(President) JD Vance’s Biggest Backers: Study Russian History

At the start of the 2024 election campaign, Donald Trump was persuaded to choose JD Vance as his Vice President by high-tech billionaires.

Notably, by Peter Thiel, who has mentored Vance since the man graduated from Yale Law School and who had been an early supporter of Trump’s, donating $1.25 million to him already n 2016.

Thiel’s biggest ROI yet

Now that Trump’s health appears to be deteriorating, most analysts think that Thiel stands to reap the greatest return imaginable on any one of his investments.

That is to say a lot, considering that, in the financial world, Thiel was an co-founder or early investor in PayPal and Facebook. Wall Street certainly thinks so. Thiel’s current mainstay company, Palantir, has the highest valuation in the S&P 500 based on its projected earnings over the next three years.

Investing in politics

After all, JD Vance – whom Thiel has essentially created in the political sphere with his financial support – will automatically move into the White House if Trump is unable to finish his term.

But, as Thiel may learn to his great chagrin, promoting Vance may actually prove to be the worst decision of his life.

Trump’s troubles

Even all those totally opposed to Donald Trump must grudgingly acknowledge, the 45th and 47th President of the United States has taken the reins of U.S. politics in such a dominant fashion that few people ever imagined possible.

Trump’s trouble, even as he is for now at the height of his political dominance, is that his health may not play along. Hence, not Congress or the courts, but his health may turn out to be the most effective check on his rule.

Visibly declining

Only months into Trump’s second presidency, the evidence of his physical and mental decline is rising. The 79-year-old has been slurring his words and forgetting obvious facts, such as that Alaska is part of the United States, not Russia.

Even more worryingly, he exhibits grotesquely swollen ankles and unexplained bruises on his hands, possibly pointing to a serious cardio-vascular condition. And he disappeared from public view for several days, which is highly unusual for this inveterate self-promoter.

Moving JD Vance into the global spotlight

None of Trump’s health issues are surprising after a lifetime of junk food, weight problems and lack of exercise. But it casts a spotlight on his successor, Vice President JD Vance.

Since graduating Vance has been extremely close to Thiel, a Frankfurt, Germany-born high-tech entrepreneur suspected of ties to white supremacists. Thiel brought Vance into the rarified world of venture capital and spent $10 million backing his successful campaign for the U.S. Senate.

Vance’s pronouncements since getting into politics have been closely lined up with Thiel’s, who had infamously written that democracy and freedom are incompatible.

Thiel’s attacks on democracy

Here is a truly worrisome and bizarre but widely overlooked fact: Peter Thiel’s attacks on democracy and his often-stated preference for “techno-authoritarianism”, in which some kind of new aristocracy rule over poorly educated masses, strangely echo Vladimir Putin’s views and practice in Russia.

Not surprisingly then, JD Vance has taken a pro-Russian position in Putin’s war against Ukraine and took the lead to humiliate Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during that disgraceful meeting at the White House in February.

Watch out for Vance, the chameleon

But there is more than meets the eye. Vance is a chameleon, and his real views are often extremely opaque – and changeable. He once was a Democrat and publicly compared Trump to Hitler. Usha Vance, a highly accomplished lawyer herself, prior to his selection as Vice President worked for a fairly progressive law firm in San Francisco.

By placing their man to be a running mate to Trump, Thiel no doubt expected him to become an heir to Trump as the leader of MAGA and a Republican nominee in 2028.

Vance’s political calculus…

So far, Vance has been faithfully doing Trump’s bidding. Indeed, he has even outdone him on hot-button issues such as immigration, racism and hatred of the European Union.

When Trump declared that he wanted Greenland, it was Vance who went there. He has also been Trump’s point man in relations with the European far right, such as Britain’s Reform Party and Germany’s AfD.

… suddenly speeding up

But now, with many observers expressing doubt that Trump will last the next four years, Thiel must be rubbing his hands in anticipation. He could get Vance into the White House even sooner, and without the rigamarole of primaries and elections.

And, of course, Thiel expects that Vance will be putty in his hands. As one of many examples to provide payback to his financial sponsor, Vance could significantly increase Palantir’s revenues since the U.S. government accounts for some 55% of its business.

Message to Thiel: Be careful what you wish for

But that may be a miscalculation. Thiel should be very careful about what he wishes for.

In Russia in 1999, a group of rich oligarchs headed by Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky thought they had found an ideal candidate to succeed Russia’s erratic, hard-drinking president Boris Yeltsin. It was a grey mouse of a man named Vladimir Putin.

Seemingly devoid of charisma and brains, he had had an undistinguished career in the Soviet KGB, serving in Dresden, an East German backwater, where his job was to recruit young ladies who kept company with West German tourists.

The Russian oligarchs’ pick of Putin backfired badly on them

Putin had been plucked from obscurity in the mid-1990s by the liberal mayor of St. Petersburg Anatoly Sobchak, for whom he officially faithfully carried a briefcase during important meetings, while serving as his liaison to the intelligence services and the Russian mafia.

Of course, the set of oligarchs who had emerged after 1990 were convinced that they would be able to tell this Putin fellow what to do. Better yet, they would be the real presidents of Mother Russia.

Putin did not serve the masters who picked him

However, it didn’t work out the way they had planned. As soon as he settled in the Kremlin, Putin arrested Gusinsky and forced him to sell his popular media empire.

Berezovsky had to flee to London, losing most of his money. Khodorkovsky spent a decade in a Siberian labor camp and his oil company was confiscated.

Vance remains an enigma

For now, Vance remains an enigma. We don’t really know what he thinks or how he will behave once in the White House. He may quickly turn on his benefactors, the chief of whom is of course Thiel.

The question is why would he do that considering that Thiel and other high-tech bros have enriched him and are expected to continue doing so in the future?

There may well be reasons why Vance may decide to bite the hand that has been feeding him.

To be sure, Vance is highly ambitious and also quite ruthless. He has an easily bruised ego and a chip on his shoulder. He, a guy who grew up poor and rose to prominence by writing a bestselling book and getting into top-level Yale Law School, it is probably safe to assume that he feels patronized by Thiel. He doesn’t want to be reminded that he owes so much to that one man.

Then there is Thiel’s alleged ties to white supremacy. Mrs. Vance is a daughter of Indian immigrants and one of their three children is named Vivek. Vance couldn’t have enjoyed the attacks on his family from the far right which Thiel represents.

Thou shall enrich yourself

And, finally, as so often in U.S. politics, it is about money. Donald Trump has shown everyone that a U.S. President can use his office to blatantly enrich himself without outside help, thank you very much.

Trump and his family are believed to have made at least $3.4 billion since returning to the White House, including profits from cryptocurrency ventures.

As to Thiel’s own wealth, Trump has also demonstrated that the White House can make a poor man out of a disloyal billionaire.

Just consider that Donald Trump has been bringing frivolous suits against various U.S. media companies and getting them to settle, because they realized that otherwise he could bring the weight of the government against them.

Even Elon Musk quickly stopped attacking Trump on X because his business relies on government contracts and government largesse. It is therefore realistic to assume that a President Vance can bankrupt Palantir if he puts his mind to it.

Having done complete political 180 degree turns, it is clear that Vance has no real principles. He may thus shed his current believes and go back on his statements just as easily as he has his hatred of Trump.

Conclusion

Ever the opportunist, and indeed a full-blown turncoat, Vance may turn on those who brought him to power, for instance getting back at them for snickering at his Indian-born wife.

We have no idea what kind of President Vance would be. But it is quite possible that Peter Thiel will be among the first to regret his choice.