April 15, 2025 - 11:30am

US Vice President JD Vance has described social media as “a way to stay in touch” with what’s happening in America. During a wide-ranging interview with UnHerd, Vance addressed his extensive use of X (formerly Twitter), insisting that “I probably spend way less time on Twitter than I did six months ago, and that’s probably good for me.”

Vance has over four million followers on X, and he frequently uses the platform to engage in online debates and challenge his critics. In January, he got into a well-documented argument with British former politician and podcaster Rory Stewart, stating: “the problem with Rory and people like him is that he has an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130.  This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years.”

When asked by UnHerd’s Sohrab Ahmari whether he tweets too much, the Vice President responded: “There are many blessings to this job. One unquestioned downside is that I very much live in a bubble.” Vance went on: “I’m surrounded by Secret Service agents. It’s very hard for a random person to walk up to me — in fact, it’s damned-near impossible.” In his view, social media is “a useful, albeit imperfect, way to stay in touch with what’s going on in the country at large”.

Vance’s insistence that he spends less time on X than he did before entering office may do little to shake the image imposed on him of a “Very Online” Vice President. His supporters have framed this as a digital savvy rare among frontline politicians, while his opponents have characterised his social media use as “hate-filled” and a “descent” into the “muck” of modern politics. MSNBC host Chris Hayes, writing before last November’s election, accused Vance of having “self-radicalized largely online”, and suggested that the then-Ohio senator and his allies were “constantly imbibing all kinds of genuinely monstrous, insane and bizarre ideas and have come to believe them”.

The Vice President has been willing to engage with less serious corners of the internet, too. Following a meme trend last month, in which edited versions of his face were imposed on pop-cultural figures ranging from Kim Kardashian to the Oompa-Loompas from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Vance responded with a meme of his own, in which the face of Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood morphed seamlessly into that of the Veep.

Where Donald Trump primarily uses Truth Social, X has become Vance’s platform of choice, a place to promote MAGA policies and make jokes at the expense of his critics. He may spend less time online since ascending to the vice presidency, but social media has provided Vance with a useful soapbox.


is UnHerd’s Deputy Editor, Newsroom.

RobLownie