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I'm joined by first-time guest Rick Pidcock to discuss JD Vance and his multifaceted role as a religious and political candidate. We explore Vance's connection to the Traditional Latin Mass and figures like Harrison Butker, Patrick Deneen, and Steve Bannon, delving into the implications of their shared emphasis on 'order.' We cover the intersection of masculinity, politics, and religion, including the influence of bodybuilders and the broader conservative evangelical world. Our conversation also touches on the implications of Vance's statements about family and voting, and the support he receives from groups like the Heritage Foundation. Finally, we consider the complexities introduced by his marriage to Usha Vance and how it fits into his public persona.
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Axis Mundy For bonus content, I have an interview with Rick Pitcock, who is a writer for the Baptist Union Times and somebody who I think had some really good insight on J.D.
Vance.
And so if you are a premium subscriber, make sure to check the premium feed today because you'll see an entire episode with me and Rick talking about it.
If you're not, you'll want to make sure and subscribe in order to get the entire thing.
All right, y'all.
Welcome to first-time guest, Rick Pitcock.
Rick, thanks for being here.
Yeah, thanks.
I've been listening to the show for a while, and I'm excited to be here.
So we're here to talk once again about J.D.
Vance and what he represents as a religious candidate and a candidate of many dimensions.
I think listeners can tell by now that when I kind of get obsessed about something, I get obsessed about it.
And my wife will tell you, just won't stop talking or reading about it until I'm done.
And I'm not done yet.
So take that, J.D.
Vance.
You wrote a great piece for the Baptist Global Times about J.D.
Vance.
Just some of the further religious dimensions of him as a candidate, as a figure.
And I just, I want to jump into those because, you know, this is something I think is really important to understanding why he is the VP and why he's such a dangerous figure, if I'm very honest.
One of the things you do is you start out by reminding everyone about Harrison Butker.
Harrison Butker, of course, being the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs who gave the infamous commencement speech at Benedictine University.
We should all note that the speaker the year before him was none other than Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society head and major world-moving Catholic influencer and friend of Clarence Thomas.
So, Start us off here.
Why compare Vance to Harris Butker and what can we learn by that comparison?
Yeah, so the Harrison Butker thing was interesting because one thing that I've noticed is, like, and you probably sense this some in your podcast, there's these different worlds that you cover, like the independent charismatics, the traditional Latin mass Catholics, the, you know, conservative evangelicals who aren't charismatics.
They're seemingly very different from one another, and yet they use a lot of similar language.
And in particular, when it comes to Harrison Butker, the reason I wanted to point to him was because he is connected to this traditional Latin mass that J.D.
Vance has identified with.
And also when you look at some of the language that they use, like Butker said in his speech, he said, I attend the TLM because I believe just as the God of the Old Testament was pretty particular in how he wanted to be worshipped, the same holds true for us today.
It is through the TLM that I encountered order and began to pursue it in my life.
And so you start to see this like appreciation for what is old and these words like order And this is exactly what Vance said drew him to the traditional Latin Mass and to Catholicism.
And you see even words like order being used as well.
Well, and if you look at one of Vance's most influential philosophical figures, that's Patrick Deneen, who I talked about on the show earlier this week.
Patrick Deneen says in his books, his latest book, Regime Change, I want to replace the party of progress, which he associates with both the Democrats and the Republicans, with the party of order.
That's what he says.
I mean, it's all about order.
Perry and Gorski famously say in The Flag and the Cross that white Christian nationalism is all about order.
So anyway, I just think you're right on here.
And also to that, just to bring up another thing here, is like the broader conservative evangelical world, we hear a lot about the created order, or Al Mohler talking about ordered liberty when he's asked if we should criminalize homosexuality.
And this theme of order, it's one of those it's-in-the-code moments that you're seeing repeated in a lot of these different communities.
Well, and Vance says he's not a traditional Latin Mass guy, but you point out that he has spoke at the Napa Institute, and I'm wondering if you want to flesh some of that out for us.
We mentioned that on our show last week, but the Napa Institute is a place where you meet a lot of people who are into the traditional Latin Mass, so I don't think it's a stretch to say that Vance is comfortable alongside Catholics like Butker and others who see the traditional Latin mass as the only mass rather than the vernacular.
Yeah, and it wasn't just that he appeared there, but like, you know, I used to be a conservative.
I used to listen to Dennis Prager and Rush Limbaugh all the time, and they didn't like Pope Francis.
And I thought it was interesting that of all the reasons you could not like Pope Francis as a conservative, whether you're talking about his views of climate change or Being kinder to LGBTQ people.
Or his stance against the wall with immigration.
Why is the one thing that Butker brought out the Pope's view of the traditional Latin Miss?
To me, it's a sign that he's more comfortable in that world than maybe he wants to let on.
Yeah, yeah.
And when Vance was at Knapp Institute, he signaled his willingness to disagree with the Pope.
And again, it's interesting to think about somebody converting to Catholicism and then very early on in that time being like, I feel comfortable criticizing the Pope in public.
It's just not something you're used to with Catholicism.
It's just not how it used to work.
One of the things I appreciated about your piece is you point out that Butker and Vance are not alone in terms of younger men, men under 40, converting to this kind of reactionary traditional Catholicism.
Some of that is, in some ways, perhaps surprising to some of you out there, related to Steve Bannon.
So I'm wondering if you want to connect some dots for us, whether it's Steve Bannon, whether it's young men finding this kind of Catholicism.
Interesting, or even further, a lot of like younger DC dudes who are really getting into this kind of traditional Catholicism.
Yeah, definitely.
So, one thing that's interesting to... I think one of my questions is, why Steve Bannon?
What does he have to do with this?
And part of this, surprisingly, I think goes back to... I wrote another article earlier this year about Harrison Butker, and where I talked about how that... You might remember that meeting where Pope Francis met with Donald Trump.
And they were trading words ahead of it because like the Pope was talking about the wall and was saying this is not the gospel and Trump was already ticked off.
And then you might remember there were some pictures that came out of a very less than enthusiastic Pope Francis meeting with Trump compared to the pictures with Obama.
And a lot of people laughed about it.
It was pretty funny.
But apparently Trump was pretty seething angry over that.
And wanted to, in my interview with Dana Baum in that other article, he said he has sources close to the White House that said Trump wanted to get revenge on the Pope.
So Bannon, who's in the White House, who is a TLM Catholic, starts bringing in a TLM Catholic priest to the White House to bless the White House.
And then he started funding a lot of these radical Catholic influencers and connecting them with billionaires who had a lot of money, giving them platforms.
And so all of a sudden, during the Trump administration, you get all these young people.
They're converting to Catholicism to the views that Bannon had, and they're all being given money.
They're all new converts who have high opinions, and they're willing to spout them against the Pope, which is not typical.
And it just so happens that that's the time period that J.D.
Vance also converted to Catholicism.
Yeah, and Bannon, for the record, is such a weird figure.
I mean, you know, Bannon is somebody who's just... I think most people, when they think of Bannon, just think of, like, a despicable person in terms of his politics.
but there's a great book out there by Benjamin Teitelbaum, who I interviewed for this show, about Bannon's strange philosophical, spiritual, esoteric leanings, and then at times, as you mentioned, he's bringing in this sort of Catholic understanding of things.
I guess for me, Rick, what I was fascinated by when I read that is that Butker and Vance are both these young, successful white men in the world.
And they're finding in traditional Catholicism, whether the Latin mass or not, they're finding their order.
They're finding there a worldview that seems to advance the kind of world they want to create and they want to live in.
Both of them talk all about parents and children.
Butker, of course, talked about his wife and how she is a stay-at-home mom.
And Vance all the time talks about children.
I mean, he says almost any time you ask him, he's like, he says that the left in this country hates children and most of them don't have any.
And he says that he wants children and conservatives and others want children because they're not sociopaths.
And that's the end of the argument.
He doesn't make any other argument except for that, right?
And so here's my point is like, you know, Bannon articulates all the time this warmongering worldview, this machismo, this get ready for battle persona.
I guess it just seems to me that Butker and Vance seem to be thinking, if I get into this world, I'm getting into a world of order, meaning The right kind of world for human flourishing, but also a world that needs ordering and I'm the guy to do it.
Me and the other guys, the other machismo macho dudes around me are the ones to do it.
I mean, does that strike you at all?
Is that too reductive?
I just think masculinity and gender play a part in why J.D.
Vance converted, but his wife didn't.
She was like, I'm good, right?
Anyway, how does that hit you?
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