{"id":2846,"date":"2026-07-12T04:11:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T04:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=2846"},"modified":"2026-07-12T04:11:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T04:11:02","slug":"did-jd-vance-just-attack-meritocracy-and-milton-friedman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=2846","title":{"rendered":"Did JD Vance just attack meritocracy and Milton Friedman?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

I\u2019ve been worried about JD Vance because of the Tucker Carlson connection (and I\u2019ll explain why this isn\u2019t just guilt by association). I worried that the Iran Deal, which I know was meant to be a placeholder, was still an exceptionally lousy deal. And now I\u2019m even more worried, having just learned that Vance seems to be abandoning the concepts of the free market and meritocracy.<\/p>

Read more They like it like that: Drug fueled homeless encampments set to grow in New York and Los Angeles<\/a><\/p>\n

I used to be a big Tucker Carlson fan. When he appeared on the Fox News show, he was Mr. Normal American, offering takes that aligned\u00a0with what most Trump voters felt. And I, like so many people, was horrified when Tucker, unleased from Fox News, went to the dark side, a place of love for foreign tyrants like Putin and Qatar over America, and one oozing fetid antisemitism.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019ve noticed since Tucker went to the dark side is that a lot of his favorite guests went to the dark side, too, joining him in his love for tyranny, his disdain for America, his Islamophilia<\/em><\/strong>, and his antisemitism: Candace Owens (of course), Joe Kent, Glenn Greenwald, Jimmy Dore, Megyn Kelly (a fellow Fox News host more than a guest), etc. You can just imagine them laughing in the green room before the show, telling each other nasty anti-American and antisemitic jokes.<\/p>\n

Of course, not all of Tucker\u2019s regular guests have followed him to perdition. Victor Davis Hanson has frequently expressed his gratitude for his chance to be on Tucker\u2019s show, while voicing bewilderment about Tucker\u2019s current turn and clearly disassociating himself from the man Tucker has become. Others, such as Douglas Murray, Ben Shapiro, Ted Cruz, and Mark Levin, have broken with Tucker, too, often expressing far stronger disdain than the gentle Hanson for Tucker\u2019s fall from grace.<\/p>\n

Oh, there was one other regular guest, a man whose public profile was boosted by his repeated appearances on\u00a0the most popular cable news show\u00a0in America. That man, of course, is JD Vance. He was always an impressive guest, so when Trump chose Vance as his Veep, I felt as if I were getting a known quantity. Now I wonder.<\/p>\n

One of the things Vance hasn\u2019t done is reject Tucker. I don\u2019t expect him to make an ugly, public break with Tucker, given how Tucker boosted his career. What I do expect from Vance is a Hanson-style statement that gives thanks to \u201cpast Tucker,\u201d while politely disassociating from \u201ccurrent Tucker.\u201d But again, he hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the Iran Deal that Vance negotiated. I always understood that the deal was a placeholder, meant to buy time so that oil prices dropped, the military could replenish its supplies, Israel and America could again geolocate top leaders in Iran for targeted strikes, and the 60-day clock on the (probably unconstitutional) War Powers Act would reset. It was Kabuki, and in that way, it worked.<\/p>\n

But the problem was that, in PR terms, it was lousy Kabuki because it made Trump and America look weak. Maybe Vance was given marching orders to do a bad job, in which case he fell on his sword, and I guess he gets kudos. But I can\u2019t help but think that Vance might not have been up to the task\u2014and I won\u2019t forget how nasty he was to Israel during the process, an unnecessary act that seemed like a sop to the Tucker crowd…or maybe a window into Vance\u2019s actual views.<\/p>\n

And now, there\u2019s one more bad coin in the \u201cI\u2019m worried about Vance\u201d coin jar I\u2019m beginning to fill: his apparent hostility to the free market. He seems to be inching toward George W. Bush\u2019s disastrous compassionate conservatism, which is a form of soft socialism:<\/p>\n

\n

In Vance\u2019s interview last week with The Daily Wire, he sounded much more like a Mitt Romney, big-government RINO than a Trump or Ronald Reagan.<\/p>

Read more Dallas Fed finds that illegals are behind 30 percent of home price spikes<\/a><\/p>\n

[snip]<\/p>\n

\u201cMilton Friedman\u2019s ideas made more sense in the 1980s because they were being advocated in a country that still had a very rich and powerful institutional Christianity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at modern Britain and the result of Margaret Thatcher\u2019s policies, you would say that her policies actually got Britain further away from that ideal and not closer to that ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that meritocracy can steal from us a sense of what really, really matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Donald Trump ran for president the first time, the idea of tariffs on imported goods was a heresy in the GOP. It is now the baseline position that virtually every Republican politician adopts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you turn economic development (i.e., prosperity) into a sort of idol, then you end up sacrificing a lot of the things that matter most.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerican economic policy on the right is now much more Alexander Hamilton than it is Milton Friedman. I think that\u2019s obviously a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

No. No! NO!!<\/em><\/strong> That\u2019s how the RINOs and Dems got us into this mess, after the robust economic growth of the Reagan years. Compassion comes from individuals. Whenever the government gets into the job of \u201ccompassion\u201d over meritocracy and the free market, we end up with bloated government programs, massive fraud, and less wealth and individual liberty.<\/p>\n

I respect Vance\u2019s impressive life story, his service to this country, and his intelligence. But for me, he\u2019s on probation. I just don\u2019t trust him anymore.<\/p>

Read more Platner may be gone, but the new leftist Democrat party remains<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

YouTube screen grab (cropped).<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been worried about JD Vance because of the Tucker Carlson connection (and I\u2019ll explain why this isn\u2019t just guilt by association). I worried that the Iran Deal, which I know was meant to be a placeholder, was still an exceptionally lousy deal. And now I\u2019m even more worried, having just learned that Vance seems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[659,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jd-vance","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nDid JD Vance just attack meritocracy and Milton Friedman? - Interstate Logistics Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=2846\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Did JD Vance just attack meritocracy and Milton Friedman? - Interstate Logistics Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve been worried about JD Vance because of the Tucker Carlson connection (and I\u2019ll explain why this isn\u2019t just guilt by association). 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