"Asked specifically about Mr. Trump’s election fraud lies, which [J.D.] Vance has at times promoted, the senator again shifted into slippery explainer mode."

"'I think it’s very easy for folks in the press to latch onto the zaniest election fraud or stolen election theories and say, "Oh this is totally debunked,"' he said. 'But they ignore that there is this very clear set of institutional biases built into the election in 2020 that — from big tech censorship to the way in which financial interests really lined up behind Joe Biden. People aren’t stupid. They see what’s out there,' he said. 'Most Republican grass roots voters are not sympathetic to the dumbest version of the election conspiracy. They are sympathetic to the version that is actually largely true.' Except that, as evidence of what is 'actually largely true,' Mr. Vance pointed to a 2021 Time article detailing a bipartisan effort not to advance a particular candidate but to safeguard the electoral system. More important, the 'dumbest' version of the stolen election conspiracy is precisely what Mr. Trump and his enablers have been aggressively spreading for years.... Mr. Vance may want to believe that most Republicans are too smart to buy such lunacy, but he is too smart not to recognize the damage to American democracy being wrought by that lunacy."

Writes Michelle Cottle, in "What Is J.D. Vance’s Angle?" (NYT).