Instead, as Vance told me last year, “if that fundamental goal [of liberalizing places like China] has not materialized, then I think you have to rethink the entire project.”

This critique fuels much of the hostility that Vance’s allies feel toward Ukraine. In the eyes of conservatives like Vance, Zelenskyy has become a totem of all the foreign nations that have benefitted from the protection and largesse of the U.S.-led postwar order — which is to say, all the people who, in Vance’s mind, have benefited from the slow destruction of his own community.

Understood in this light, Vance’s comments in the Oval Office chiding Zelenskyy for his lack of gratitude to the U.S. — “Have you ever said ‘thank you’ once?” Vance barked — resonate beyond the current negotiations over a cease-fire deal. They recall, instead, a comment that Vance made at a campaign event in Newton, Pennsylvania last September. “You know what I wish Zelenskyy would do when he comes to the United States of America?” Vance said to an audience of MAGA-hatted supporters, gathered under an open-sided barn in the middle of an empty field. “Say thank you to the people of Pennsylvania and everybody else.”