From a questionnaire J.D. Vance gave to nominees seeking Senate confirmation as ambassadors, quoted in "Leaked memo shows J.D. Vance’s anti-woke ideology on foreign affairs/Trump’s VP pick froze dozens of ambassador nominations over issues like gender transition care and diversity hiring, offering a glimpse into his anti-establishment views" (WaPo).
Vance, a Midwest native and best-selling author of the memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” has said the Iraq War played a formative role in the development of his worldview. He was in high school during the 2003 invasion and decided to enlist in the Marines because he “believed the propaganda of the George W. Bush administration that we needed to invade,” he said in an April speech on the Senate floor. After deploying, he realized that the architects of the war had “lied” and the “promises of the foreign policy establishment of this country were a complete joke,” he said.
Vance brought that suspicion of the establishment into his discussions about ambassadors with Biden’s senior aides....
Vance accused [Stephanie S. Sullivan, a career diplomat chosen to be Biden’s envoy to the African Union] the former ambassador to Ghana who had overseen an embassy that flew the Pride flag, of being “woke” and promoting a “progressive social policy” on gender identity. “Why do we have a diplomatic corps that is taking a hotly contested issue in an American political context and demanding the African nations follow the lead of the far-left instead of doing what they think that they should do?” he said in remarks on the Senate floor....
ADDED: I'm just focusing on the phrase — in the WaPo headline — "his anti-establishment views." Are traditional values now considered "anti-establishment"? Notice that Vance wasn't talking about foisting his traditional values on others but only on how our country should interact with people in cultures that embrace traditional values. He was, apparently, concerned about our foisting our values on them. It's hard to see why that sensitivity is "anti-establishment." Is The Washington Post so devoted to LGBTQ values that it takes it as a given that these values are the "establishment"?
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62 comments:
Good question.
The United States of Buttinsky.
Anti establishment? Fuck you lazy bastards…
The woke man's burden.
Gosh. Showing common sense and respect for other cultures living their own lives is suggested to be radical.
Displaying the 'Pride' flag in a nation that does not recognize it, when you are a diplomatic guest of that nation is considered doing great work for The Cause.
Frankly, very few people in America deny LGBTQ rights (did I leave off 2 spirit?...darn). However, I think a majority of Americans are pretty tired of Pride parades, Pride flags, Pride candy bar wrappers, Pride athletic wear, etc., etc. Even in this country, enough is enough. But to impose our illness on other countries?
Vance will make a great Veep. No more word salads. You'll know where we stand.
And the problem with this is what exactly? What I am reading is why are we not respecting the countries we expect to foster relationships with moral standards.
Fuck, yeah!
JD is The Man.
Career diplomat = Deep State asset
Well, here is the thing- you don't approve ambassadors who are going to piss off the the countries to which they have been assigned. You wouldn't (or shouldn't) appoint Sam Brinton or Rachel Levine to Saudi Arabia, for example. And you don't fly the rainbow flag there either.
I keep saying that a Trump led America may find itself joining the BRICS. This is further proof of that sentiment.
Because the left does not see these issues as “hotly contested” in America.
We have embassies in countries where they beat women to death for showing their ankles in public; where it's "cultural" for men to systematically rape little boys; where caste systems permit slave-like treatment of the lower classes. We're there for diplomatic reasons. But by all means, let's make everything about Pride flags.
An ambassador is supposed to promote American national interests in a foreign country. Whatever promoting the alphabet agenda is, it's not promoting our national interests.
In the contest to become a U.S ambassador, second prize is a set of steak knives.
Yes! Quit exporting our gay race communism!
It's an interesting issue, the conflict between realpolitik vs. idealpolitik, both of which by themselves seem to be an ineffective and also dangerous way to manage our foreign policy.
I don't think that the United States should pretend that we don't have certain principles simply because it might offend the host country. But I also don't think we have to be provocative about it, especially if it interferes with achieving our primary goals in our relationship with that particular country. But then I guess that's the issue, what are those primary goals?
I take it Senator Vance won't be invited to speak at the George W Bush presidential library anytime soon.
I guess we should check in with Tractor Supply and John Deere on this. They seem to have resolved this.
China has slavery. African nations have albinophobia which is empathetic with the Rainbow and perhaps political congruence. Many nations share liberal values with progressive sects including the wicked solution, Diversity, etc. America trades on labor and environmental arbitrage to sustain its welfare state, Green deals, etc. Pride parades are a clear and progressive threat to black lives that matter on the savanna.
"If confirmed, how would you explain to them what the United States' promoting 'human rights for LGBTQ people' would look like in their country?"
First of all, our country should be promoting all human rights in all countries, not just LGBTQ. And lots of luck promoting LGBTQ rights in places like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, etc. (Yancey Ward and Tina Trent beat me to it, but it bears repeating.)
Social progressives should be a little more gay and less transgender. #HateLovesAbortion
That said, civil unions for all consenting adults. #NoPoliticalCongruence
America promoted pedophilia and grooming under Biden in Afghanistan. #NoJudgment #NoLabels #LoveWins
Social progressives and liberals share Levine's Dreams of Herr Mengele.
Liberals export Planned Parenthood and other wicked solutions globally.
Woke, ethical, and morally broke. Lose your Pro-Choice religion.
If the would-be ambassadors answered the question truthfully, it would sound something like this: "I don't know and I don't care. The reason my party likes to insert these woke pronouncements into official government policies and mission statements is simply to appeal to the mawkish sentiments of suburban white liberals in this country. As for the real-world consequences that would follow from actually trying to put them into practice in a serious way, who gives a fuck?"
As was shown in the previous month, even business that support Pride month draw the line of that support in countries that do not support it. It is a reasonable question to ask. If you still think it is a good thing to promote, then defending that viewpoint should be easy.
The U.S. and western secular left is so provincial that they forget the vast majority of the world believes in and worships a supreme being. The Book of Mormon musical runs nightly in New York City, soliciting audience amusement and laughter at the story of pokey, quaint American Mormon missionaries heading out to teach African tribes about Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon.
(BTW, where is the LDS Church currently experiencing its largest rate of growth, or one of its largest? Africa.)
Maybe a bit early, but my wife - mostly apolitical - watched the RNC, and intends to watch the DNC (as much as what will be televised and edited) said during JD Vance's speech, paraphrasing: 'this looks like the 2028 president'.
America used to say, look at our example, follow our system and your children will also be happy and prosperous.
Now America says, follow our system and your children will also be free from oppressive gender roles.
Gender (i.e. sex-correlated attributes) denial therapy. Diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgments, class bigotry). The world is unimpressed with secular demagoguery.
"'this looks like the 2028 president'."
For heaven't sake, let's get through this election first!
Seriously, it is kind of fun to think about 2028 - I'm a Ron DeSantis supporter myself, but I know that there's just no way to predict. In January 2021, I would not have thought that Donald Trump would be the GOP candidate for President in 2024.
I'm reminded of two things, first a comment that some US ambassador supposedly heard from some country's official, "when we talk to China we get an airport, when we talk to the United States we get a lecture."
Second:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdrvpSfJM1w
Sorry but I don’t see how that question is anti-LGBQXYZ. Seems like he is probing how an Ambassador might handle a difficult question on a potential point of friction between the U.S. and the country they are assigned to.
It's really hard for the class that contains these ambassadors and their staff members to see, but Vance instinctively sees the contemptuous nature of their approach. This is invisible to the perpetrators, which is 98% of Vance's point. We can see it too, but it is still completely ungrasped by a large percentage of WaPo readers. They are mostly teachers and thought leaders put here to guide the ignorant (that's us) out of the wilderness.
But, I repeat myself. This is tiresome, but must be repeated for the few who still do not see.
Remember, if Joe Biden is elected, the world will respect us again.
Are traditional values now considered "anti-establishment"?
Yes. Isn’t that sort of the point Brooks was getting at in the post where you Fisked him yesterday?
Is The Washington Post so devoted to LGBTQ values that it takes it as a given that these values are the "establishment"?
The Post has always viewed itself as a presenter of the Democrat establishment views to the public — Democrats and unwashed knuckledraggers alike. This was true in 1969 when the US Army gave me orders to work in Washington, DC, and they became my local newspaper, and Ben Bradlee’s personal friendship with JFK meant that this attitude dated back to 1959, if not earlier. What’s changed is that they’ve evolved to a position where in their eyes the Democrat establishment is, and rightly ought to be, the United States establishment.
Go, go, go Speed Racer!
And of course he is anti-establishment, I've stated this previously on this blog, the reason Trump was even a viable candidate in 2016 is because the US two party system stopped working in the way that was described to me lo those many years ago in high-school civics.
If a large enough group of voters believe that their concerns aren't being addressed by the political establishment then eventually one of the two parties will try to address them in order to gain those votes. Ordinary middle and working class voters have lots of concerns that were not being addressed. However, neither party seemed to give a shit. Hillary and other leading Democrat party figures pooh poohed their concerns and/or just called them *ist bigots and fools. The Republican party pretended to care, but never actually accomplished anything (failure theater) and in reality backed the policies that were driving working and middle class wages down. This was happening way before Trump entered politics. (Tea party anybody?) Trump recognized that there was a huge block of votes that could be gained by addressing those concerns. Maybe because of his entrepreneurial skills, maybe because he his old enough to have gotten some decent high school civics lessons. Either way, the current establishment is going to be unestablished. A world has changed, a huge political realignment is happening. The titular head of the Democrat party is suffering from dementia and the Democrat party relies on street violence and massive voter fraud to retain power. These are not the signs of a healthy political party. In addition, the Republican party is picking up votes from groups that previously were almost all Democrat voters. And the Republicans, for once are reaching out to those groups.
"Are traditional values now considered "anti-establishment"?"
Yes. Good catch.
"He was, apparently, concerned about our foisting our values on them."
Which is what progs opposed to "imperialism" say out of one side of their mouth.
"It's hard to see why that sensitivity is "anti-establishment.""
Logically, it's hard. But progs don't do foolish consistency. They do whatever they want--preach respect for the Other one moment, impose wokeism abroad the next. Good on Vance to force the contradiction.
I was already gonna vote for him. They don't have to keep selling me.
Isn't it a bad thing to push blatantly for US global hegemony? Wasn't that a liberal value-respect other cultures?
Original Mike said...
Remember, if Joe Biden is elected, the world will respect us again.
7/20/24, 8:55 AM
The adults are in charge!
Not fatal to JD’s larger points, but in the interest of pedantry, Hinduism recognizes a third gender:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia)
(Won’t we ever fly the Pedantry Pride flag at our embassies? It’s like the Thin Blue Line flag, but with a red editor’s pen instead of the blue stripe….)
JSM
Over the decades I've done agricultural development work and consulting on five continents, and am comfortable in many of the languages of those regions, which do not include any part of Asia or the middle east, and only Morocco of the Muslim world.
My experience is that in all those areas people are generally tolerant of the same-sex thing, as in mostly leave them alone, so long as they don't attempt to promote their lifestyle. They are not uncommonly mocked, especially in Latin America -- and US Democrats have made an immense error in assuming Latinos will vote for them after perhaps the first generation. Latinos tend to be fiscally somewhat liberal, but socially conservative, and the Dems have gone WAY too far.
The fact of the matter is that most people in the world reject social liberalism. Even *western* Europeans agree on abortion restrictions more strict than those involved in Dobbs.
The core problem is that American "progressives" are so ingrown, isolated, and psycho-schlerotic that they believe themselves to be Mainstream. when they are tragically far from it, even within America, let alone in the rest of the world.
I agree with mezzrow at 8:54. How did the Pride Flag help us in Kabul?
We hold these truths to be self evident: It's wrong to beat women, fuck little boys and amputate the labia and clitoris of little girls. The gay pride flag is somewhat less self evident. It might even fall into the camp of something like cultural imperialism.
The normal position would be to tolerate Gay sex, not celebrate it.
"Anti-woke?" "Anti-establishment?" Seriously? These mediaswine are so caught up talking to each other that they can't understand the foreign policy significance of the question. Or perhaps they do, but the demon doesn't care.
Almost nobody cares if they come out of the closet so long as they don't come out of their front door and parade it down Main Street. And what's with the "pride" thing? What, Mommy's so proud of you for discovering and playing with your peepee but not knowing how it's actually supposed to work?
Yeah, let's make that a primary strategic goal of our international diplomacy.
He’s operating under the bigger question: WTF is our State Department doing promoting any lifestyle BS? They are supposed to carry out official diplomatic duties and assist Americans abroad.
I'm a boomer so maybe my POV is influenced by that but I thought the "establishment" meant whoever is in charge, whoever has the power to mandate societal norms. And in the USA the current power structure does promote the LGBTQ agenda, at least to the extent that this agenda includes overt indications of acceptance, e.g., Pride Month, etc.
That would be why JD Vance's concerns about promoting the LGBTQ agenda in other countries would be anti-establishment.
He’s operating under the bigger question: WTF is our State Department doing promoting any lifestyle BS? They are supposed to carry out official diplomatic duties and assist Americans abroad.
doctrev said...
I keep saying that a Trump led America may find itself joining the BRICS. This is further proof of that sentiment.
It is becoming apparent that the divisions in the world are no longer associated with lines on the map.
I think that the ability to near instantly communicate with anyone in the world has boiled this down and blurred the borders of countries.
We are forming social contracts and reaching consensus more and more as a world community.
The real division now is between people who want centralized power and those who want decentralized governance.
The first group is more motivated and organized. The second group is more numerous.
“Is The Washington Post so devoted to LGBTQ values that it takes it as a given that these values are the "establishment"?”
Of course. Wokeism is now the official established religion of the country. The establishment clause, along with free speech and all the other nonsense in that silly First Amendment, are outmoded relics of the obsolescent white male patriarchy.
I’ve spent my entire career surrounded by progressives. They are siloed away in a vacuum chamber that continuously echos progressive messages. Of course WaPo believes that LGBT (insert addition degenerate sexual practices you wish) rights are mainstream and part of the establishment, because that is all they hear 24/7. They are never exposed to the contrary view, so it must not exist. And if a contrary view was expressed it would be immediately denounced, and the author of such evil would be cancelled and banished.
Before the adoption of traditional values, the established religions celebrated transgenderism, pedophilia, sadomasochism, human rites, redistributive change, etc. It wasn’t until the advent of contemporary religions that these practices became taboo, but now the social conservatives in the woke of liberal divergence are pursuing progress to reestablish the ancient sects. One step forward, two steps backward.
It is a key characteristic of the bug-eyed lefties that they are not content to hold their own views and incorporate them into their individual lives, they insist that the rest of us must incorporate their views into our lives [and thank them profusely for the guidance].
Scratch a leftie and you'll find a tyrant screaming to get out.
- Krumhorn
Is The Washington Post so devoted to LGBTQ values that it takes it as a given that these values are the "establishment"?
Yes, yes it is
I've been thinking about "the establishment" a bit this week. For most of the years that I've had a hobbyist's interest in foreign affairs, there have been two "serious" publications that more or less presented the foreign policy views of the establishment.
Foreign Policy predominantly lined up with the establishment Left, while Foreign Affairs was more centrist and often presented a conservative views quite fairly, in my opinion. (WaPo and FP used to be part of the same publishing group, while FA is published by the Council on Foreign Relations.)
Foreign Affairs used to be a place for relatively sober analysis, even if I disagreed with it often enough. Now it seems to be in a panic. Among its headline articles this week (paywalled):
The Imperial Presidency Unleashed: How the Supreme Court Eliminated the Last Remaining Checks on Executive Power
For the Rest of the World, the U.S. President Has Always Been Above the Law: Americans Will Now Know What a Lack of Accountability Means
The Palestinian Authority Is Collapsing: Helping It Recover Is the Only Way to Save the Two-State Solution
If this is how the more neutral/conservative side of the foreign policy establishment is looking at things today, we have a lot of work to do.
I don't get it. That seems like a normal question to ask.
Now I read all the other comments. Ah. I'm in the chorus.
I think that exactly this sort of situation is what Larry Summers is referencing in this now famous Tweet.
JustSomeGuyToo said...
I was already gonna vote for him. They don't have to keep selling me.
Yep.
a lot of countries see the gay pride movement not as saying let gays marry and settle down, but to let rich gay tourists exploit local poor kids, and although laws against sexual exploitation of students and employees are rarely enforced, at least it is seen as being wrong.
When this happens to girls, well, it is considered as a type of concubinage, and under tribal law, you can sue the guy to support the child conceived...but when it happens to a powerless and usually heterosexual boy, rage results.
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