Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance speaks during the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s God & Country Breakfast on Thursday morning at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee during the fourth day of the Republican National Convention. Photo: Mike De Sisti / USA TODAY NETWORK
Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), has blamed transgender inclusion for America’s declining schools.
Ahead of the Ohio senator’s highly anticipated debate with Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz on Tuesday, Vance test-drove his trans line of attack on Saturday on stage with Lance Wallau, a notorious anti-LGBTQ+ hate pastor currently on a stealth Trump campaign revival tour.
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“Creeping socialism” and “87 different genders” are “poisoning in the minds of our kids,” Vance claimed in a trademark ramble in answer to a question from Wallnau, a Christian nationalist conspiracy theorist.
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“First of all,” Vance said, “the American education system used to be the envy of the world, rich or poor alike. We believe in this country that every person deserves a quality education.”
“Well, now we’ve got American children who can’t add five plus five, but they can tell you that there are 87 different genders,” the one-time venture capitalist claimed. “And I think both of those things are related.”
J.D. Vance, making the case for cutting off funding to “radical” public schools: “Now we’ve got American children that can’t add 5+5, but they can tell you there are 87 different genders.”
According to Vance, American schools funded by taxpayer dollars are now akin to Communist reeducation camps brainwashing our children with “radical ideas.”
This picture paints teachers like Walz, a former coach and social studies teacher in Minnesota public schools, as radical purveyors of Godless socialist ideology and a threat to America’s Christian heritage.
“Because we’re teaching kids radical ideas,” Vance continued, “we’re not teaching them the basics. We’re not teaching them reading, writing, arithmetic, the things that every child needs in order to live a good life.
“And that is to your point,” Vance told Wallnau, “this creeping socialism in our schools. We’ve got to get it out of there, and I think we cut off the money. Stop spending your tax dollars on radical organizations that are poisoning the minds of our kids.”
Trump and Project 2025 – the authoritarian blueprint for a second Trump presidency drafted by the right-wing Heritage Foundation – advocate dismantling the Department of Education. The former president declared in February, “We will force schools to adopt school prayer” which Project 2025 also suggests.
Vance appeared at the event just miles from Butler, PA (where Trump was shot in the ear over the summer) as a guest on Wallnau’s “Courage Tour,” a Trump campaign proxy in the guise of an old-time religion revival tour.
Wallnau was a key player on the ground in mobilizing Christian nationalist support and bodies for the January 6th insurrection. His “Courage Tour” has been supplied with swing state voter data by Trump-aligned America First Legal, run by Trump administration propagandist Stephen Miller.
Wallnau is known for popularizing the Seven Mountain Mandate that asserts conservative Christians are called on to rule the world.
Following Trump’s debate with Kamala Harris earlier this month, Wallnau said he witnessed “occult-empowered deception, manipulation and domination,” over the airwaves at the event. “That’s what ABC pulled off as moderators, and Kamala’s script handlers set up the kill box,” he said.
After a so-called “demonic” Harris secured support for the Democratic nomination in August, Wallnau predicted she’d pick U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as her running mate to stoke national division over “racism and perversion.”
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