JD Vance Favorably Quotes Fictional Serial Killer to Dunk on People Who Thought Trump Would Lose
President-Elect Donald Trump isn’t the only person on the Republican ticket who’s referencing fictional serial killers during the presidential campaign and subsequent transition to the White House.
Trump has repeatedly cited Hannibal Lecter, the cannibalistic serial murderer and cop killer from Silence of the Lambs.
“You know, they go crazy when I say the late great Hannibal Lecter, ok?” Trump told rally-goers in July. “They say, ‘Why would he mention Hannibal Lecter? He must be cognitively in trouble.’ No, no. These are real stories. Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lamb [sic]. He’s a lovely man. He wants to have you for dinner.”
On Friday, it was Vice President-Elect JD Vance’s turn. The Ohio senator ripped Democrats who thought Trump was destined to lose the election to Vice President Kamala Harris this week. In a tweet, Vance referenced the Cormac McCarthy novel No Country for Old Men to quote Anton Chigurh, a deranged killer who was portrayed by Javier Bardem in the Coen brothers’ film adaptation of the book:
One of the most important skills I see in successful (and good) people is to constantly reevaluate assumptions. They make predictions based on various inputs, some of them unknown, and reevaluate based on what they got right and wrong. They trust people not because they’re always right–no one is–but because if you’re constantly seeking the truth it’s easy to identify those who are doing the same.
If you were confident that Donald J. Trump was going to lose, maybe you should question what else you “know” about him. Maybe the people who misled you about his electoral chances have misled you about other things.
In the words of Cormac McCarthy, “If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?”
Chigurh delivers the line just before he kills someone with a shotgun.
