diner, a Columbus institution, and at a meeting of the Franklin County Republican Committee, which convened to vote on endorsements. Sentiments seemed to track with vaccination status.Mike Matthews, center, and George Wolf, right, are both vaccinated and didn’t find fault with Dr. Fauci. Andy Watkinson, at the table behind them, is unvaccinated and thinks Dr. Fauci “needs to retire.”Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesAt the diner, Republicans like Mike Matthews, a retired state worker, and George Wolf, a retired firefighter, both of whom voted for Mr. Trump, found no fault with Dr. Fauci. Both are vaccinated. “I’ve never heard of anyone that I would trust more,” Mr. Wolf said.But at the next table, Andy Watkinson, a remodeling contractor who is unvaccinated, said he was a fan of Joe Rogan, the podcaster, provocateur and Fauci critic. “I think he’s done the same thing for 50 years and he’s in bed with all the pharma companies,” Mr. Watkinson said of Dr. Fauci, though there is no evidence of that. “He needs to retire.”At the committee meeting, views about Dr. Fauci were more strident.“He needs to be brought up on charges,” declared Lisadiana Bates, a former business owner who is home-schooling her children. Echoing Dr. Robert Malone, who has become a conservative celebrity by arguing that Covid vaccine mandates are unethical experiments, she asserted that Dr. Fauci had “violated the Nuremberg Code,” the set of research ethics developed after the Holocaust.“This whole thing is nothing but an experiment!” Ms. Bates exclaimed.Lisadiana Bates, a former business owner who is home-schooling her children, asserted that Dr. Fauci had “violated the Nuremberg code,” the set of research ethics developed after the Holocaust.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThe roots of anti-Fauci campaign rhetoric can be traced to Washington, where Dr. Fauci has clashed repeatedly with two Republican senators who are also doctors: Mr. Paul, an ophthalmologist, and Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, an obstetrician.Mr. Paul has fueled speculation that Covid-19 was the result of a lab leak produced by federally funded “gain-of-function” research — high-risk studies aimed at making viruses more infectious — in Wuhan, China. Dr. Fauci and other National Institutes of Health officials have said that the Wuhan research did not meet the criteria for gain-of-function studies, and that it is genetically impossible for viruses studied there to have produced the pandemic.The nuances of that dispute, however, have gotten lost in the increasingly hostile exchanges between the two men. In July, after Mr. Paul accused him of lying to Congress, Dr. Fauci shot back, “If anybody is lying here, senator, it is you.” Last month, Dr. Fauci arrived at a Senate hearing brandishing a fund-raising webpage for Mr. Paul that included a “Fire Dr. Fauci” graphic, and accused Mr. Paul of exploiting the pandemic for political gain.Later in that same hearing, Dr. Fauci muttered under his breath that Mr. Marshall was “a moron” — a comment caught on an open microphone — after the senator posted Dr. Fauci’s salary on a placard and demanded his financial disclosure forms, suggesting he might be engaged in financial “shenanigans” with the pharmaceutical industry.(Dr. Fauci’s financial disclosure forms, which Mr. Marshall has since posted on the internet, show investments in bonds and mutual funds, not drug companies. He is paid an annual salary of $434,312 under a provision that allows government doctors and scientists to be highly compensated, akin to what they could earn in the private sector.)Dr. Fauci said he did not regret the “moron” remark, or the pushback against Mr. Paul. But Ms. Timken said calling Mr. Marshall a moron was “beyond the pale.”Even some Fauci fans in academia and government say he might have been better off keeping his cool to avoid amplifying his Republican critics and alienating voters who need to hear his public health message. Some suggest he lower his profile; he says the White House asks him to go on TV.“He’s been pushing back in a way that is not common for us to see for American scientists, and I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” said Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.If Democrats lose seats in the midterm elections, as many expect, Dr. Fauci may have a Republican-controlled Congress to contend with. Another Republican from Ohio, Representative Jim Jordan, who claims that Dr. Fauci knew the coronavirus “came from a lab,” has vowed that Republicans will investigate him if they win control of the House.Some of Dr. Fauci’s friends are urging him to avoid that possibility by retiring. He has been working on a memoir, but cannot look for a publisher while he is still a federal employee. Dr. Fauci says Republicans will not dictate the terms of his retirement, and he has no plans at the moment to step down. And, he said, he is not worried about any investigation.“I can’t think of what they would want to investigate except this whole pile of lies that they’re throwing around,” he said. More

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      Will Trump Undercut a Red Wave?

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      Former Senator David Perdue knows how to crash a party. When he announced that he would seek the 2022 Republican nomination for governor in Georgia, challenging the incumbent, Brian Kemp, he did more than enter a primary race. He illustrated the dangers facing the G.O.P. in the coming year.Georgia Republicans are divided over former President Donald Trump and torn between mainstream credibility and the conspiratorial fringe. Mr. Perdue — an ally of Mr. Trump — has made these divisions worse. The beneficiary? The Democrat Stacey Abrams.Republicans worry about internal strife and outlandish messages that turn off swing voters because everything else is going their way. The party did well in last month’s elections. President Biden’s low approval ratings endanger Democrats in Congress, where Republicans must net only five seats in the House and one in the Senate to seize control.Republican strength at the state level gives the party an advantage in drawing new maps of congressional districts, which will amplify their slim lead in the FiveThirtyEight estimate of the congressional generic ballot.Yet history shows how expectations can be thwarted. Republicans have experienced hopeful times before — only to have the moment pass. They believed that disapproval of President Bill Clinton’s conduct would expand their majorities in 1998. They ended up losing five House seats. They believed that Mr. Trump would rally the base to support two incumbent senators during runoffs in Georgia last January. They lost both seats and control of the Senate.Time and again, the biggest obstacle to a red wave hasn’t been the Democratic Party. It’s been the Republican Party.Republican victories in the midterms next year are far from preordained. Glenn Youngkin’s win in Virginia may be much harder to replicate elsewhere than it looked on election night. Republican leaders continue to fear Mr. Trump and his supporters, and they are divided over candidate selection, message and agenda. The result is a unique combination of external strength and internal rot: an enthusiastic and combative Republican Party that despite its best efforts may soon acquire power it has done nothing to deserve.It will be hard for the party to appeal to the suburban independents who decide elections, though Mr. Youngkin’s success suggests a path. He is the first Republican elected governor of Virginia in over a decade because of his emphasis on kitchen-table issues like rising prices and school closures. He ignored immigration, encouraged vaccination while opposing government mandates and stayed clear of Mr. Trump during the general election. He focused on parental involvement in education and planted himself firmly in the center-right of the political mainstream. When asked about a Trump rally where the Pledge of Allegiance was recited to a flag supposedly connected to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, Mr. Youngkin called it “weird and wrong.” One Republican senator joked in private that Mr. Youngkin had figured out how to hold Mr. Trump’s hand — under the table and in the dark.Other candidates won’t be as skilled or as lucky as Mr. Youngkin. Republicans lost winnable Senate seats in 2010 and 2012 because of flawed nominees like Sharron Angle in Nevada, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana. Past may be prologue if Republicans nominate Trump allies whose record or rhetoric are questionable and extreme. Last month, one Trump-endorsed candidate for Senate, Sean Parnell of Pennsylvania, suspended his campaign after he lost a custody battle against his estranged wife. The Trump endorsees Kelly Tshibaka of Alaska and Herschel Walker of Georgia are untested on the campaign trail. In races where Mr. Trump hasn’t yet endorsed, Blake Masters of Arizona, Eric Greitens of Missouri and J.D. Vance of Ohio may secure the MAGA base by forfeiting viability in the general election.Mr. Trump remains the central figure in the G.O.P. Party elites try to ignore him as he spends many days fighting Republicans rather than Democrats and plotting his revenge against the 10 Republican House members who voted for his second impeachment, the seven Republican senators who voted to convict him and the 13 House Republicans who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Mr. Trump targets his enemies with primary challenges, calls for “audits” and “decertification” of the 2020 presidential results and howls at Mitch McConnell for not being “tough.” His imitators within the party are a font of endless infighting and controversy, and they undermine the authority of the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy. Mr. Trump would have it no other way.The former president was content to keep a distance in this year’s races for governor. He won’t be so quiet next year — especially if he concludes that a successful midterm is a key step to his restoration to power in 2024. A more visible and vocal Trump has the potential to help Republicans in solid red states but doom them in purple or blue ones. Yet control of the Senate hinges on the results in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire — states Mr. Trump lost in 2020.Mr. Youngkin showed that a positive message attuned to middle-class priorities repels Democratic attacks. If Republicans campaign on a unified message that applies conservative principles to inflation, the border, crime, education and health care, they might be able to avoid being tagged as the party of extremism, conspiracy and loyalty to Mr. Trump. Their problem is that they have no such message.Mr. McConnell has reportedly told Senate Republicans that they won’t release an agenda before the midterms. He’s worried that specific proposals are nothing but fodder for Democratic attacks. What should worry him more are rudderless Republican candidates who allow their Democratic opponents to define them negatively — and then, if they still win, take office in January 2023 with no idea what to do.In an ideal world, more Republicans would think seriously about how best to provide individuals and families with the resources necessary to flourish in today’s America. They would spend less time attacking one another and more time offering constructive approaches to inflation and dangerous streets. They would experiment with a ranked-choice primary system that played a role in Mr. Youngkin’s nomination in Virginia and in the law-and-order Democrat Eric Adams’s win in New York City’s mayor’s race. Interested Republicans would declare today that Mr. Trump won’t deter them from seeking the presidency — reminding him that renomination is not guaranteed.But that’s not the world we live in. Republicans appear either unwilling or unable to treat the former president as a figure from the past whose behavior has done the party more harm than good. They take false comfort in the idea that midterm elections are “thermostatic,” the inevitable repudiation, climatic in nature, of the governing party. They assume they will win next year without doing anything of significance. And they may be right.Matthew Continetti is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of the forthcoming “The Right: The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      J.D. Vance Converted to Trumpism. Will Ohio Republicans Buy It?

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      As the “Hillbilly Elegy” author runs for Senate in Ohio, he has walked back previous criticism of Donald Trump and reversed arguments that the white working class bears responsibility for its problems.Before he was a celebrity supporter of Donald J. Trump’s, J.D. Vance was one of his most celebrated critics.“Hillbilly Elegy,” Mr. Vance’s searing 2016 memoir of growing up poor in Ohio and Kentucky, offered perplexed and alarmed Democrats, and not a few Republicans, an explanation for Mr. Trump’s appeal to an angry core of white, working-class Americans.A conservative author, venture capitalist and graduate of Yale Law School, Mr. Vance presented himself as a teller of hard truths, writing personally about the toll of drugs and violence, a bias against education, and a dependence on welfare. Rather than blaming outsiders, he scolded his community. “There is a lack of agency here — a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself,” he wrote.In interviews, he called Mr. Trump “cultural heroin” and a demagogue leading “the white working class to a very dark place.”Today, as Mr. Vance pursues the Republican nomination for an open Senate seat in Ohio, he has performed a whiplash-inducing conversion to Trumpism, in which he no longer emphasizes that white working-class problems are self-inflicted. Adopting the grievances of the former president, he denounces “elites and the ruling class” for “robbing us blind,” as he said in his announcement speech last month.Now championing the hard-right messages that animate the Make America Great Again base, Mr. Vance has deleted inconvenient tweets, renounced his old views about immigration and trade, and gone from a regular guest on CNN to a regular on “Tucker Carlson,” echoing the Fox News host’s racially charged insults of immigrants as “dirty.”When working-class Americans “dare to complain about the southern border,” Mr. Vance said on Mr. Carlson’s show last month, “or about jobs getting shipped overseas, what do they get called? They get called racists, they get called bigots, xenophobes or idiots.”“I love that,” Mr. Carlson replied.Whether Ohio Republicans do, too, is the big question for Mr. Vance — who will crucially benefit from a $10 million super PAC funded by the tech billionaire Peter Thiel, a Trump supporter who once employed Mr. Vance.His G.O.P. rivals in the state have had a field day. Josh Mandel, a former treasurer of Ohio who is the early front-runner in the five-candidate field, called Mr. Vance a “RINO just like Romney and Liz Cheney,” referring to the Utah senator and the Wyoming congresswoman who voted to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting the Capitol riot.Liberals and some conservatives have also dismissed Mr. Vance for cynical opportunism. One Never Trump conservative, Tom Nichols, wrote of “the moral collapse of J.D. Vance” in The Atlantic.Mr. Vance, a conservative author and venture capitalist, in 2017. He is running in the Republican primary to fill a Senate seat being vacated by Rob Portman.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesMr. Vance’s adherence to some of the most extreme views of Trump supporters shows how the former president, despite losing the White House and Congress for his party, retains the support of fanatically loyal voters, who echo his resentments and disinformation and force most Republican candidates to bend a knee.Yet Mr. Vance’s flip-flops over policy and over Mr. Trump’s demagogic style may not prove disqualifying with Ohio primary-goers when they vote next spring, according to strategists. Although Mr. Vance’s U-turn might strike some as too convenient in an era when voters quickly sniff out inauthenticity, it is also true that his political arc resembles that of many Republicans who voted grudgingly for Mr. Trump in 2016, but after four years cemented their support. (Mr. Vance has said he voted third-party in 2016.)“Will he be able to overcome his past comments on Trump and square that with the G.O.P. base? Maybe,” said Michael Hartley, a Republican strategist in Ohio who is not working for any of the Senate candidates. He added that Mr. Vance had the lived experience to address policies that lift working-class people “in a way that others cannot.”Mr. Vance, 37, who lives with his wife and two young sons in Cincinnati, has carefully seeded the ground for his candidacy, appearing frequently on podcasts and news shows with far-right influencers of the Trump base, including Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka.In interviews, speeches and on social media, he has become a culture warrior. He threatened to make Big Tech “pay” for putting conservatives “in Facebook jail,” and he mocked Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after the four-star general said he sought to understand “white rage” in the wake of the assault on the Capitol.To Mr. Vance, it is a “big lie” that Jan. 6 was “this big insurrection,” he told Mr. Bannon.In “Hillbilly Elegy,” Mr. Vance credited members of the elite with fewer divorces, longer lives and higher church attendance, adding ruefully, “These people are beating us at our own damned game.” But that was not his message at a recent conservative gathering where he blamed a breakdown in the American family on “the childless left.’’Mr. Carlson, Fox’s highest-rated host, all but endorsed Mr. Vance during the candidate’s appearance last month. Mr. Vance also has the backing of Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, a rising conservative leader in the House. And Charlie Kirk, the founder of the right-wing student group Turning Point USA, who has ties to the Trump family, has endorsed the “Hillbilly Elegy” author.“He has been consistent in being able to diagnose the anxieties of Trump’s base economically almost better than anyone else,” Mr. Kirk said in an interview. Although Mr. Vance once mocked Mr. Trump’s position that a southwest border wall would bring back “all of these steel mill jobs,” today he supports the “America First” agenda that reducing legal immigration will increase blue-collar wages, a link that many economists dispute. “Why let in a large number of desperate newcomers when many of our biggest cities look like this?” Mr. Vance said recently on Twitter over a picture of a homeless encampment in Washington.Mr. Vance’s flip-flops over policy and over Mr. Trump’s demagogic style may not prove disqualifying with Ohio primarygoers when they vote next spring.Jeffrey Dean/Associated PressMr. Trump has met with all five major declared Ohio Republican Senate candidates — who are seeking the open seat of the retiring Senator Rob Portman — but has not signaled a preference. He is not likely to do so any time soon, according to a person briefed on his thinking. Among Democrats, Representative Tim Ryan has the field nearly to himself. Ohio, once a battleground state, has trended rightward in the Trump era.Mr. Vance declined to be interviewed for this article. But an examination of his embrace of Trumpism through the ample record of his writings and remarks, as well as interviews with people close to him, show that it happened the way a Hemingway character famously described how he went bankrupt: “Gradually, and then suddenly.”The year 2018 appears to have been the turning point. That January, Mr. Vance considered a Senate bid in Ohio but ultimately decided not to run, citing family matters, after news reports brought to light his earlier hostile criticism of Mr. Trump.Later that year, the furious opposition on the left to the Supreme Court nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh was a milestone in Mr. Vance’s political shift. Mr. Vance’s wife, Usha, whom he met in law school, had clerked for Justice Kavanaugh. “Trump’s popularity in the Vance household went up substantially during the Kavanaugh fight,” Mr. Vance told a conservative group in 2019.Although Mr. Vance has said that he came to agree with Mr. Trump’s policies on China and immigration, the most important factor in his conversion, he told Mr. Gorka in March, was a “gut” identification with Mr. Trump’s rhetorical war on America’s “elites.”“I was like, ‘Man, you know, when Trump says the elites are fundamentally corrupt, they don’t care about the country that has made them who they are, he was actually telling the truth,’” Mr. Vance said.(His adoption of Trump-style populism did not inhibit him from flying to the Hamptons last month for a fund-raiser with Republican captains of industry, as reported by Politico.)Mr. Vance’s former employer, Peter Thiel, is supporting him with a $10 million super PAC in the Senate race.Doug Mills/The New York TimesFinally, the influence of Mr. Thiel, a founder of PayPal, whom Mr. Vance has called a “mentor to me,” appears to have been decisive in Mr. Vance’s embrace of Trumpism.An outspoken and somewhat rare conservative in Silicon Valley, Mr. Thiel addressed the 2016 Republican convention and advised the Trump transition team. He is a fierce critic of China and global trade and a supporter of restrictionist immigration policies, and Mr. Vance has moved toward all those positions. Mr. Thiel, who did not respond to an interview request, is also paying for a super PAC for another protege, Blake Masters, in a Senate race in Arizona.In March, Mr. Thiel brokered a meeting between Mr. Vance and Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s resort in Florida. Mr. Vance made amends for his earlier criticism and asked Mr. Trump to keep an open mind, according to people briefed on the meeting. If Mr. Trump were going to attack Mr. Vance — as he has other Republican 2022 candidates around the country whom he perceives to be disloyal — he probably would have done so already.For now, the former president’s appetite for revenge in Ohio seems to be sated by attacking Representative Anthony Gonzalez, a Republican who voted for impeachment in January. Mr. Trump held a rally in the state in June to back a primary challenger to Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Vance was on hand, sharing a photo on Twitter to show his support for Mr. Trump. More

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      The Author of 'Hillbilly Elegy' Is Running for Senate in Ohio

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      The author and venture capitalist will vie for the Republican nomination in one of the most wide-open 2022 Senate races.J.D. Vance, an author and venture capitalist whose best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” focused on the social and economic underpinnings of former President Donald J. Trump’s appeal to the white working class, said on Thursday that he would seek the Republican nomination for the Senate in Ohio.Mr. Vance, 36, enters the campaign as a well-known and well-financed first-time candidate facing an open field. The Republican incumbent, Senator Rob Portman, is retiring after two terms. The race is one of a few in next year’s midterm elections that could determine which party controls the upper chamber of Congress, which is now split 50-50.At his campaign kickoff event at a steel parts factory in Middletown, the city north of Cincinnati where he grew up, Mr. Vance made his backstory as a son of the Rust Belt central to his identity as a candidate.He spoke at length about his upbringing, including how his “mamaw” had “kept him on the straight and narrow” as a youth, before diving into his political pitch. He staked out populist positions on issues like inequality and Big Tech and more conservative ones on matters like immigration and abortion.“If you look at every issue in this country,” Mr. Vance said, “every issue I believe traces back to this fact: On the one hand, the elites in the ruling class in this country are robbing us blind, and on the other, if you dare complain about it, you are a bad person.”Mr. Vance will benefit from $10 million pledged toward his campaign by the billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Mr. Thiel was an early backer of Mr. Vance who hired him and later invested in the fund Mr. Vance now runs. But in the Republican primary, Mr. Vance will face a number of candidates who are well known in Ohio G.O.P. politics, including Josh Mandel, a former state treasurer, and Jane Timken, a former chair of the state Republican Party.Mr. Trump won Ohio twice by comfortable margins. Courting his voters — thousands of whom showed up for a rally he held last weekend outside Cleveland — will be crucial to winning a statewide Republican primary contest. Mr. Vance attended the event, Mr. Trump’s first since his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, but he did not speak there.After the 2016 publication of “Hillbilly Elegy,” Mr. Vance leveraged his fame into a part-time career as a fixture on the speaking circuit and as a media commentator. Lately, he has staked out a position among the more populist voices in his party who are targeting social media companies, China and the left wing of the Democratic Party.The arc of Mr. Vance’s short time as a quasi-political figure has followed the prevailing mood among Republican office holders since Mr. Trump won in 2016. At first, he was deeply critical of the former president, calling him “noxious” and saying he worried Mr. Trump was “leading the white working class to a very dark place.”But today Mr. Vance is a prolific tweeter and occasional Fox News guest who has adopted Trumpian culture war language, denouncing “wokeness” and calling for more restrictive immigration policies.His Republican opponents have already started dusting off his old anti-Trump statements as a way of suggesting that he is insincere and has lost touch with working-class Ohio.Mr. Vance today is in a much different place than the young man he describes in “Hillbilly Elegy,” who struggled to overcome adversity; a mother who had a long history with substance abuse; family members who could not control their anger; and opioid-addicted friends and neighbors.He served in the Marines, graduated from Yale Law School and joined Mr. Thiel’s venture capital firm. “Hillbilly Elegy” was made into a movie directed by Ron Howard that was released last year. More