JD Vance’s Name? Who Cares?

This whole “JD Vance aka James David Vance aka James David Hamel, born James Donald Bowman” backstory, covered as recently as September 30th in USA Today? Not even remotely newsworthy nor interesting.

Trump and his cronies want to burn down the government, according to Project 2025, but sure, let’s focus on dissecting the Second Banana’s ever-changing aliases instead. You know, this is not going to sway undecided voters, and let’s be real, the big takeaway here is this: It’s October 1st, y’all. That’s 30-something days until the General Election! Does anyone actually care about Vance’s ID shuffle right now?

And there are bigger issues. See, the world has changed since the turn of the century and so should our political focus. I mean, 35-ish years ago our country was obsessed with presidential candidate Gary Hart’s surname change from Hartpence, as if it were a bigger scandal than…let’s say…his extramarital affair. These farcical fixations—like the whole name game—just show how we’re caught up chasing headlines while ignoring the bigger issues.

Take family structure and how it’s evolved, for example. Back in the 1950s, most U.S. families fit the old-fashioned “male breadwinner, female homemaker, and children” mold. But then real life happened. By the 1980s, thanks to greedy robber barons, stagnant wages and rising costs, the single-income fantasy collapsed. Look, I’m not an economist but who hasn’t noticed that families have had to hustle more than ever to keep the lights on? And today, that perfect nuclear family? It’s a shadow of its former self.

Let’s face it: the family didn’t just change—it was forced to adapt because you can’t buy groceries with 1950s nostalgia. And let’s be real—women deserved and still deserve better than to be trapped in a life of limited options, financial or otherwise. Oh, oops! I’m getting sidetracked.

Anyway, about the name game: changing one’s name is so common across different demographics, it’s laughable when a news outlet thinks it’s even mildly notable. Whether it’s married women taking their husband’s last name, transgender individuals affirming their identity, immigrants assimilating into society, authors or performers using a pseudonym, or people reinventing themselves for personal or professional reasons, a name change is mostly a total “nothing burger.” Priorities, people.

Now sometimes name changes do warrant attention. Let’s say my current legal name doesn’t match my birth certificate. My first concern wouldn’t be how much I may have in common with Judgy Dingbat Vance. No, it’s more about the fact that Republicans are out here plotting with things like the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act). Who would have thought that House Speaker Johnson would save the day? He dumped SAVE last week in order to fund the government through Dec. 20th.

What the heck is the SAVE Act? ICYMI (In case you missed it), Republicans say they’re trying to prevent millions of undocumented immigrants from supposedly voting, and they tacked the act onto passing the budget. But let’s be real—it’s more likely they were aiming to make identity verification a nightmare, quietly disenfranchising about 80% of married women voters in the process. Clever, huh? Just make it impossible to vote under your legal married name if it doesn’t match your maiden name. Bravo.

Did you catch that happening? It really got under my skin, trust me. Anyway, time to wrap up this post.

The discussion around Vance’s moniker metamorphosis isn’t going to solve the real issues working families face in America.

Basically, let’s stop wasting time and energy on irrelevant crapola. We need to refocus the conversation—time is running out. That’s it for today. Rant over.