Traitor. It is a strong term, especially when applied to the current Vice-President of the United States. But hear me out, and see if my logic is sound.
The Merriam-Webster definition of traitor is as follows:
1: one who betrays another’s trust or is false to an obligation or duty
2: one who commits treason
JD Vance recently declared that one of the proudest achievements of the Trump administration is the cutting off of funding for Ukraine’s defense. Ukraine, a fledgling democracy trying to cure its post-Soviet hangover once and for all, is now fighting for its very existence against a dictator bent on genocide. The erstwhile Soviet empire (reborn in Vladimir Putin’s imagination) remains a very real threat to Europe. For over seventy years, NATO has held back the threat of Russian aggression, with commitments from multiple countries on two continents promising mutual support. Yet JD Vance is proud of our default on this promise.
Is this treason? Who benefits from this betrayal? Does trading Ukraine’s future to Putin make the United States safer from any threat? Truthfully, the United States has never shied away from supporting thugs and dictators when it suited our overall goals. Often this is justified as “better the devil you know”, and sometimes that turned out to be the case. But leaving Ukraine and Europe in the lurch doesn’t benefit us in any rational way in the age of ICBMs, cyber- and bio-warfare. But it does benefit one person: JD Vance. Already well practiced in duplicity from his about-face on Trump, Vance has long made his affection/sycophancy for Putin clear. Even when he was running for the US Senate in Ohio, Vance railed against aid to Ukraine, and he recently visited Hungary in an attempt to shore up another Putin puppet, Viktor Orbán.
Putin’s reach has diminished significantly in recent years, but he is still important to Vance. Why? Only one answer comes to mind: Vance will need Putin’s support if he is to ever be elected President of the United States. If Trump dies or is otherwise removed, Vance will be president. But with his repellent personae and flabby mien, he will need Putin’s troll farms and disinformation experts to actually get elected in 2028.
The Manchurian Candidate always seemed like a far-fetched idea to me. But I think the current Vice-President of the United States fits the description quite well.