Vance Warns Antichrist May Be Walking Among Us, Washington Checks Whether He Has a Congressional Parking Permit

Vice president discusses the end times, Democrats foresee the end of democracy, Republicans foresee the end of Western civilization, and the BBC discovers everybody has been forecasting Tuesday for years

The United States entered a new and apparently final phase of political discourse this week after Vice President JD Vance mused that he would not be shocked if the Antichrist were already walking among us, forcing Americans to confront the disturbing possibility that the end of civilization may arrive before Congress passes another continuing resolution.

Vance discussed Christianity, spiritual darkness, artificial intelligence and the end times during an hourlong interview with Christian podcaster Bryce Crawford. He did not actually announce that Armageddon had begun. Quite the opposite: he said he did not know whether humanity was living in the end times and suggested that concentrating too intensely on such questions could be spiritually unhealthy because ordinary responsibilities still had to be performed.

Unfortunately, nuanced theological uncertainty entered the American news machine, where it was immediately placed in a blender set to PURÉE.

Within hours, the nation faced the familiar spectacle of every faction proving the other faction was insane while holding its own sandwich board reading THE END IS EXTREMELY NIGH, PLEASE DONATE $20.

What JD Vance Actually Said About the End Times

The vice president told Crawford he did not know whether we are in the end times, that focusing on it too much was probably bad for him spiritually, and that he had a wife, children and a country to attend to in the meantime. He then added the sentence that ate the news cycle: there are things about the world that make him not shocked if the Antichrist were walking among us.

That is a considerably more careful statement than the average weather forecast. It survived contact with American media for roughly nine minutes.

Rod Dreher and the Everybody at This Bar Does It Defense

Conservative writer Rod Dreher, a friend of Vance, defended the vice president by telling the BBC’s Today programme that such beliefs were extremely common, adding that most Americans inclined to vote Republican already believe this stuff.

This was an extraordinary political defense.

Usually a politician accused of holding an unusual belief responds, “You misunderstood me.”

Dreher essentially responded, “You understood him perfectly. Have you met the electorate?”

Political consultants immediately described this as the groundbreaking Everybody at This Bar Does It Defense.

Republicans Discover Their Secret Theology Is Apparently Polling Data

There is some evidence for Dreher’s broader point, although reality is considerably less tidy than a cable-news chyron.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2022 found that 39% of American adults believed humanity was living in the end times. The figure reached 63% among evangelical Protestants, while 27% of Catholics agreed.

Thirty-nine percent.

That is no longer a fringe belief. That is a competitive primary electorate.

If 39% of Americans agreed that mayonnaise should be classified as roofing material, both parties would have mayonnaise infrastructure plans by Wednesday.

Strategists Urge Calm, Propose Slogan

Republican strategists therefore urged reporters not to overreact.

“Americans have believed the end was coming for generations,” explained one imaginary strategist familiar with both polling and Revelation. “The important thing is that under President Trump, the apocalypse will be American-made.”

The proposed slogan reportedly tested well:

ARMAGEDDON FIRST.

Democrats Shocked Anyone Would Predict Catastrophe Without Consulting Democrats

Democrats reacted with horror to the vice president discussing civilization-ending events, principally because civilization-ending events are proprietary Democratic campaign material.

For years, American voters have been informed that virtually every election may be the last meaningful election in American history.

Democracy is on the ballot.

The Constitution is on the ballot.

The planet is on the ballot.

Healthcare is on the ballot.

The Supreme Court is on the ballot.

Your daughter is on the ballot.

Your neighbor’s book club may also be on the ballot depending on turnout in Pennsylvania.

But mention the Antichrist and suddenly everyone wants to establish evidentiary standards.

The Approved Method of Predicting Collapse

Progressive commentators patiently explained that predicting the imminent collapse of human civilization is dangerous when based on ancient Christian eschatology, whereas predicting the imminent collapse of human civilization from your Substack is public service journalism.

The distinction is subtle but available to premium subscribers.

BBC Assigns an Antichrist Correspondent

The BBC approached the matter with its traditional solemnity, apparently determined to establish whether belief in the Antichrist constitutes a significant American electoral bloc somewhere between suburban women and people worried about egg prices.

The broadcaster’s report carefully explained what Christians mean by the end times, a useful service for British listeners who previously believed the phrase described the final fifteen minutes before a Wetherspoons stops serving breakfast.

This is why Britain still has serious journalism.

How American Cable News Would Cover the Second Coming

American television would put four people in boxes and display:

BREAKING: IS SATAN SURGING WITH INDEPENDENTS?

Then CNN would commission an Antichrist electoral map.

Fox would discover he had donated to Democrats.

MSNBC would discover his first name was Donald.

Nate Silver would say the Antichrist had a 56.8% chance of appearing but caution that Wisconsin remained difficult to model.

Silicon Valley Learns It May Have Accidentally Invented Satan Premium

Vance also expressed concern about what he described as strange spiritual energy surrounding artificial intelligence and technological culture. Reporting on the interview quoted his remarks about really, really weird spiritual dark energy around some of what AI companies are doing, including his claim that some firms hold a burial when they retire an older model.

This has naturally upset Silicon Valley, which prefers its spiritual dark energy to be described as venture-backed disruption.

Technology companies reject the suggestion that anything satanic is occurring.

They simply build enormous windowless structures consuming enough electricity for a small nation so algorithms can tell teenagers which moisturizer matches their attachment style.

Nothing biblical there.

A Silicon Valley founder explained that AI cannot possibly be demonic because demons traditionally have clearer customer-support policies.

Another entrepreneur insisted the industry performs no occult rituals whatsoever.

“We occasionally hold a ceremonial funeral for discontinued software,” he said, “but that is different because there are branded hoodies.”

Peter Thiel and the Number of the Beast Valuation

Peter Thiel also figured in reports surrounding Vance’s religious and technological thinking, producing the uniquely twenty-first-century situation in which discussions of biblical apocalypse somehow include venture capitalists.

The Book of Revelation never mentioned Series B financing, although scholars concede the phrase “number of the beast” does sound increasingly like a valuation.

Podcasters Finally Run Out of Normal Questions

Some responsibility must also go to podcast culture.

The interviewer who raised the subject is 22 years old.

At 22, previous generations asked questions such as:

“Where am I going in life?”

“Can I afford an apartment?”

“Is this relationship serious?”

The podcast generation asks the vice president:

“So, Antichrist?”

This is what microphones have done to civilization.

Everyone owns one, nobody has a producer, and eventually every conversation reaches UFOs, creatine, the Roman Empire, spiritual warfare or whether seed oils caused the fall of Constantinople.

The nation should probably feel fortunate Crawford interviewed Vance for only a limited period.

Another 45 minutes and the Treasury Department might have been forced to issue an official position on Nephilim.

Pollsters Identify Massive Undecided Apocalypse Vote

The polling profession is thrilled.

For decades it has struggled with declining response rates, cellphone sampling and voters who inexplicably refuse to spend 24 minutes telling a stranger whether the country is heading in the right direction.

Finally, a question people care about:

“If the Antichrist appeared tomorrow, which party do you believe he would caucus with?”

Republicans: Democrat.

Democrats: Republican.

Independents: “Can I hear his position on property taxes?”

The Second Coming Polls Better Than Congress

The same Pew research provides another inconvenient fact for anyone hoping to portray apocalyptic thinking as some microscopic American eccentricity: more than half of U.S. adults surveyed said they believed Jesus would return to Earth someday, although far fewer thought that would happen during their own lifetimes.

Which sounds less like national insanity than ordinary human behavior.

Everybody believes the dramatic event is coming.

Nobody wants it scheduled during vacation.

Theologians Beg Politicians to Stop Helping

Christian theologians now face their traditional political problem: politicians borrowing 2,000 years of complex doctrine and compressing it into something that fits beneath a podcast thumbnail.

Christian eschatology encompasses enormous disagreements over interpretation, symbolism, timing, prophecy and the meaning of scriptural passages.

American politics can simplify all of that by lunchtime:

RED TEAM: Apocalypse possible.

BLUE TEAM: Red Team is apocalypse.

A theologian attempting to explain premillennialism would have roughly eleven seconds before being interrupted by a television host saying, “Professor, with respect, are you saying JD Vance IS the Antichrist?”

“No.”

“Interesting. We’ll come back to that.”

America Reassured Apocalypse Still Subject to Normal Partisanship

Fortunately, there is one reassuring element.

If the Antichrist is walking among us, America will handle him exactly as it handles everything else.

Republicans will accuse the media of taking him out of context.

Democrats will demand his tax returns.

Fox News will ask whether he is woke.

MSNBC will examine his threat to democratic norms.

The BBC will interview a childhood friend.

TikTok will diagnose him with narcissism.

YouTube will recommend a four-hour explanation titled THE ANTICHRIST EXPOSED!!! WHAT THEY AREN’T TELLING YOU, hosted by a man sitting inside a parked truck.

Congress will subpoena him.

He will ignore the subpoena.

A federal judge will issue an injunction.

The Supreme Court will split 6–3 on whether eternal damnation falls under the Commerce Clause.

And somewhere in Ohio, a voter will tell a reporter:

“I don’t really follow all that Antichrist stuff. I’m mostly worried about groceries.”

Which may be the most American ending imaginable.

Because even at the end of days, somebody is going to ask what happened to the price of bacon.

Helpful Apocalypse Preparedness Guide

Citizens concerned about the end times are advised to maintain drinking water, emergency supplies and perspective.

• Do not attempt to identify the Antichrist through yard signs.
• Do not assume every politician you dislike is Satan. Statistically, some are merely lawyers.
• If a politician says the world may end, examine the complete remarks before purchasing a bunker.
• If a television commentator says the world will definitely end unless you vote correctly, remember that the same commentator must return after the commercial break.

And if civilization does end before November, America can at least congratulate itself on finally solving voter turnout.

15 Humorous Observations Before the Apocalypse

1. Vance says the Antichrist may already be walking among us, which is unnerving because Washington contains roughly 14,000 people convinced the description refers to somebody across the aisle.
2. Rod Dreher’s defense was essentially “Republicans already believe this stuff,” the political equivalent of defending your uncle’s UFO story by producing twelve additional uncles.
3. Pew found 39% of Americans believed we were living in the end times, proving apocalypse forecasting has a larger constituency than many presidential candidates.
4. Vance actually said he doesn’t know whether these are the end times, making him substantially more cautious than cable-news panels covering a 0.3% movement in the polls.
5. Democrats will mock Vance for speculating about the apocalypse, then explain that democracy, civilization, reproductive freedom, the Constitution and brunch will all end this November.
6. Republicans will insist biblical prophecy is perfectly normal, then spend six hours investigating whether a Starbucks cup contains subliminal Marxism.
7. The BBC has achieved the impossible: turning the Antichrist into a respectable current-affairs segment requiring two guests, a religious-affairs correspondent and someone from Wolverhampton who remains undecided.
8. Christian podcasters now ask the vice president about Armageddon because apparently “How’s the economy?” was insufficiently ambitious.
9. Washington used to worry about deficits exceeding GDP. Now we’re asking whether federal policy might accidentally trigger Revelation.
10. Vance also discussed troubling spiritual dark energy around AI, finally giving tech companies an explanation for customer-service chatbots that doesn’t involve incompetence.
11. Silicon Valley cannot object to being called spiritually weird. These are people who describe deleting an app as “sunsetting an experience.”
12. The secular press finds apocalyptic Christianity bizarre while publishing daily headlines beginning “THE PLANET HAS 36 MONTHS LEFT.”
13. Pollsters are delighted. They can now add: Economy, immigration, abortion, healthcare, Antichrist: approve/disapprove?
14. The Antichrist, if currently walking among us, is presumably furious that nobody can identify him without first checking party registration.
15. The real winner is the Apocalypse itself. After two thousand years of predictions, it has finally obtained what every modern movement needs: a podcast strategy.

Sources

• NBC News — JD Vance talks end times, Antichrist and AI on faith podcast
• BBC News — Vance’s Antichrist comments are a “common belief”, his friend tells BBC
• Forbes — JD Vance discusses end times, the Antichrist and revisits UFO vs. demon theory
• Pew Research Center — About four-in-ten U.S. adults believe humanity is living in the end times
• Pew Research Center — How religion intersects with Americans’ views on the environment
• LifeSiteNews — Vance on the Antichrist and the end times

Disclaimer

This is satire aimed at politicians, pundits, broadcasters, tech culture, polling culture and the modern political habit of treating every disagreement as the opening trumpet of civilization’s finale. It is not intended to ridicule ordinary people for their religious beliefs. Any resemblance between Washington politics and the Book of Revelation should be investigated by qualified theologians, preferably after Congress adjourns.