A fervent supporter of Victor Orban, the "illiberal" prime minister of Hungary, Vance’s respect for the United States Constitution must be considered pro forma — at best.
A vocal critic of Trump when the reality television maestro’s wholesale derangement of US politics became apparent in 2016, Vance has reconciled himself, to the point of sycophancy, with Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party.
Trump himself gleefully acknowledged his former critic’s transformation by informing his followers that
"J.D. is kissing my ass, he wants my support so bad".
Vance’s osculatory efforts proved sufficiently energetic, however, to secure him Trump’s endorsement to become the Republican Party’s candidate for Ohio’s second Senate seat in 2022.
Which, given Vance’s humble origins, was extraordinary.
He was raised in Appalachia, a mountainous region of the US whose poverty-stricken inhabitants are still called "hillbillies". The victim of violent and dysfunctional parenting, Vance (then called Bowman) was mostly raised by his hillbilly grandparents.
As is so often the case with individuals reared in such dangerous environments, Vance developed an acute sensitivity to who possessed the power to hurt him, and who might be persuaded to do him good. It was the rawest sort of political education, but it has undoubtedly served him well.
Intelligent and good with words, Vance extricated himself from the poverty, drug addiction and suicidal despair of rural Ohio by joining the Marine Corps.
Impressed by his writing talents, his superiors sent him to Iraq as a military journalist, and then helped him earn a degree in political science.
After that it was Yale Law and a job with the libertarian tech-lord Peter Thiel.
Impressive enough, as CVs go, but what lifted Vance far above the merely self-improving was his memoir Hillbilly Elegy. Vance’s timing could not have been better.
His book appeared at precisely the moment America’s elites were attempting to make sense of Donald Trump’s defeat of Hilary Clinton.
Hillbilly Elegy turned Vance into someone able to translate the angst and the anger of white working-class America in ways that enlightened — but did not threaten — ruling-class America.
In the process, Vance successfully persuaded a great many extremely powerful people to do him an extraordinary amount of good.
Vance had once referred to Trump as "America’s Hitler". But, as the now Republican vice-presidential nominee has spent the last 18 months demonstrating, that disturbing characterisation should be interpreted as a description — not a condemnation.
If, as now seems certain, Trump wins the presidency in November, then Vance will find himself just a heartbeat away from becoming something even more alarming than America’s Hitler.
Because, as the rest of the world needs to get its head around, urgently, the Republican candidate for vice-president stands much further to the right than his master.
Vance, like Trump, is an economic nationalist and a right-wing populist, but he also draws his inspiration from Orban, as well as, crucially, from the authoritarian president, Vladimir Putin.
Putin’s unwavering purpose is to protect Mother Russia from what he sees as the degenerate culture of the West.
Vance and his ilk are equally determined to purge America of the degeneracy to which, in their minds, it has already succumbed.
Ronald Reagan described the US as "a shining city upon a hill". For the American far-right, however, the only shining city capable of inspiring today’s corrupted world is Moscow.
If Trump becomes president, and Vance’s diplomatic advice is heeded, then the Ukrainian nation is doomed.
Students of Imperial Rome should have little difficulty in recognising the forces at play.
The ambitious aristocrat who executes an end-run around his political rivals by playing upon the fears and resentments of the impoverished masses.
The demagogue’s enemies who bend every sinew to securing his downfall.
The hero’s precautionary adoption of a brilliant but cynical young politician as his successor.
For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker — and its first emperor.
■Chris Trotter is an Auckland writer and commentator.
