"These people are kinda crazy" — JD Vance adds a "kinda" to Trump's "These people are crazy."

Trump:

 

JD:

 

Assess the difference "kinda" made:

How does JD's "kinda" — in calling people "crazy" — distinguish him from Trump? Check all that apply.

He's a gentler, sweeter man.

He's less decisive, less sure he's got it right.

He's not that tightly bound to Trump.

He prefers fuzzier speech.

He has reservations about using the concept of insanity.

He's maintaining a distinction from Trump for 2028 election purposes.

"Kinda" is just filler, like saying "um." It means absolutely nothing.

 

pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: The results:

An early effort in the 2028 presidential fight: it's George Will in the Washington Post against J.D. Vance.

I haven't read this piece yet. I decided to blog it based on the headline and the photograph, which I find ludicrously unsubtle:

Let's read it:

Spurning the rich subtleties of the English language, JD Vance has a penchant for words that he perhaps thinks display manly vigor, and express a populist’s rejection of refinement. In a recent social media post, he called someone whose posts annoyed him a “dipshit.” He recently told an interviewer that anyone who criticizes his wife can “eat shit.”...

Maybe, because of Trump, "Americans are inured to such pungent language," Will muses, deploying the rich subtleties "inured" and "pungent." George Will's father was a philosophy professor. You can imagine the language he grew up with and that is second nature to him. We know Vance's story.

Here's an excerpt from page 132 of "Hillbilly Elegy":

"It amounts to an updated Monroe Doctrine, the 1823 declaration telling Europe to look after itself and leave the US to manage the Americas."

"'The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over,' it says. There are echoes of a speech by JD Vance, the vice-president, in Munich in February that stunned European leaders by warning that the continent’s greatest danger came not from Russian aggression but from within, with the erosion of traditional values. 'Economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisational erasure' in Europe, it states, targeting the 'European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence...."

From "Europe facing ‘civilisational erasure’, warns Trump/A new US security plan warns European allies may falter in Nato, urging nationalist renewal as Washington positions itself between the continent and Moscow" (London Times).

JD Vance's elegant digital rhetoric.

JD Vance just threw up the MIDDLE FINGER live on national TV.

“In D.C., they have this thing where, I think it means we’re number one, all the pink-haired people throw up this sign…” proceeds to flip off the camera

You can’t make this up. The Vice President of the United… pic.twitter.com/PPqlLHHLrl

— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) June 25, 2025

"We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program," said JD Vance.

Quoted in "Vance says U.S. 'not at war with Iran, we're at war with Iran's nuclear program'/President Donald Trump said Saturday night that the U.S. had dropped bombs on three Iranian nuclear sites, the first time the U.S. has directly attacked Iran" (NBC News).

I'm interested in that rhetorical device: "We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program." 

I believe it's called paradiastole — or redescription. Other examples: 

George W. Bush, 2003: "We’re not occupying Iraq. We’re liberating it."

Barack Obama, 2013: "This is not a war on terror. It’s a campaign against specific networks like al-Qaeda."

Bill Clinton, 1999: "This is not a war. It’s a humanitarian intervention."

Benjamin Netanyahu, 2014: "We’re not fighting the Palestinian people. We’re fighting Hamas.”

Ronald Reagan, 1980s: "We’re not waging war against Nicaragua. We’re supporting freedom fighters."