Rod Dreher: J.D. Vance’s Time for Choosing 92%

By Rod Dreher100%

7/16/2026, 8:32:48 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Ambiguity (Equivocation), and Pessimism Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 69.9% saturation with 204 hits. Analysis detected 1,232 faulty-reasoning hits from 292 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 87.7% and a BS Rank of 92% (1,378 of 16,737 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 91.80% of the article peer group.

Let’s start from a position of charity: J.D. 
Vance is in an extremely difficult position. 
It is widely assumed that he opposed the U.S. war on Iran—correctly, in my view—but when President Donald Trump chose to launch it, Vance was fully on board. 
Who can blame him for that? 
Vice presidents don’t usually take public stands against their presidents. 
His dilemma worsened when Trump’s war blew up in his face, thanks to Iran’s asymmetrical warfare—not merely seizing the Strait of Hormuz but a willingness to go for the desalination and gas-refining jugulars of Arab Gulf States, and accept the catastrophic suffering of its own population. 
The president named Vance chief negotiator to try to extract the U.S. from the mess Trump made. 
The June 17 memorandum of understandin g (MOU) negotiated by Vance collapsed under repeated Iranian violations of its terms—which the Islamic Republic had never quite accepted in the first place, which became unignorable after Iran attacked Persian Gulf shipping on July 6. 
In short, Iran made a fool of both the United States and the vice president—but then, given the sinister nature of the Iranian regime, that was always in the cards. 
Trump himself shrugged at the recent NATO summit , calling further negotiations “a waste of time.” 
Meanwhile, the midterms are approaching, Trump’s approval ratings are in the basement, and the administration is increasingly blamed by the right, which accuses Trump of betraying voters who believed he would keep America out of “forever wars.” 
What is Vance, assumed to be looking forward to running as Trump’s successor in 2028, to do? 
Surveying the dire political and geopolitical landscape, the vice president has decided that the real villain in all this is Israel. 
Confirmation Bias
9.6%
Anchoring Bias
0%
Availability Heuristic
9.2%
Representativeness Heuristic
0%
Hindsight Bias
24.7%
Overconfidence Bias
0%
Framing Effect
12.7%
Loss Aversion
0%
Status Quo Bias
0%
Sunk Cost Effect
0%
Optimism Bias
0%
Pessimism Bias
31.2%
Negativity Bias
69.9%
Self-Serving Bias
5.8%
Fundamental Attribution Error
0%
Actor-Observer Bias
0%
In-Group Bias
0%
Out-Group Homogeneity Bias
0%
Halo Effect
0%
Horn Effect
0%
Dunning-Kruger Effect
0%
Recency Bias
5.5%
Primacy Effect
0%
Blind-Spot Bias
0%
Ad Hominem
0%
Straw Man
7.2%
Appeal to Authority
0%
False Dilemma
25.7%
Slippery Slope
0%
Circular Reasoning
0%
Hasty Generalization
13.7%
Red Herring
5.8%
Bandwagon
12.7%
Appeal to Emotion
2.1%
Begging the Question
0%
Post Hoc (False Cause)
30.1%
Tu Quoque
0%
Burden of Proof
0%
Appeal to Nature
0%
Composition/Division
0%
Anecdotal
5.5%
No True Scotsman
10.3%
Ambiguity (Equivocation)
32.5%
Gambler’s Fallacy
0%
Middle Ground
0%
Personal Incredulity
0%
Special Pleading
0%
Genetic Fallacy
0%
Unattributed Quote
12.7%
Quote-first Misdirection
5.5%
Biased Writer Voice
57.5%
Indoctrination
9.9%
Politically Left Leaning Bias
0%
Politically Right Leaning Bias
22.3%
Attempt to Sell a Product or Service
0%

292 words analyzed.

Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.