It doesn't have to be this way.

Dear JD, come back to us. We need you!

Dear Vice President Vance,

I’m sure you, like the rest of us, are still reeling from Signal-gate. I want you to know I don’t blame you for it. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t you who created the chat, nor you who added a journalist to the chat.(1)

In fact, from what I’ve heard, you pushed back in the chat.(2) You were the sole person brave enough to voice disagreement. I was heartened to hear that. That gave me hope.

You gave me hope, JD.

I don’t think you want things to be this way. I don’t think you’re happy with the state of the nation today. I want you to know it doesn’t have to be this way.

You don’t have to uphold all of the things you’ve recently declared you believe. You don’t have to accept as unchangeable the reality in which we now find ourselves.

Now, you’re surrounded by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats who have removed themselves so far from humanity that they now totally lack empathy for humans.(3) Some of them think the solution to their problems is to flee to Mars.(4)

You aren’t fleeing though.

You actually were elected by the American people, and you are trying to do your job. Maybe you’d argue they’re doing what you want, but I don’t buy it.

Now, you’re surrounded by a bunch of techno-nihilists who think AI can replace humans and who spend their time online as a way to disengage from humanity. You are not like them, though. I think you spend your time online and in government for the sake of connecting with and helping people.(5)

I will speak for many on the left, hopefully fairly, when I say that we are sad to have lost you to the right.(6) We remember when you were singing a different tune, and we want you to know you can again.

You can “come join the living; it’s not too far from you!”(7)

I know you think Democrats didn’t listen, and you’re right, many Democratic Party elites didn’t listen. Yet, many more Democrats and left-leaning folks around the country did listen.

We want you to do better. We want you to reject the harmful happenings you, by virtue of your office, are now complicit in.

You’re Vice President of the United States.(8) It is well within your power to lead the administration to course correct and to guide and advise the president to do so. It is well within your power to make a lot of positive, necessary changes.

You have the power. Please, use it for the good of the American people.

Please, I’m pleading with you, JD. We need you to be our guy on the inside, and to bring around the other guys on the inside. I think you already are our guy to an extent; you are a millennial after all, something we have in common.(9) That gives me hope too.

I see you struggling, JD. I don’t expect this one letter will persuade you, so I’ll keep writing them until I don’t need to anymore.

Signed,

A fellow American

Obligatory Disclaimer: all views expressed here are my own personal views and do not represent the views of my employer nor those of the U.S. government.

End Notes, Side Notes, & Tangents

(1) at least as far as I’m aware.

(2) To be clear, I haven’t read the chat log but have heard bits and pieces about it.

(3) Indeed, from what I hear, Elon now claims empathy is a weakness or something like that, which seems odd to me. I may look up a few references for this and republish, though from what I understand, he’s said this on a few well-known podcasts.

(4) Unlike the fools in the chat and the fools in that made-up new government agency, you were elected. Unlike them, you haven’t succumbed to nihilism and cruelty for its own sake.

(5) though I disagree with many of your ways of doing so.

(6) Back in the day, I listened to you on many a podcast discuss your widely-acclaimed book, Hillbilly Elegy. You were trying to talk to people in the center and on the left about the legitimate struggles of the Appalaichan community, your community, your people, your slice of the American pie.

(7) to quote Cat Stevens.

(8) congrats by the way— major slay, as the kids say.

(9) but we need you to do more. In fairness, I think people on the left ought to do more to appeal to you, as I plan to write about in the future.