JD Vance's demon talk is lame youth outreach

[marmar]

JD Vance’s demon talk is lame youth outreach
Hopping on the "KPop Demon Hunters" trend won't save the vice president's career

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published April 1, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) Even for JD Vance, it was a weird moment. Over the weekend, the vice president appeared on the podcast of Benny Johnson, a sycophantic MAGA media figure tied to the conservative advocacy group Turning Point USA. The two discussed the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, Medicaid fraud and the SAVE Act, which would undermine Americans’ freedom to vote, and Vance even accused Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., of immigration fraud. But in a blatant attempt to snag the attention former president Barack Obama received for discussing aliens during a recent podcast appearance, the conversation turned to the extraterrestrial and UFOs, which the Yale-educated Vance argued are actually demons.

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The clip is worth watching, and not just to marvel yet again at Vance’s ability to make idiotic statements in the self-assured tone of the smartest boy in the room. The entire exchange feels rehearsed, even though it’s clear Vance is hoping to channel some of that off-the-cuff energy that made Obama’s chat with podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen so entertaining. Vance, though, is clearly incapable of such a spontaneous response. (His disgust upon hearing on MAGA influencer Katie Miller’s podcast that her husband, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, loves mayonnaise was a rare moment of authenticity.)

No wonder it came off as contrived. On Tuesday it was announced that Vance would be releasing “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith,” a memoir about his conversion to Catholicism. (As my Salon colleague Kelly McClure pointed out, “Communion” is also the title of a popular 80s book about alien encounters.) Talking up demons on a MAGA podcast offered a good way to frame his faith not as part of the high-minded Catholicism of the American-born Pope Leo XIV, who is much-loathed by Donald Trump for all that peace-and-charity talk. It signals that Vance is more into an evangelical-flavored Catholicism that’s popular with MAGA and is centered far more on Satan and hellfire than all that “love thy neighbor” chatter.

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Vance is tapping into a long, productive history of Christian-right activists and politicians getting attention by hijacking pop culture trends. Sometimes these efforts attempt to be positive; contemporary Christian music has long attempted to imitate secular chart success, but with a “Jesus loves you” message. That has tended to be less effective, though, as much of the music is perceived as corny to those who aren’t living in a Christian fundamentalist environment. ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/04/01/jd-vances-demon-talk-is-lame-youth-outreach/