Why can’t JD Vance make up his mind?

The one word that best describes JD Vance is not “weird,” it is “changeable.”

Nothing about him remains the same — not his occupation, not his political heroes, not his religion, not even his name. He sometimes seems like a dandelion swaying in the wind, or, to be less kind as some critics have been, a chameleon.

JD Vance is his name now, but it was not his first name. Not even his second. He was born James David Bowman, which his mother changed to Hamel when she remarried, before the young man himself selected Vance, and later dropped the periods between J and D. 

He is a Catholic now, but he was not a Catholic at birth. He had been a Protestant when he married, but the ceremony was blessed by a Hindu pandit, because his wife, Usha Chilukuri, is Hindu. She is the American-born child of two legal immigrants from India. They met in Yale Law School.

He has been known to occasionally dress to conform with his wife’s family’s traditional attire..

Fun fact: She performed in the San Diego Mt. Carmel High School marching band.

After earning a law degree in 2013 at Yale, which he attended on the GI Bill (as he did at Ohio State, where he made four years in two) Vance practiced law briefly, but then made a beeline for the West Coast, where his time at Yale opened a few doors. More of that in a minute.

In 2016-2017, he was a principal at San Francisco’s Mithril Capital Management, founded in 2012 by Peter Thiel, an entrepreneur and investor who started PayPal in 1998, and who took Vance under his wing and became one of his biggest financial supporters.

Vance’s biggest change was his political transformation. 

A self-described populist and member of the post-liberal Right, the blue-collar bard described himself as a “Never Trump” guy, referred to Donald J. Trump as “America’s Hitler” and as “cultural heroin” when the developer and TV star announced his candidacy.

That was before Trump endorsed Vance for U.S. Senate, beating incumbent Democrat Tim Ryan, 53-47%, but performing less well than other Republicans on the ticket. There seems to be something about him that rubs people the wrong way.

And now Vance is in the veep candidate’s seat, and endures comments such as this from a former friend at Yale Law, who says Vance “has changed [his] position  on literally every imaginable issue that affects everyday Americans.”

Vance has explained many times how he was drawn into the Trump cult orbit. In brief, he says he believed the lies being told about Trump by the mainstream media, and now is so convinced of Trump’s quality, Vance says — unlike Vice President Mike Pence, who lacked the authority to do anything else — he would not have allowed a vote to certify the 2020 election. And this from a guy who took an oath as a Marine to protect the Constitution. He served four years, six months of which were spent in Iraq as a combat journalist. While in the combat theater, he was never in combat. He never claimed to be in combat, although some of his supporters do.

It’s kind of stunning that a guy who graduated from Ohio State summa cum laude with majors in philosophy and political science would have the lack of shame to confess to being led to his opinions like a bullock on a  nose ring by the evil mainstream media.

His fellow Midwest opponent, Tim Walz, has challenged his hillbilly bona fides, as have others.

The far Left The New Republic called him the “liberal media’s favorite white-trash-splainer,” using a distinctly unPC term, and the “false prophet of blue America,” while the Washington Post called him “the voice of the Rust Belt,” and The New York Times called his Hillbilly Elegy “one of the six best books to help understand Trump’s win.”

Fun fact: That he should write his memoir was suggested by Yale law prof Amy Chua, author of her runaway best-seller, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” Ron Howard turned Vance’s book into a Netflix movie, where he can be seen today.

It’s amazing how fast one can go from pigshit poor to a millionaire, if one is connected, as Vance was, becoming a vulture  “venture capitalist” not long after arriving on the West Coast.

In 2010 and 2011, he wrote for David Frum’s website under the name of J.D. Hamel. Frum had been a speechwriter for George W. Bush.

As his mother was a drug addict who would do anything for a fix, Vance was largely raised by his chain-smoking, Bible-thumping, foulmouthed grandmother he called Mamaw. After she died, he related, they found 19 loaded pistols around her home, so one would always be within reach.

In 2016, he returned to his native Ohio to launch Our Ohio Renewal, a nonprofit designed to deal with education, addiction and other “social ills.” It closed about two years later, as he was developing his unConstitutional ideas that parents should have greater voting rights than nonparents, and said the Democrats were run by “childless cat ladies.”

The weird thing is, none of the Big Mommas leading the  party — Nancy Pelosi, Michelle Obama, Jill Biden, Gretchen Whitmer, Kamala Harris — are childless. (Kamala has two stepchildren.)

Vance tried to explain what he meant was the Democratic Party was anti-family and anti-child, while it is usually Republicans who vote against bills supporting children and families.

He joined  the U.S. Senate in 2023, where he sponsored 57 legislative bills, none of which passed the Senate, but he did collaborate with Democratic Sen. Ralphael Warnock to reduce the cost of insulin, with Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren to claw back executive pay when big banks fail, and with Republican Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene to criminalize sexual butchery “gender-affirming” surgery for minors.

He was roundly criticized for not issuing an official statement for 10 days after the East Palestine, Ohio, massive train derailment.

Not long ago, the picture of Vance in drag surfaced. I can’t verify it, but Vance hasn’t denied it, and is likely a Halloween costume. I doubt he is transitioning.

He opposes abortion, same-sex marriage, gun control and aid to Ukraine. His views seem less America First, more America Alone.

Then a lie, supposedly about Vance masturbating using a rubber glove and sofa cushions, hit the internet. Even though  proven to be a hoax, Democratic candidate Tim Walz obliquely referenced it while challenging Vance to a debate.

Vance accepted and that one, between two college-educated veterans, will be must-see TV. Maybe the Military Channel can host.

Update: It will be Oct. 1 on CBS.