2026-10-22T18:14:15.341Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/22/politics/jd-vance-ramaswamy-ad-politics
在唐纳德·特朗普执政时期，美国民众早已对马基雅维利式政治司空见惯。这位总统无疑是这一套的践行者，为了攫取赤裸裸的权力和达成其他目标，他屡屡无视道德、事实与法律。
而副总统J·D·万斯正是同一类人。
二者的主要区别在于，万斯不仅会奉行这套政治手段，还会欣然解释自己究竟在做什么。
最近的一个例子，是万斯为俄亥俄州州长候选人维韦克·拉马斯瓦米饱受诟病的广告进行的公然辩护。这支广告使用了其对手、民主党人艾米·阿克顿 estranged的母亲。阿克顿曾表示，自己从12岁起就与母亲失去了联系——当时她的继父因性侵她和母亲选择留在继父身边而遭到起诉。
这支广告本质上是将一起涉及疑似儿童性虐待的家庭创伤政治武器化。
许多俄亥俄州共和党人纷纷急于与其划清界限，其中包括州长迈克·德温、州务卿弗兰克·拉罗斯，以及将于11月3日与拉马斯瓦米共同参选的参议员乔恩·赫斯特德。
但万斯并不在列。他于周三挺身而出，敦促共和党人拿出魄力，为赢得选举采取必要行动。
“老实说，这支广告是否恰当，其实并不是我关心的问题，”万斯开篇说道，随后列举了民主党针对共和党犯下的一系列所谓罪行。
“政治本就是一场残酷的博弈，”万斯补充道，“我想对其他共和党同僚说，如果你真的相信自己声称信奉的那些理念，就别再为一则广告抱怨不休，好好利用接下来的13天赢得选举。”
在俄亥俄州稍后的一场竞选集会上，万斯称这支广告“如实揭露了真相，并指出艾米·阿克顿是个骗子”。
万斯为拉马斯瓦米辩护时，充斥着大量的“那又怎么样”式的诡辩。但他的言论同时也饱含着十足的非道德主义——也就是声称自己并不在意该广告是否得体。
特朗普对这种厚颜无耻的行径并不陌生，而且他也会相当直白地表达这一点。但万斯更倾向于解释自己的政治算计，并说明为何他会淡化道德考量。
而且他已经多次这么做了。
周三的这番言论，听起来像是他为另一项极具争议的竞选策略进行的又一次重要辩护：2024年的虚假言论，即俄亥俄州斯普林菲尔德的海地移民偷窃并食用民众宠物的说法。
当时在接受美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）记者达纳·巴什的采访时，万斯表示，他愿意“编造故事”，以凸显大规模移民对斯普林菲尔德这类地区的负面影响。
当巴什追问他这句话的具体含义时，万斯并未承认他和特朗普所宣扬的“故事”是虚假的。但他辩称，最终目的（让人们关注一个重要议题）可以为手段（散播未经证实的谣言）正名。
几周后，在为特朗普的虚假言论辩护时，万斯给出了类似的算计——特朗普声称委内瑞拉帮派占领了科罗拉多州奥罗拉的大片区域。
当美国广播公司（ABC）记者玛莎·拉达茨指出奥罗拉的共和党市长称这些说法“严重夸大其词”时，万斯回应道：“这恰恰说明其中肯定存在一定的事实成分。”
他再次暗示，特朗普那些荒诞不经的虚假言论，有效地将人们的注意力引向了其言论背后那极其微小的（可争议的）事实内核。
特朗普政府去年承认错误驱逐了基尔马尔·阿布雷戈·加西亚后，万斯夸大了阿布雷戈·加西亚与帮派有关的证据，而这一点至今未得到证实。他还补充道，“民众义愤填膺地反对帮派成员被驱逐，却无视他们所侵害的公民，这太离谱了。”
在共和党内部就是否应更有力地谴责尼克·富恩特斯这类反犹主义者，并让共和党与塔克·卡尔森保持距离的辩论中，万斯拒绝站队。
大约在那个时候，万斯表示“反犹太主义和所有形式的种族仇恨在保守主义运动中都没有立足之地”。但他同时也发表了一场演讲，称自己不会“列出保守派人士名单加以谴责或封杀”。他还补充道，“我们有远比互相取消资格更重要的工作要做。”
去年有消息披露，年轻的共和党领导人在一个群聊中发表了卑劣的种族主义言论，万斯则暗示他会对此置之不理，转而提及民主党人的所作所为。
他特别指出了当时的民主党弗吉尼亚州总检察长候选人杰伊·琼斯发表的暴力言论。
“这比那个群聊里的任何言论都要恶劣得多，而发表这些言论的人有可能成为弗吉尼亚州的总检察长，”万斯在X平台上写道，“当有权势的人呼吁政治暴力时，我拒绝加入这种故作震惊的行列。”
（值得一提的是，许多民主党人确实已经谴责了琼斯那些极其恶劣的短信言论。）
这与万斯过去谈论这些问题的方式大相径庭。
早在2017年，一些共和党人为特朗普关于弗吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔白人至上主义集会的争议言论辩护时，会将矛头指向所谓的左翼极端主义。
但万斯敦促他们先整顿自己的阵营。
“我认为我们需要能够……直指邪恶本身，并将其点名，而不是试图将矛头指向其他人，”万斯当时在CNN的节目中说道。
九年之后，这位潜在的2028年总统竞选候选人不仅接受了一种更加零和博弈的政治观，还坦然承认了这一点——而且不止一次。
JD Vance is happy to tell you about his Machiavellian politics
2026-10-22T18:14:15.341Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/22/politics/jd-vance-ramaswamy-ad-politics
Americans have become plenty familiar with Machiavellian politics during the Donald Trump era. The president is certainly a practitioner, regularly ignoring morality, facts and the law in his pursuit of raw power and other goals.
And Vice President JD Vance is cut from the same cloth.
The main difference is that Vance will operate that way and then happily explain how that’s exactly what he’s doing.
The most recent example is Vance’s remarkable defense of Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s widely panned ad featuring the estranged mother of his opponent, Democrat Amy Acton. The ad is controversial because Acton has said she hasn’t seen her mother since she was 12 years old, when her stepfather was indicted for sexually abusing her and her mother stayed with him.
The ad basically amounts to politically weaponizing a family trauma involving alleged child sex abuse.
Many Ohio Republicans are practically climbing over one another to distance themselves from it. They include Gov. Mike DeWine, Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Sen. Jon Husted, who is on the ballot alongside Ramaswamy on November 3.
But not Vance. He stepped forward Wednesday to urge Republicans to put on their big-boy pants and do what it takes to win.
“Well, I’ll be honest with you: Whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern,” Vance began, citing a bunch of alleged offenses Democrats have committed against Republicans.
“Politics is a tough business, and my message to my fellow elected Republicans,” Vance added, “is if you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days.”
At a later campaign rally in Ohio, Vance said the ad “calls it out like it is, and calls Amy Acton a liar.”
Vance’s defense of Ramaswamy included plenty of whataboutism. But his comments also came with a healthy dose of amorality — i.e. saying he was indifferent to the propriety of the ad.
Trump is no stranger to that kind of shamelessness. And he can be pretty blunt about it, too. But Vance has more of a tendency to explain his political calculations and say why he’s downplaying moral considerations.
And he’s done it a lot.
His comments Wednesday sounded like another major defense he offered of a highly controversial campaign tactic: the false 2024 claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating people’s pets.
In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash back then, Vance said he was willing to “create stories” to draw attention to the negative impact of mass migration on places like Springfield.
When Bash pressed him on that phrasing, Vance didn’t concede that the particular “story” he and Trump were telling was false. But he argued that the ends (drawing attention to an important issue) justified the means (surfacing wild rumors).
Vance offered a similar calculation a few weeks later while defending Trump’s false claim that a Venezuelan gang had taken over large swaths of Aurora, Colorado.
When ABC’s Martha Raddatz noted that the GOP mayor of Aurora had called the claims “grossly exaggerated,” Vance responded: “That means there’s got to be some element of truth here.”
He again suggested Trump’s wild, false claims were usefully drawing attention to the much smaller kernels of (arguable) truth behind what he was saying.
After the Trump administration admitted it had wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia last year, Vance exaggerated the evidence that Abrego Garcia was tied to a gang, which remains unproven. He added that it was “gross to get fired up about gang members getting deported while ignoring citizens they victimize.”
Amid GOP debates over whether to more forcefully denounce antisemites like Nick Fuentes and to distance the party from Tucker Carlson, Vance refused to take a side.
Vance said around that time that “antisemitism and all forms of ethnic hatred have no place in the conservative movement.” But he also delivered a speech in which he said he didn’t “bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform.” He added that “we have far more important work to do than canceling each other.”
And after revelations last year about young GOP leaders in a group chat saying vile, racist things, Vance signaled he would ignore the issue because of what Democrats had done.
He specifically pointed to violent text messages from then-Democratic Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones.
“This is far worse than anything said in a … group chat, and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia,” Vance wrote on X. “I refuse to join the pearl-clutching when powerful people call for political violence.”
(It’s worth noting that many Democrats had, in fact, denounced Jones’ very ugly text messages.)
It was a far cry from how Vance used to talk about these issues.
Back in 2017, some Republicans defended Trump’s controversial comments about the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, by pointing to supposed extremism on the left.
But Vance urged them to get their own house in order.
“I think we need to be able … to point the finger at that evil and name it without trying to point the finger at somebody else,” Vance said on CNN at the time.
Nine years later, the potential 2028 presidential hopeful has not only embraced a much more zero-sum view of politics; he’s also copped to it — and repeatedly so.
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