By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and Republican vice presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, appeared on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Delegates, politicians, and the Republican faithful are in Milwaukee for the annual convention, concluding with former President Donald Trump accepting his party’s presidential nomination. The RNC takes place from July 15-18. | Win McNamee/Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump, who officially became the Republican nominee for President of the United States Monday, announced on the social media platform Truth Social that he has selected Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, as his running mate. If the Trump-Vance ticket is elected, Vance would become the 50th Vice President of the United States. 

Vance, first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022, gained notoriety for his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which was later made into a movie directed by Ron Howard that featured Glenn Close and Amy Adams. Trump highlighted the credentials of his running mate, detailing how he “honorably served our Country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, Summa Cum Laude, and is a Yale Law School Graduate, where he was Editor of the Yale Law Journal, and President of the Yale Law Veterans Association.”

The Republican vice presidential nominee is expected to receive much more scrutiny than a presidential running mate typically would in light of the advanced age of the actual nominee, his ongoing legal troubles and the attempt on his life over the weekend. Here are five things to know about J.D. Vance. 

• 1. Vance is a Catholic convert In 2019, Vance converted to Roman Catholicism. He discussed what attracted him to the faith in an interview with The American Conservative. “I became persuaded over time that Catholicism was true. I was raised Christian, but never had a super-strong attachment to any denomination, and was never baptized,” he recalled. “When I became more interested in faith, I started out with a clean slate, and looked at the church that appealed most to me intellectually.”“One of the things I love about Catholicism is that it’s very old,” Vance asserted. “I take a longer view. Are things more daunting than they were in the mid-19th century? In the Dark Ages? Is it as daunting as having a second pope at Avignon? I don’t think so. The hope of the Christian faith is not rooted in any short-term conquest of the material world, but in the fact that it is true, and over the long term, with various fits and starts, things will work out.”
  As he flirted with converting to Catholicism, Vance discovered that his “views on public policy and what the optimal state should look like are pretty aligned with Catholic social teaching.”Describing a “real overlap between what I would like to see and what the Catholic Church would like to see,” Vance expressed hope that his faith would make him “more compassionate and to identify with people who are struggling,” while lamenting that “the Republican Party has been too long a partnership between social conservatives and market libertarians.”“I don’t think social conservatives have benefitted too much from that partnership. Part of social conservatism’s challenge for viability in the 21st century is that it can’t just be about issues like abortion, but it has to have a broader vision of political economy, and the common good.” Vance also praised the idea that “the concept of grace is not couched in terms of epiphany” as “one of the most attractive things about Catholicism.” He added, “It’s not like you receive grace and suddenly you go from being a bad person to being a good person. You’re constantly being worked on. I like that.”
• 2. Once a staunch critic of TrumpLike many in the Republican Party, Vance expressed skepticism and disdain about Trump leading the Republican ticket in the 2016 presidential election. In July 2016, after Trump had clinched enough delegates to become the Republican nominee for president, Vance wrote an op-ed in The Atlantic titled “Opioid of the Masses.”“Trump is cultural heroin,” he wrote. “He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.” Vance continued:  “What Trump offers is an easy escape from the pain. To every complex problem, he promises a simple solution. He can bring jobs back simply by punishing offshoring companies into submission. As he told a New Hampshire crowd—folks all too familiar with the opioid scourge—he can cure the addiction epidemic by building a Mexican wall and keeping the cartels out. He will spare the United States from humiliation and military defeat with indiscriminate bombing.“It doesn’t matter that no credible military leader has endorsed his plan,” Vance added. “He never offers details for how these plans will work, because he can’t. Trump’s promises are the needle in America’s collective vein. The great tragedy is that many of the problems Trump identifies are real, and so many of the hurts he exploits demand serious thought and measured action—from governments, yes, but also from community leaders and individuals.”“So long as people rely on that quick high, so long as wolves point their fingers at everyone but themselves, the nation delays a necessary reckoning,” Vance lamented.He further elaborated on his dislike of Trump in an appearance on the PBS program “Charlie Rose” shortly before the 2016 election as he reflected on the appeal of the then-candidate’s message to the white working class.“I think Donald Trump is not the right candidate for this group of voters,” he said. “What’s going on and what Donald Trump has done is change the focus of the white working class from a sort of engaged, constructive politics to a politics of pointing the finger.” As he noted that “there is a movement to sort of gloat over the fact that the elites were right about Donald Trump,” Vance declared “I’m a never Trump guy, I never liked him.” Vance detailed how “I sort of exist uneasily in the world of the elites and I exist uneasily in the world of the non-elites back home.”“The media has sort of asked me to be this spokesman for the white working class voter who’s voting for Trump,” he explained. Vance once again identified himself as “somebody who doesn’t like Trump” while stressing, “I understand where Trump’s voters come from.”
• 3. If elected, Vance would be first millennial, first Marine to serve as vice presidentWhile the two major parties’ candidates for president have received attention due to their advanced ages, Vance is considerably younger than the 78-year-old Trump and the 81-year-old President Joe Biden that the Trump-Vance ticket seeks to unseat. At the age of 39, Vance would become the first millennial to serve as vice president.The Pew Research Center uses the term “millennial” to describe the generation of Americans born between 1981 and 1996. As someone born in 1984, Vance fits into this category. Vance would also become the youngest man elected vice president in more than a half-century. Trump’s running mate will be 40 years old when he takes office if he wins the election, just like Richard Nixon was when he became vice president in 1953. Only John Breckenridge, a Democrat who served as vice president during the presidency of James Buchanan, was younger upon taking office. Breckenridge was 36 when he took office in 1857, four years younger than Vance will be if he takes office in January 2025.
  In addition to becoming the first millennial vice president in U.S. history if elected, Vance would also become the first Marine to serve in the position.
• 4. Vance founded nonprofit seeking to address problems plaguing white working classFollowing the publication of his book Hillbilly Elegy, Vance founded a nonprofit called “Our Ohio Renewal.”According to an archived version of the organization’s website, “Our Ohio Renewal” is “dedicated to promoting the ideas and addressing the problems identified” in Hillbilly Elegy. It cited its mission as to “pursue government policies and private partnerships that make it easier for disadvantaged children to achieve their dreams.”Initiatives supported by the organization included an effort to “work with local agencies and institutions to identify and scale workable solutions to the problems of family breakdown” and “lead on solutions to opioid abuse so we can take our communities back.”
  The website for the charity had been taken offline as of April 2021, suggesting that the nonprofit is no longer active. The removal of the “Our Ohio Renewal” website from the internet came shortly before Vance launched his bid for the U.S. Senate.
• 5. Vance introduced a bill to ban sex-change surgeries for minors Last July, Vance introduced the U.S. Senate version of the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, which would ban the performance of body-mutilating procedures on youth exhibiting confusion about the sex by classifying them as Class C felonies. In a statement announcing his introduction of the legislation, Vance proclaimed, “Under no circumstances should doctors be allowed to perform these gruesome, irreversible procedures on underage children.” “With this legislation, we have an opportunity to save countless young Americans from a lifetime of suffering and regret,” he added. The bill has failed to gain traction, although it secured 47 cosponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives. Vance’s legislation would also prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for gender transition surgeries. The introduction of the Protect Children’s Innocence Act comes at a time when states are taking action to ban some or all forms of gender transition procedures on minors amid concerns about their long-term harmful effects.
  The American College of Pediatricians has listed the side effects of puberty blockers prescribed to trans-identified youth as “osteoporosis, mood disorders, seizures, [and] cognitive impairment” while warning that cross-sex hormones can cause youth with gender dysphoria to experience “an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, blood clots and cancers across their lifespan.” A lawsuit filed by detransitioner Chloe Cole maintains that the double mastectomy she received as a minor when she identified as a male left her with suicidal thoughts as well as “deep physical and emotional wounds, severe regrets, and distrust of the medical system.” The states that have enacted bans on some or all types of gender transition procedures for minors include: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.