In his best-selling memoir, Hillbilly ElegyOhio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance is using his life story as an example of how to succeed for less fortunate American children from outside America’s political and cultural power centers.
Sincerely, this is a fascinating and personal story. Vance recounted it in vivid detail during the closing ceremony of the third night of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee. He left his childhood home in Middletown, Ohio—”A place abandoned and forgotten by the American ruling class in Washington,” he said – joining the Marines, going to college, graduating from Yale Law School and becoming a husband and father.
“Some people tell me I’m living the American dream, and of course they’re right,” said Vance, who accepted the nomination as Donald Trump’s running mate in November.
Vance is still telling his personal story, but eight years later Hillbilly Elegy Since its publication (and Trump roaring onto the political stage), the story’s lesson has changed. At the time, he wrote: “These problems are not caused by governments, corporations, or anyone else. They are caused by us, and only we can solve them.”
This is no longer the case. Instead of encouraging people to escape the cycle of poverty and addiction who might otherwise follow Vance’s example, it is now more politically advantageous for Vance to encourage these people to find someone responsible for their problems.
In his RNC speech, there were many scapegoats. Just a few points to emphasize:
- “NAFTA is a terrible trade deal that has brought countless good jobs to Mexico.”
- “From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders to stagnant wages, the people running this country have failed time and time again.”
- “Wall Street Tycoons Destroyed the Economy and American Builders Go Bankrupt.”
- “Thanks to these policies [President Joe] Biden and other out-of-touch politicians in Washington tell us that our country is flooded with cheap Chinese goods, cheap foreign labor, and, for decades to come, deadly Chinese fentanyl.
The answer to these questions is no longer to grab the most accessible rung on the economic ladder and start climbing. It wasn’t about joining the Marines, working hard, and getting good enough grades to earn a spot at Yale (and a corresponding ticket into the elite world Vance now inhabits).
Now, Vance thinks the answer, of course, is to vote for Trump.
If your goal is to provide an actual economic and cultural lifeline to those left behind, this is a very unsatisfactory answer. They may have tried voting before! In fact, many of them may have already voted for trump Before – maybe twice.
This is the core contradiction of Trump’s third presidential campaign. He still campaigned as the ultimate populist outsider on a mission to overturn the political establishment and rewrite the American economic order—even though he controlled one of the two major parties and literal president Four years.
This contradiction is reflected in Trump’s decision to put Vance on the short list of candidates. Trump is a wealthy heir from New York City who embraces low culture and becomes a champion of the working class. Vance is a working-class kid who embraced political and cultural elites to get to places he said Wednesday “I never imagined in my wildest moments.”Imagination” I believe he will eventually achieve.
They’re all compelling stories, and there’s no denying that Trump and Vance are a fascinating group of characters who play roles that defy some common archetypes in the political system. But being a charming character isn’t the same as having good ideas or workable solutions.
There will be plenty of time later in the campaign to delve into the specifics of these policies. By now, one thing should be clear: voting harder will not save people in eastern Ohio or anywhere else. Vance escaped that life and parlayed his personal success story into a chance to be just one step away from the presidency. Do what he does, not what he says.
