In 2021, JD Vance gave a speech to the National Conservatism Conference, a gathering of Trumpist thinkers and politicians, titled “The Universities Are the Enemy.” It contained the usual complaints about critical race theory and gender ideology, but it went much further, arguing for a frontal attack on the power and prestige of higher education writ large. Comparing universities to the sci-fi totalitarianism of “The Matrix,” in which parasitic machines have seized control of reality itself, he said, “So much of what drives truth and knowledge as we understand it in this country is fundamentally determined by, supported by and reinforced by the universities.” Why, he asked, have conservatives consented to such intellectual tyranny?

Vance, then a Senate candidate, described being at a donor event and talking to a supporter about the absurdity of encouraging kids to take on debt to go to colleges that will brainwash them. The supporter asked, “What’s the alternative? I don’t want my kid to become an HVAC specialist,” installing and repairing heating and air-conditioning systems. With that attitude, said Vance, “we’re going to continue to empower the colleges and the universities that make it impossible for conservative ideas to ultimately carry the day.”