The peace talks ended without a deal (Image: Getty Images)
JD Vance has faced a string of recent political setbacks — now widely dubbed “The Vance Curse” — suggesting he may have fallen victim to the “jackass fallacy.”
Coined by psychologist Harry Levinson in his 1973 book, The Great Jackass Fallacy, the term describes a psychological trap: when individuals are treated like a jackass, they begin to feel and ultimately act like one.
While Levinson applied this to the carrot-and-stick methods of corporate management, the framework fits Vance’s current dynamic.
Donald Trump repeatedly places Vance in high-stakes scenarios engineered for failure, effectively using him as a scapegoat for political fallout.
This pattern was on full display in April. Trump dispatched Vance to Pakistan for the volatile Iran peace talks, publicly joking beforehand: “If it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance. And if it does happen, I’m taking full credit.”
Vance headed to Budapest to support Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who lost the election (Image: Getty Images)
While Vance was sent abroad, Trump kept rival loyalist Marco Rubio close at side in the U.S.
From Islamabad, Vance traveled to Hungary to back President Viktor Orbán, who promptly lost in a historic landslide to Péter Magyar.
Sending a sitting U.S. vice president to intervene directly in a foreign election was highly unusual and risky; the loss cemented a second diplomatic failure.
Immediately following these grueling back-to-back flights, an exhausted Vance was sent to headline a factory event in Iowa, where he visibly stumbled and lost his place during the speech.
Whether intentional or a byproduct of Trump’s erratic leadership style, these directives heavily benefit other inner-circle loyalists while forcing Vance to become the public face of failure.
The damage is reflected in the data. CNN’s Harry Enten reports that Vance’s net favorability has plummeted to -18%, the lowest net approval rating of any modern Vice President midway through their second year.
This public disapproval has triggered a self-fulfilling prophecy. Each subsequent setback erodes Vance’s confidence, conditioning him to expect failure.
This structural rut mirrors concepts often explored by the Freakonomics team regarding how toxic institutional incentives dictate behavior.
In analyzing America’s political duopoly, Freakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner noted that the two major parties operate like Coke and Pepsi. Their primary incentive is not problem-solving, but defeating the opposition.
“In this duopolistic business model, polarization is a feature, not a bug,” Dubner observed, adding that the political industry serves itself well but serves the citizenry poorly.
In Vance’s case, the duopoly structure within his own party eliminates room for middle-ground moderation.
To survive, he must blindly cater to the most intense incentives of the MAGA brand, even when it alienates the broader public. Trapped in this loyalist rut, Vance continues to execute orders that go against his better judgment.
Because challenging Trump would be political suicide, Vance cannot introduce healthy competition or course-correct. With two years left in his term, he remains locked into a system designed to make him look bad.
Vance made his way to a manufacturing plant in Iowa, where he was visibly exhausted (Image: Getty Images)
Ultimately, the true danger of the “Vance Curse” is not the string of bad luck itself, but the psychological toll it extracts.
By continually forcing him into positions where failure is guaranteed, the administration ensures Vance remains a compliant subordinate.
So long as he accepts the role of the party’s foil, his confidence will continue to erode, proving Levinson’s 1973 theory correct: when the system treats an individual like a failure, it is only a matter of time before they become one.