The vice presidential pick's Catholicism hasn't received a lot of attention, but it's the key to the populist radicalism he wants to impose on America
Just over a week ago, Trump announced J.D. Vance as his running mate for the 2024 election. Vance, a first-term senator from Ohio, has been largely seen as a choice bolstering Trump’s outsider image — a young Midwestern firebrand who would bring Silicon Valley money and youthful energy to the ticket. What has gone largely unnoticed is that Vance is a more radical religious politician than Pence, even though the latter was hailed as the “Christian” candidate. Though Vance’s Catholicism has barely registered as a driving factor in his political profile, it serves as an interpretive key for understanding why Vance was chosen and how he brings a populist radicalism to a potential second Trump presidency.
In 2019, Vance was received into the Catholic Church. He grew up with exposure to Christian churches, but by the time he entered law school described himself as an angry atheist. However, on Vances’ telling, Catholicism began to appeal to him because of its intellectual approach to faith and human life. He was also influenced by his first encounter with PayPal founder and leader of the Silicon Valley Reactionary Right, Peter Thiel, who convinced him that social ladder-climbing and endless pursuits of wealth were empty in comparison to living a life of significance and meaning.