In his trip to NC, JD Vance brought division we don’t need | Opinion
When Vice President JD Vance visited North Carolina on Wednesday, he did so as his usual divisive self, making a number of disingenuous and inflammatory claims.
Vance’s first official trip to the state since becoming vice president was supposed to be about public safety, particularly regarding the fatal stabbing of a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee on Charlotte’s light rail last month.
Vance did discuss safety, but he then shifted his focus to political violence, which he called “another law-and-order problem.” Vance discussed the recent shooting of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, as well as an incident that occurred Wednesday in Dallas, where a gunman opened fire on a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. Officials have suggested it was a targeted attack on immigration enforcement, though no officers were injured.
Vance immediately blamed Democrats for the incident, specifically naming California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has been critical of ICE.
“When Democrats like Gavin Newsom say these people are part of an authoritarian government, when the left-wing media lies about what they’re doing and who they’re arresting and the actual job of law enforcement, what they’re doing is encouraging crazy people to go and commit violence,” Vance said. “If your political rhetoric encourages violence against our law enforcement, you can go straight to hell, and you have no place in the political conversation in the United States.”
Of course, Vance is conveniently not acknowledging what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, when an armed mob of MAGA supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol. One officer died from the attack, dozens more were injured, and four died by suicide in subsequent months. That attack was of course fueled by the rhetoric of President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans who sowed distrust in the results of the 2020 election, which Trump lost. Trump has called the Jan. 6 rioters “great people” and pardoned or commuted their sentences.
Vance continued on to say that political violence in America is “out of control,” and addressing it starts “at the very top of the Democratic Party.”
“If you want to stop political violence, stop telling your supporters that everybody who disagrees with you is a Nazi. If you want to stop political violence, look in the mirror.”
Perhaps Vance should look in the mirror, as well, given that he once referred to Trump as “America’s Hitler,” albeit that remark was made in private. But he’s also known to make his fair share of public insults. He called Vice President Kamala Harris “trash,” disparaged voters who don’t have children and generally belittles those who disagree with him. Trump, meanwhile, frequently refers to his political opponents as fascists, suggested using the military to handle “radical left lunatics,” whom he called “the enemy from within,” and said in 2024 that Democrats were running a “Gestapo administration.”
Of course, most mainstream Democrats are not peddling the extremist rhetoric that Vance claims they are. Vance called on Democratic leaders to “renounce all political violence when a poor kid like Charlie Kirk is gunned down in cold blood,” but most Democrats already did so without hesitation. Those on the left who have encouraged or celebrated violence are a small minority.
But perhaps the most egregious of Vance’s remarks Wednesday came when he attempted to frame political violence as only a left-wing problem.
“Of course both sides have crazy people. But if you look at the political violence in our country over the last couple of months, last couple of years, it is not a ‘both sides’ problem,” Vance said. “It is primarily on one side of the political aisle.”
That is simply not true. In June, a Minnesota man killed a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband, and seriously injured another state lawmaker and his wife. Two months before that, someone set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, where Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family reside. In 2022, someone tried to kidnap and hurt former Speaker Nancy Pelosi by breaking into her home, but brutally attacked her husband with a hammer instead. There was also a serious plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, in 2020.
The truth is that political violence does happen on both sides, and to pretend otherwise is irresponsible. It perpetuates more division at a time when unity is what’s most needed. It’s astoundingly hypocritical to criticize your opponents for supposedly divisive rhetoric when you’re perhaps even more guilty of it yourself. That doesn’t help anyone find a solution — it just makes you another part of the problem.
Paige Masten is a deputy opinion editor for the North Carolina opinion team.
This story was originally published September 25, 2025 at 8:55 AM with the headline "In his trip to NC, JD Vance brought division we don’t need | Opinion."
