WASHINGTON–Vice President JD Vance said, while discussing Angel Studios’ recently debuted documentary series, Live Not By Lies, that the key to combating totalitarianism is to speak the truth. The series explores the resistance to the Soviet Union’s totalitarianism in the 20th Century with firsthand accounts from dissidents who survived the authoritarian regime.
Vance spoke of the four-part series and the book on which it is based, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents by Rod Dreher, ahead of a premiere at the Heritage Foundation on Capitol Hill Tuesday night. Vance lauded Dreher’s work, which was published in 2020 and has been adapted into the docuseries by Director Isaiah Smallman, as his “most prophetic” about the road Western Civilization has taken, especially when it comes to how Christianity has been “disfavored.”
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“It’s the most prophetic about where Western Civilization has gone,” Vance said of Dreher’s book. “In particular, some of the very founding ideas of the West, the Christian faith on which all Western nations were in some important respect really based on in their original charter, those very ideas have not just fallen out of favor, and they’re not just less popular than they were 200 years ago or 300 years ago; of course, in the case of our friends in Europe, 1,000 years ago. What we’ve seen is that those ideas have become disfavored.”
“The ruling elite of the societies have become actively hostile to some of the very ideas that those countries were founded on in the first place,” the vice president continued. “And I think Rod’s book was an incredibly prophetic insight into that. But I don’t take pessimism or sadness or a sense of despair from that. One of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned … from a dear friend of mine, who helped me return to my own faith, was that despair is a sin. And I think that the way to survive, the way to thrive when many of these ideas are attacked, when many of our most important values are criticized or even become justification for being thrown in prison, the way to respond to it is not to conform, and that’s the most important lesson of Rod’s book.”
Vice President JD Vance speaks at the Live Not By Lies premiere, April 1, 2025. (Nick Gilbertson/Breitbart News)
Resisting the incentives of comfort at the expense of truth is critical to combating a totalitarian regime and ruling elites who seek to dictate societal values, Vance said.
“The way to deal with being attacked by the ruling elites of a given society is to speak the truth, is to live not by lies,” Vance said. “The incentives, the financial rewards, the social benefits of living by lies is too often very great, but Rod’s lesson is important: That you’re going to sacrifice your soul, you’re going to sacrifice your civilization, you’re going to sacrifice your family, you’re going to sacrifice your country, if you give in to the easy pathway.”
He went on to note that President Donald Trump is unafraid of being criticized by the powerful and commended the president’s courage.
“The president, I’m very proud to say, is not a person who is afraid by criticism from those in power and I think if there’s anything that sort of ties the first Trump administration to the second Trump administration and the president’s entire political career, is that this is a guy with incredible courage,” Vance said. “He just doesn’t care what other people say about him. He doesn’t care what the media writes about him. He’s going to do what he thinks is right. And I think … that leadership and that example is, I think, something that Rod previewed in many ways in this book, and of course, now that book is an important documentary.”
Vance contended that ruling elites underestimated the resilience of the people of the West, as evidenced by the major course changes that have taken place recently.
“But I think that what we’ve learned over the last few months is that the American people, and I think Western peoples, are a hell of a lot more resilient than our elites give them credit for,” he said. “Now that’s not to say, again, that this is easy, or that it’s ever going to be easy, but I think if we speak the truth, if we refuse to live by lies, then I think we can redeliver on the promise of Western Civilization.”
“We can rebuild the kind of society where virtue and freedom and our ancient liberties are preserved and enforced and facilitated by our government, rather than torn down by our government,” he added. “And that’s ultimately what this is all about.”
Vance concluded by saying that the series would be “incredible,” and introduced Dreher to give some remarks.
Dreher expressed his gratitude to Vance and Angel Studios Cofounder and Chief Content Officer Jeffrey Harmon.
“I want to thank JD Vance for coming. I also want to thank Angel Studios for their support for this project. We wouldn’t be here without them,” he said, naming Harmon.
He also made a distinction between hope and optimism, and how, in his view, those critical differences factor into “the essence of Christian hope.”
“As a Christian, I’m not an optimist. An optimist is someone who thinks everything’s always going to work out. But as a Christian, I am hopeful. The difference is this, if everything doesn’t work out, but you’re willing to suffer the consequences for the sake of the truth, for the sake of God, then the Lord will redeem it ultimately, and that is the essence of Christian hope,” Dreher said.
“And that is the kind of hope that the men and women you’ll see in this documentary had. Not a single one of these people, who we talked to, who survived communism, expected it to end in their lifetime. Some of them thought it would take hundreds of years. And yet, here they are. They lived to see the unthinkable happen,” he added.
In an exclusive statement, Harmon told Breitbart News that Angel Studios is honored that the project resonated with Vance and was proud to make the docuseries from Dreher’s “exceptional work.”
“Live Not By Lies resonated with our Angel Guild, comprised of over one million members, scoring a 93% rating among our audience,” Harmon said. “We’re honored this project resonated with the Vice President of the United States and proud to give Rod’s exceptional work a platform when the traditional Hollywood gatekeeping system would likely exclude a film series like Live Not By Lies.”
The Live Not By Lies docuseries is now available at Angel.com for Guild plan subscribers.
