{"id":6648,"date":"2022-05-23T08:00:43","date_gmt":"2022-05-23T12:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=6648"},"modified":"2022-11-12T11:21:25","modified_gmt":"2022-11-12T16:21:25","slug":"j-d-vance-replacement-theory-and-the-2022-u-s-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2022\/05\/j-d-vance-replacement-theory-and-the-2022-u-s-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"J.D. Vance, Replacement Theory, and the 2022 U.S. elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>he horrific massacre of ten African-Americans in Buffalo, New York by white supremacist Payton Gendron has drawn renewed media attention to the so-called \u201cwhite replacement\u201d theory that Gendron cited as motivation for his attack. Replacement theory<\/a> is the idea that whites will one day be erased or overtaken by non-white people. Replacement theory was popularized at the Charlottesville, Virginia \u201cUnite the Right<\/a>\u201dfar-right rally and torch march of 2017 by preppy fascists chanting \u201cJews Will Not Replace Us.\u201d It is woven through the white nationalist rantings of Anders Breivik<\/a>, Brenton Tarrant<\/a>, and Dylann Roof<\/a>, which inspired Gendron\u2019s own 180 page hate-filled manifesto. Replacement theory has become an important but quick-fix substitute for deeper analysis of the crosscurrents of capitalist disaster-making that toxify<\/a> our current political moment.<\/p>\n

\"Sign
Part of an anti-racist campaign after the Charlottesville march in 2017. Photo<\/a> by anokarina.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A harrowing and legible emblem of those currents is the recently victorious Republican Senate nomination campaign of J.D. Vance. <\/a> Vance is from Middletown, Ohio, approximately 400 miles from the Gendron holocaust, but in every way a predictive poster-boy for its bloody horrors. Widely known as the author of the best-selling book Hillbilly Elegy<\/em>, a memoir of his working-class upbringing, Vance, like Gendron, has traveled far in a short time to notoriety. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq and graduating from Yale, Vance made a fortune<\/a> as a tech capitalist investor before his recent run for the Senate in Ohio. Once a candidate, Vance embraced whole hog the politics of Donald Trump, courting voters with pledges to reduce immigration, complete construction of Trump\u2019s border wall, punishing China for \u2018stealing\u2019 U.S. jobs and capital, vehemently attacking abortion rights, slamming COVID-19 restrictions, and endorsing Trump\u2019s idea of a stolen election in 2020. For his efforts, the man Vance had in 2016 sardonically called \u201cAmerica\u2019s Hitler\u201d gave him the endorsement that pushed him over the edge to victory.<\/p>\n

Vance now stands poised to become the most visible and telegenic electoral face of the extreme far-right<\/a> in the United States. Indeed, he has become Fox News Host Tucker Carlson\u2019s hot house darling, appearing on his show no less than 15 times in the past two years and announcing his recent Senate run there. Carlson is of course famous for peddling on a nightly basis the \u201cgreat replacement\u201d theory that helped spur Gendron to the Buffalo massacre. Vance in turn regularly references and tweets Carlson\u2019s Fox rants.<\/p>\n

If J.D. Vance is the man who now wants to \u201cmake American great again,\u201d what made J.D. Vance? The answer lies in another story of U.S. replacement. Middletown, Ohio was the birthplace of the steel producer, American Rolling Mill Company (Armco). From 1899 to 2006 it expanded to operations and changed its operating name to AK Steel. In 2006, after a long period of declining profits, AK Steel began a lockout of about 2,700 workers<\/a> at its Middletown plant after it refused to pay a contract minimum negotiated with the local Armco Employees Independent Federation. Within a day, about 1,800 managers and replacement workers had taken their jobs. In 2007, Ak Steel signed an agreement with the Union paying more than $7 million in response to five lawsuits.. Along the way, AK Steel reached a settlement<\/a> to compensate for polychlorinated biphenyl contamination in middle Ohio including cleanup work estimated to cost $12-13 million dollars.<\/p>\n