Transcription
Hi, this is Frank Schafer. I am an author and a commentator, and I come out of a far-right-wing religious background that I long since left. And I've spent 40 years trying to undo some of the damage my family did. But one advantage of my background is that I think I have some special insight into right-wing activities and the underlying currents that informed them.
Well, recently I found out something that really is a window into the soul, character, and being of a vice presidential candidate, JD Vance. It's also, by extension, a window into the soul, character, and being of Donald Trump, that he would appoint JD Vance, a vice presidential candidate, a man who, in office, would be within a heartbeat of an old man of the presidency. You know, once in a while, a detail floats into the public space that tells you everything you need to know about someone.
And as an author, I've written a dozen or so books. One of the details that I look for is not just what people read, but what they're influenced by. And so I was shocked and horrified, literally shocked, to find that JD Vance had given a promotional quote, what we call in the book trade a blurb, that you see on the cover of a book, endorsing a book by a far-right author who literally, quite literally, not throwing the word around loosely, but literally end versus fascism, whose heroes are Francisco Franco of Spain, whose heroes include Joseph McCarthy. And he has written a book called "Unhuman."
"Unhuman," and the thesis of that book is that anyone on the left, a liberal or a Democrat, in other words, most Americans who are not to the far-right MAGA orientation, are literally, according to the title, unhuman. And in this book called "Unhuman," claims are made that if JD Vance made them from a podium, would elicit either laughter or gasps. But somehow, by endorsing them in a book, we get a view of what JD Vance really means. For instance, he says that the hero of the Spanish Civil War, Francisco Franco, who overthrew the Democratic Second Spanish Republic in the 1930s Civil War, did the right thing. Did the right thing by, and including, executing his political enemies.
The book goes on to talk about the fact that Augusto Pinochet of Chile is a hero, that he did the right things. Remember what his technique was with his opponents, people he also called unhuman? He had his military collect them by the hundreds, torture them to death, throw political prisoners from helicopters into the sea, chain women to beds who were pregnant because he was a traditional Catholic, deliver the babies, hand them to doctors. Those children were then given to other people and adopted, while the woman, still raw, still bleeding, still injured from delivering the baby, was taken out and shot. In the book "Unhuman," Pinochet is held up as a hero.
And who holds up this book as instructive and something we all ought to learn from? JD Vance. Who else? Endorses this book? Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr. The forward is by Steve Bannon, one of Donald Trump's chief strategists. So this is not some little chance occurrence, a book called "Unhuman" that is just a freak thing where maybe JD Vance didn't read the book all the way through. Although, as someone who has asked to blurb about 50 books a year, of which maybe I choose two or three to write comments on, because I've had the good fortune to be a best-selling author at times, so I'm asked to blurb all sorts of books. And guess what? I never do. I never give a comment on a book praising it unless I've read it. And nor does anyone else.
So when you look at what they're talking about, and when you realize that JD Vance has endorsed this book, Donald Trump's son has endorsed this book, and these other far-right luminaries have this book that holds up Franco and Pinochet and these other murderers as heroes for doing to their political opponents what the author says that Republicans who win the next election, in other words, Trump and JD Vance, should do to American opponents. And when you put that together with the fact that the Supreme Court, appointed in its majority by Donald Trump, has given him a rubber stamp saying anything you do in your official capacity, say having political opponents thrown from helicopters, or women chained to beds and having their babies given to good Christian couples, which is what Pinochet did, and have the mother who was in the wrong political party tortured and shot after just delivering birth, that not only is this okay, it is what this book is saying should be done by extension because these are the author's heroes.
This author also believes in Pizzagate, the far-right conspiracy theory that somehow Democrats are controlled by demon-possessed, demon-possessed child molesters, run these centers for political leaders and entertainers from Hollywood to rape children. All this nonsense, okay? It's off there on the dark web. We don't pay attention. Just in the same way that you don't want to look at a traffic accident and someone bleeding out on a sidewalk. Decent people don't. But unfortunately, with the vice presidential candidate JD Vance endorsing a book that holds up Pinochet and Franco and other fascist leaders as heroes, we've got to ask a serious question. And that is, when will the mainstream media lift the lid on who these people really are?
And I want to add one more thing into this mix, and that is the insanity and the extremism of the current Kennedy candidate, who now has been outed at playing a prank by bringing a dead baby bear and putting it in Central Park. Believe me, I'm not making this crap up. And he also has followers on the far-right conspiracy theorists who say that the vaccine companies are somehow conspiring to give us vaccines that kill our children. And all these things that basically don't bear repetition. But when you look at the extremism of Kennedy with the worm in the brain, and as a prankster who puts a dead bear in a park, you look at the extremism of JD Vance. And by the way, I have a question for him. And that is, you know, if I had a wife whose family and parentage is Indian, comes from India, I would not be making fun of another woman of color for being a DEI hire as a woman of color when my own wife is also a lawyer and has had the same professional success. And the same thing could be said about her by these kind of lickspittle, Trump-following, racist, misogynistic, I'm sorry, pigs that also endorse a book that holds up as heroes people who had people thrown from helicopters that they disagreed with. And said, this is what we have to do in America. We've got to go after the left as enemies that need to be thrown from helicopters. We have to kill them the way they were killed. This is not fantasy. This is what this book promotes. These are its heroes. And it is drawing a direct connection between our present political situation, saying this is what the far-right must do.
This is not an exaggeration. If you want to understand JD Vance, just understand what he has endorsed in a book, and you don't need to look any further to know what a cruel, misfit, loser cretin this man is, insulting women of exactly the same profile and profession and color as his own wife. And he's a heartbeat from the presidency if Trump wins. These are extremists. These are dangerous people. If you want the real Republican program, endorsed by the vice presidential candidate and the son of the man trying to reclaim the presidency, check out "Unhuman," and you will understand where they're really coming from. My name is Frank Schafer.