Vance seems to think segregation is 'acceptable' if neighbors don't speak English | Opinion
'It is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next door neighbors and say, I want to live next to people who I have something in common with,' vice president said.
Rex HuppkeVice President JD Vance has added a flatly segregationist twist to his broadly unlikable personality, arguing that it’s “totally reasonable and acceptable” for Americans to not want to live next to people who speak a different language or come from “a totally different culture.”
On a New York Post podcast released Oct. 29, Vance seemed to forget that people can hear what he’s saying when he speaks out loud and that America is, fundamentally, a nation of immigrants.
“It is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next door neighbors and say, I want to live next to people who I have something in common with,” Vance said, granting me and other normal Americans permission to never, ever live next to someone as ghoulishly dreadful as JD Vance.
Vance paints a dark picture of immigrants as neighbors
The broader context of his comment involved immigration and the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to deport as many human beings as possible. Vance talked about a hypothetical situation where several immigrant families move into a home because a landlord knows he can charge them more and make more money.
In this scenario, Vance posited, a good old-fashioned, all-American family – guess what that means? – is suddenly put upon by immigrant neighbors.
“And then what happens is 20 people move into a three-bedroom house,” Vance said. “Twenty people from a totally different culture, totally different ways of interacting.”
SCARY!
Vance's segregation-friendly view on immigrant neighbors doesn't add up
Just to be clear, though, the actual problem in Vance’s scenario would be the money-grubbing U.S. landlord violating housing laws and gouging immigrants by overcharging them for cramped living conditions. The immigrants would be the victims, not the neighbors, now having to, in Vance’s view, endure living next to people from a different culture.
But the vice president, in his smug, bearded loathsomeness, doesn’t see it that way. He sees the non-English-speaking outsiders as the problem, because how could it be anything else?
Vance's rhetoric echoes back to disgraceful times in American history
Kevin Kruse, a professor of history at Princeton University, posted a clip of Vance’s comments on social media and noted: “This is exactly the same argument ‒ and, in parts, even the same language ‒ that segregationists advanced to argue that white people had a ‘right’ not to live next to people who were different from them.”
Exactly.
Vance cites his faith as lame attempt to defend anti-immigrant cruelty
While President Donald Trump is more direct in his racism and xenophobia, Vance delivers anti-immigrant rhetoric with a veneer of fake holiness and even faker compassion.
Speaking of his Catholic faith, Vance said: “And even though we have to engage in immigration enforcement, I try to remind myself ‒ consistent with church teaching ‒ that, yes, doesn’t mean we can let these people stay in our country, but I do have a responsibility to try to remember their humanity.”
Yeah, the humanity of other human beings isn’t something you should have "to try to remember." If that’s a thing you’re forgetting, then you, Mr. Vice President, are the damn problem.
None other than Pope Leo XIV – a rather large figure in Roman Catholic circles – spoke recently about how Catholics should treat migrants: "Those boats which hope to catch sight of a safe port, and those eyes filled with anguish and hope seeking to reach the shore, cannot and must not find the coldness of indifference or the stigma of discrimination!"
One thing is clear: I don't want to live next to a JD Vance
Vance seems all in on discrimination, and there was nothing subtle about his comments on that podcast. He’s a true believer, and I believe 100% he’d be just fine segregating neighborhoods into the MAGA version of “real Americans” and “others.”
But hey, turnabout is fair play. To me, people like Vance are part of a totally different culture. They speak a language I don’t understand. And I certainly don’t want a family of them living next to me.
I’m told that’s “totally reasonable and acceptable.”
Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk