Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in a fractious Germany that is seeing an alarming rise of the far-right AfD party — with vocal support from foreign actors like the world’s richest man, Elon Musk — Vice President JD Vance expressed a belief that Musk’s power and sway should be essentially negligible in a strong democracy where leadership is adequately responsible to its citizens.
Vance gave an example of cancelled election results in Romania as an instance where a democracy needs to be able to withstand rogue voices, even expensive propaganda campaigns by foreign actors, in order to justify its strength.
Using his platform to decry concerns — which he characterized as exaggerated — over disinformation campaigns around the globe, Vance cited a Russian disinformation campaign on social media that Romanian authorities believe invalidated an election.
Vance characterized the cancellation of Romanian election results as the result of “the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency” and “enormous pressure from [Romania’s] continental neighbors.”
“You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections — we certainly do,” Vance said. “But if your democracy can be destroyed by a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.”
That conclusion, delivered as an applause line with a pause afterwards, drew only a smattering of claps from the sober audience.
Vance: You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections.. but if your democracy can be destroyed by a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising then it wasn’t very strong to begin with pic.twitter.com/FKBV568eIv
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 14, 2025
Continuing his attack on EU leadership, Vance implied that it was “running in fear of your voters” and that populism is the only path to sustainable power.
The current EU leadership is under siege, Vance suggested, not because rabble-rousers with unlimited resources like Musk are pushing certain agendas, but because the governments are not adequately responding to the people.
Vance presented himself and Donald Trump — and their November victory, also heavily influenced by Musk, who reportedly spent nearly $300M to help — as examples of winning politically by being responsive to an underserved and frustrated public.
Vance: If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you nor is there anything you can do for the American people who elected me and President Trump. Thin mandates produce unstable results pic.twitter.com/J5v7YHZrsR
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 14, 2025
[NOTE: Vance’s argument leaves little room for the fact that electorates influenced by propaganda and constantly stoked into anger, resentment and fear of the “other” will often choose a disastrous and violent path. That the audience in Germany is aware of this history of unchecked populism may account for the paucity of applause.]
In the clip below, Vance further defends Musk and other information peddlers insisting that “speaking up and expressing opinions is not election interference, even when people express views outside your own country and even when those people are very influential.” (He does not address the possibility that the “views” may be untrue and therefore damaging in a deliberately pernicious way.)
Vance’s joke at the clip’s end, comparing the environmental activist Greta Thunberg‘s “scolding” the United States and how the country “survived” it — and comparing Thunberg’s platform to that of Elon Musk — also fell flat.
Vance: Expressing opinions isn’t election interference even when expressed outside of the country and even when they are very influential. If America democracy can survive Greta Thunberg scolding, you can survive Elon Musk pic.twitter.com/UyZCu7IDCv
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 14, 2025