In September 2021, Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance—then still a long shot candidate for the Republican Senate nomination in Ohio—made an appearance on Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight. In a crisp white button-down and navy blazer, no tie, he laid out a proposal to use the powers of the federal government to punish private universities and nonprofits for promoting "radical left-wing ideology."
"Why are we allowing the companies that are destroying this country to receive tax preferences?" he asked. "Why don't we seize the assets of the Ford Foundation, tax their assets, and give it to the people who've had their lives destroyed by their radical open-borders agenda?"
