Somewhere between describing Donald Trump as "America's Hitler" and "cultural heroin" in his first presidential campaign and accepting (after rabidly seeking) the offer to be his running mate in the current campaign, J.D. Vance had a transformation. I've seen it described as a "Road to Damascus" moment for him.
Well, I'm no religious scholar, but as I understand it, Saul of Tarsus turned into St. Paul the Apostle by going from persecutor to persecuted. Vance seems to have done quite the opposite. Whereas he was once primarily an advocate for his fellow Appalachians, he now has turned into much more of a MAGA dogma pharisee.
By the way, for those of you who might not know who Urban Meyer is: Meyer is a football coach and announcer. He was head coach at Ohio State from 2012 to 2018, where his teams dominated Michigan teams. There were some untoward things that happened in the program during his tenure, and he left before having to seriously deal with them. He then had a famously disastrous partial season as head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. He is very ambitious, which in and of itself is not a bad thing. But it can spill (and, for him, arguably did spill) over into dangerously ambitious.
Anyway, I think he and Vance share many traits. And admittedly, the Ohio connection made it easy to play to the prejudices of a U of M audience.
Editor's note: John Auchter is a freelance political cartoonist. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Public, its management, or its license holder, the University of Michigan.
