The Atlantic Republishes JD Vance's Scathing Trump Op-Ed On Its 10th Anniversary ⁠56%

By Hilary Hanson⁠0%

7/4/2026, 5:56:37 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Unattributed Quote, Negativity Bias, and Appeal to Emotion, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 35.4% saturation with 103 hits. Analysis detected 607 faulty-reasoning hits from 291 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 53.4% and a BS Rank of ⁠56% (9,698 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 55.70% of the article peer group.

The Atlantic used the Fourth of July as an opportunity to republish a 10-year-old op-ed that sharply criticized then-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, comparing him and and his MAGA politics to heroin. 
The author? 
JD Vance. 
“We are republishing it on the occasion of its tenth anniversary, so that our readers can judge for themselves how well his assessment of the man he now serves as vice president has stood the test of time,” read an editor’s note from the publication. 
Vance’s July 4, 2016, op-ed, titled “Opioid of the Masses,” argued that Trump was offering the public an “easy escape” from their pain. 
“He never offers details for how these plans will work, because he can’t,” Vance wrote. 
“Trump’s promises are the needle in America’s collective vein.” 
The editor’s note stated that the piece was published not long after Vance published his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” 
The book deals, among other topics, with the opioid crisis in rural America. 
In his op-ed, he wrote that “many Americans have reached” for a “new” pain reliever. 
“It enters minds, not through lungs or veins, but through eyes and ears, and its name is Donald Trump,” he wrote. 
**Read the 2016 op-ed here. 
** 
Vance, of course, went on to become Trump’s vice president in his second term. 
He has repeatedly addressed his once fierce criticism of the president — including reportedly musing that Trump could be “America’s Hitler.” 
“I don’t hide from that,” Vance told Sean Hannity in 2024. 
“I was certainly skeptical of Donald Trump in 2016, but President Trump was a great president, and he changed my mind. 
I think he changed the minds of a lot of Americans.” 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 3.8%Hilary Hanson: 0.9%AP: 3.2%Confirmation Bias3.8%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.8%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 2.8%Availability Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 4.8%Hilary Hanson: 6.3%AP: 0.5%Hindsight Bias4.8%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 1.4%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 15.1%Hilary Hanson: 4.8%AP: 9.9%Framing Effect15.1%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.4%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.3%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 7.2%Hilary Hanson: 1.8%AP: 1.4%Optimism Bias7.2%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 2.4%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 21.3%Hilary Hanson: 10.9%AP: 13.5%Negativity Bias21.3%This article: 7.2%Hilary Hanson: 3.6%AP: 1.8%Self-Serving Bias7.2%This article: 5.2%Hilary Hanson: 1.3%AP: 1.5%Fundamental Attribution Error5.2%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 2.2%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 1.3%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 1.4%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.8%AP: 0.7%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 7.2%Hilary Hanson: 1.8%AP: 1.5%Recency Bias7.2%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.2%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 15.5%AP: 2.9%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 1.0%Straw Man0.0%This article: 15.5%Hilary Hanson: 3.9%AP: 2.6%Appeal to Authority15.5%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 1.9%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 2.0%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 16.2%Hilary Hanson: 10.8%AP: 6.5%Hasty Generalization16.2%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.4%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.5%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 17.5%Hilary Hanson: 14.8%AP: 6.2%Appeal to Emotion17.5%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 1.3%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 2.6%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.6%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.1%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 5.2%Hilary Hanson: 1.3%AP: 1.3%Anecdotal5.2%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.2%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 7.2%Hilary Hanson: 1.8%AP: 1.9%Ambiguity (Equivocation)7.2%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.0%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 34.0%Hilary Hanson: 8.5%AP: 2.7%Unattributed Quote34.0%This article: 4.1%Hilary Hanson: 1.2%AP: 2.0%Quote-first Misdirection4.1%This article: 35.4%Hilary Hanson: 9.9%AP: 12.7%Biased Writer Voice35.4%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 1.6%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 2.7%AP: 4.6%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Hilary Hanson: 0.0%AP: 0.3%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 1.7%Hilary Hanson: 0.4%AP: 0.3%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…1.7%

291 words analyzed.

Speakers

1speaker44%attributed speech163writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 12 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 32 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 2 words • 0.0% coverageJD Vance • 2 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 45 words • 100.0% coverageJD Vance • 23 words • 0.0% coverageJD Vance • 15 words • 100.0% coverageJD Vance • 9 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 18 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverageJD Vance • 15 words • 0.0% coverageJD Vance • 21 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 5 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 21 words • 100.0% coverageJD Vance • 11 words • 0.0% coverageJD Vance • 21 words • 0.0% coverageJD Vance • 11 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

JD Vance

72%flagged-word coverage
128 attributed words100% of attributed speech90% writer coverage
0%32.5%65.0%Biased Writer Voice-63.2 ptsWriter: 63.2%JD Vance: 0.0%0.0%Unattributed Quote-39.8 ptsWriter: 51.5%JD Vance: 11.7%11.7%Quote-first Misdirection-7.4 ptsWriter: 7.4%JD Vance: 0.0%0.0%Attempt to Sell a Product -3.1 ptsWriter: 3.1%JD Vance: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

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