Obama accuses JD Vance of pushing ‘blood and soil’ vision despite marriage to immigrant’s daughter

WASHINGTON, DC: Former President Barack Obama recently accused Vice President JD Vance of promoting a "blood and soil" vision of America despite being married to Usha Vance, whom he described as "the daughter of an immigrant."

Obama made the remarks during a discussion with author Malcolm Gladwell about the Reconstruction era, arguing that many of the central debates from that period, including questions about citizenship, voting rights, and belonging, continue to shape American politics today.

Obama links JD Vance's rhetoric to Reconstruction era debates

"It's impossible to spend a lot of time thinking about Reconstruction without reflecting on the present day, right?" Obama said.

"Because these issues are, well, they're still there. If somebody is asking why it is relevant to talk about Reconstruction, I have to describe for them the degree to which we're having the same arguments. The issues of: How are we going to help the freed people who've been enslaved? What are we going to give them to allow them to have a go at life? What does real freedom mean?"

Obama connected those historical questions to current debates over voting rights following a Supreme Court ruling on race-based congressional gerrymandering. He argued that one of the country's two major political parties has embraced a narrower definition of who counts as "the people."

"We have a politics now that at least one of our major parties has been captured by politics that is not that subtle about suggesting that 'We the people' means a certain kind of people," Obama said.

"When you have the vice president, current vice president, making a speech that is basically a blood and soil version of 'We the people,' that it matters who your parents were and how long they've been here despite him being married to a daughter of an immigrant himself."

He added that the sentiment "echoes... ideas about who can be a citizen, who belongs, who gets to make decisions."

Malcolm Gladwell calls JD Vance a hypocrite as Obama responds

Gladwell went further and accused Vance of hypocrisy for making what he described as a nativist argument while being married to Usha Vance, the daughter of Indian immigrants.

Obama agreed with the criticism but offered a more nuanced perspective.

He said, "That is progress. Listen, hypocrisy is progress. It is, because it means that you feel guilty enough to either lie to yourself or others. And that is better than not even thinking about the idea that maybe you're doing something wrong."

The vice president's most recent major public address came earlier this month, when he marked the nation's 250th birthday in New York and urged Americans to reject a "two-dimensional view" of the country. He instead called for unity around a shared national history rather than "zero-sum thinking."

Obama has largely avoided direct public criticism of Vance since he took office, though he made an indirect jab during the 2024 campaign by questioning the judgment behind vice presidential selections without mentioning Vance by name.