Sometimes I feel like the Stephen King or Chicken Little of political blogs. That said, I believe there are a number of possible horror stories potentially happening that will have grave consequences, and, in some respects, I do believe the sky is falling! Given that prelude, think about the following scenario and if it doesn’t scare the hell out of you then I can only conclude that I am a fool because it scares the hell out of me.
Donald Trump is 78 years old. He is likely not in the best of health given that he is overweight, has a reportedly unhealthy diet, gets little exercise, has a volatile temper and is in a high stress job. It doesn’t take a medical degree to conclude he is probably not the healthiest individual. And even discounting the medical issues, the list of people he has pissed off continues to grow. That leads to my nightmare scenario.
What happens if Trump were to die in office before his term ends in 2028? Of course, based upon our Constitution, Vice President Vance would step in as President the same way Lyndon Johnson stepped in when Kennedy was assassinated and the same way Gerald Ford took over when Nixon resigned. Wrap your head around that for a second – President J. D. Vance! J.D. Vance is nowhere near as popular as Trump and seems to have the likeability of an angry warthog and the diplomatic tact of a rabid wolf. Trump is terrible but Vance would be worse. Many of the people who so fervently support Trump, have clearly not thought this all the way through.
J.D. Vance would be far worse than Trump not just because of his abhorrent personality and lack of ability but because of a guy named Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel is a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur, venture capitalist, political activist, and hardcore libertarian. Peter Thiel founded PayPal. In addition to that, he mentored Mark Zuckerburg and founded the defense contractor Palantir. Most importantly, J.D. Vance’s start in politics was funded by Thiel. Thiel was also a major donor to Trump but if Trump is gone and Vance is the number one, where do you think Thiel’s political dollars (and influence) are going to go? J.D. Vance will essentially be Thiel’s puppet the same way Trump is now bought and paid for by Musk (and I suspect Putin!)
Back in 2009, Thiel authored an essay entitled, “The Education of a Libertarian,” in which he said some truly frightening things. Thiel is against any kind of government and in this essay he blamed what he viewed as the sorry state of things on two culprits, “the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries” and “the extension of the franchise to women.”1 Let that sink in for a moment.
Thiel is against regulations of any kind and believes that technology entrepreneurs like himself and Musk should be free to do whatever they wish. As for democracy, one of the most famous quotes coming out of Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance’s mentor, is “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” And again, let that sink in as we are currently in the process of watching democracy in the United States be destroyed.
Given the spineless Republicans who have failed to stand up to Trump at every turn, if something were to happen to Trump and J.D. Vance steps into the presidency, the takeover by the oligarchy will be almost totally cemented into American history. Elon Musk and Peter Thiel will essentially control this country.
As a parting thought on Peter Thiel, in an article he wrote for the National Review he said, “”I am not aware of a single political leader in the US, either Democrat or Republican, who would cut health-care spending in order to free up money for biotechnology research,” he wrote, “or, more generally, who would make serious cuts to the welfare state in order to free up serious money for major engineering projects.””1
If Peter Thiel and Elon Musk were given free reign, and if J.D. Vance is president that is almost assured, they will slash government programs more than is already happening and completely gut any and all regulations that hamper people like themselves from doing whatever they want, the rest of society be damned.
I would encourage anyone who reads this to read the entire article cited in the footnote. If this J.D. Vance scenario doesn’t scare you, you must have ice water in your veins! I’m not sure even Stephen King can conjure up something quite so frightening. These are truly scary times.
