In 2017, civil-rights advocacy site American Renaissance reviewed JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy. Vance at the time was a Randian and #NeverTrump. Vance subsequently crossed the Tiber. Now Anxious Bench is crossposting Daniel Williams on that case.
This trajectory makes a sight more sense than the Vox Day / Charles C Johnson / Etsy narrative that Vance is a closeted homosexual. It may be fair to say that Vance gave up on American and generally Western women. The 2021 "cat lady" clip would be of a piece with that. Vance simply went and found a nonWestern woman. I don't think that makes him gay.
Now, whether Vance be a gamma - that bears more scrutiny. Hillbilly Elegy notes that when a boy is alone in what Americans laughably call a school system, he's prey - or at least he feels like prey all the time. This causes havoc with hormones, especially adrenaline. You ever watch Grandma's Boy? The senior programmer there is a gamma parody. He is still a twelve year old bullied boy with all those instincts.
Vance tried to overcome his "factory settings". He served in the Marine Corps and got out honorably. Mind you, not reverting to gamma will always be a struggle.
A couple points follow. How Vance can appeal to the same American women who treated him like dirt when he was growing up, now grown into peak voting-age, remains a problem for his ticket's chances. Which is why the media is playing this up.
I'm more interested in how Catholicism can fix the gamma. It cannot hurt to affirm, as the secret king, Saint Mark's Christ - and not you. Intellectually, Vance had reached to Rene Girard, who's not a bad place to start (I'd suggest further the creeds' move toward dyotheletism). More worrying - to me - Vance seems to envy and distrust "elites" in a way I really don't. Although there are some elite-supported policies which are terrible and Vance is correct both to oppose those policies and to confront their supporters.
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