When Donald Trump chose JD Vance as his running mate, he brought the first millennial onto a presidential ticket, a self-proclaimed Lord of the Rings superfan whose conservative views are shaped by Tolkien’s fantasy world. Vance’s admiration for Tolkien’s epic tales mirrors his own political journey and worldview, from naming his venture capital firm after a powerful ring to drawing parallels between Middle-Earth’s battles and real-world struggles. This deep connection to Tolkien’s work reveals a unique blend of geek culture and political ambition, setting the stage for a fascinating and unexpected blend of pop culture and politics in the upcoming election.
By appointing JD Vance as his running mate, Donald Trump elevated the first millennial to be included on a presidential ticket. Vance, an internet native whose political ascent aligned with the emergence of a new conservative faction that would eventually become the New Right, is thus the first politician to have grown up during both the Iraq War and the Great Recession reports Politico.
But Vance’s obsession with all things Lord of the Rings may be his most millennial characteristic. Although the trilogy of books has long been a nerd favorite, Peter Jackson’s films elevated it to the forefront of popular culture throughout Vance’s high school years.
Tolkien’s high fantasy epics have been cited by Vance himself as a resource for comprehending his philosophy. Sitting next to Vance in Trump’s friends and family box at the convention on Tuesday night, Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana asked Vance to name his favorite author in an archived edition of the now-defunct “Grounded” podcast from 2021 that no longer appears in podcast feeds.
“I would have to say Tolkien,” Vance said. “I’m a big Lord of the Rings guy, and I think, not realizing it at the time, but a lot of my conservative worldview was influenced by Tolkien growing up.” He added of Tolkien’s colleague: “Big fan of C.S. Lewis — really sort of like that era of English writers. I think they were really interesting. They were grappling, in part because of World War II, with just very big problems.”
In the books, finding The One Ring and ultimately destroying it will determine the fate of society. True aficionados are aware that there are 20 rings of power in all, despite the fact that Frodo and Gollum are fighting for the one ring. Given that Narya, the venture capital firm Vance created in 2019, is named after one of those additional rings that Gandalf wears, it appears that he is among those ranks. Peter Thiel, Vance’s mentor, dubbed his business Palantir after Saruman’s crystal ball from The Lord of the Rings, and Vance has invested in Anduril, a defense startup called after Aragorn’s sword.
“By the time of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Narya has been entrusted to Gandalf to resist the corrupting influence of evil, preserve the world from decay, and give strength to its wielder,” said Tolkien-head John Shelton, who, when not engaged in fantasy literature, is policy director for Advancing American Freedom, founded by former Vice President Mike Pence. “Gandalf, unlike the other great powers in Lord of the Rings, cared for the hobbits and other lowly people of Middle-Earth, and so it is unsurprising that Vance would see himself as a kind of Gandalf, caring for the forgotten people of his hometown, keeping a watchful eye on them against the corrupting effects of the world.”
It should come as no surprise that Vance was greatly influenced by The Lord of the Rings. During his high school years, the three movies were released between 2001 and 2003. They brought in $2.9 billion at the box office and resulted in 28 Academy Award nominations and 17 wins. Professor Luke Burgis of the Catholic University of America and author of a book about René Girard, another of Vance’s intellectual heroes, expressed suspicion that “Vance’s appreciation of Tolkien is not unrelated to his conversion to Catholicism in 2019. Of the many ways that Tolkien’s work exemplifies the Catholic imagination, one is the relationship between the visible and the invisible. I think it’s fair to say that Vance believes there is real spiritual evil in this world, and it can become embodied in rites and rituals.” (At a closed-door speech in September 2021, Vance said, “I believe the devil is real and that he works terrible things in our society.)
Burgis told me that Vance probably took away from Tolkien “an apocalyptic frame of mind,” which is a definitive struggle between good and evil. (A request for comment for this story was not answered by a Vance representative.)
Tolkien invented the mythology of Middle Earth while fighting in the trenches of World War I, though he spent a large portion of his life working on it. Following The Hobbit’s success, he started developing a sequel set in the same universe, and he wrote the majority of The Rings volumes while Britain was involved in World War II. There is a clear anti-war bent to the texts. In the Two Towers, the second of the trilogy, Tolkien wrote: “War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
Vance has stated that his dovish, isolationist attitude to foreign affairs was shaped by his personal experience serving in the Marines in Iraq. Vance once recalled, “I served my country honorably, and I saw when I went to Iraq that I had been lied to.” “[I saw] that promises of the foreign policy establishment of this country were a complete joke.”
However, certain of Tolkien’s beliefs about how nation-states ought to interact with the outside world are at odds with his fan base. In many respects, the texts oppose seclusion. Frodo first wishes to disregard the bad news and stay at home, but he soon learns that there are problems beyond Shire that need to be addressed (such as NATO being forced to defend Ukraine from Sauron Putin). Ultimately, Gondor, Rohan, the elves, the ents, and the dwarves must come together to put an end to their little nationalist quarrels. They understand the connections between their lives.
Vance shares a common interest with right-wing nationalists overseas in his love of Lord of the Rings. Giorgia Meloni, an Italian, used to dress up as a hobbit. Though, in contrast to Vance, she has backed aid to Ukraine, she has stated, “I think that Tolkien could say better than us what conservatives believe in.”
Pepperdine University’s Jessica Hooten Wilson, the Fletcher Jones Chair of Great Books, has studied with Tolkien in her classes and met Vance in 2019 at a conference on the Catholic author Walker Percy. She informed me that Vance might have taken in the idea that, in contrast to Frodo, America is not called upon to act in foreign affairs. “I think this is where Tolkien did not want his work called allegory because he didn’t want one way of reading his text,” she said. She added: “I would also hope that whoever is reading the Lord of the Rings and Walker Percy is willing to learn from it rather than to make it say what they want it to say.”
Though he is a fellow Tolkien-pilled Catholic, former senator and two-time GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum draws opposite conclusions from Vance. This week, he told me about the stories he’s told his kids about Tolkien. “I always dreamed I would get interviewed about Lord of the Rings,” Santorum told me.
“I’m a huge Tolkien fan,” he continued. “I’m also someone who believes that the message of Tolkien is that evil must be confronted. And so the idea is that well, we can wait until it comes to the Shire, but that is not a very good game plan. You gotta go to Mordor.”
All of this suggests that Vance is still resolving spiritual and intellectual conflicts. “He’s been in office a year and a half. He’s never been greatly involved in politics before this,” Santorum said. “I suspect that this is one of the reasons Trump may have picked him: JD is a smart guy but is still a work in progress.”
Since converting to Catholicism in 2019, Vance, according to those close to him, has been going through an awakening.
I was informed by conservative author Rod Dreher that Vance “is thinking broadly about how all must join in the great struggle against darkness— there is no avoiding the struggle— and how God can use the humble and the lowborn to do great things.” Dreher was invited to Vance’s initiation into the faith in 2019 and witnessed his first communion.
“Think about it: Who would have imagined that sad, scared little Ohio boy living in a wreck of a family would have come through it all, and risen to the gates of supreme political power? What might God be doing with him? J.D. Vance might be Frodo of the Hollers, a veritable hillbilly hobbit.”
Recently, GreatGameInternational reported that Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire from the historic Mellon family, is shaking up the 2024 election with his staggering $115 million in donations to Republican and conservative causes.
One Response
Really?Youre going to discredit a God fearing man who served in our military &started a successful business because he’s conservative?How about Kamala &her affair with Willie Brown &exactly how she climbed the political ladder while on her knees? She’s never started a business or served in the military.Shes on the gov dole