Book by Vice Presidential Candidate JD Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, The book was published in 2016 — just months before Donald Trump’s surprise presidential victory, thanks in part to widespread support within the Appalachians about whom Vance writes. Although Vance grew up in southwestern Ohio, his family came from the impoverished mountains of eastern Kentucky.
“Elegy” is a thought-provoking account of the difficulties faced by poor people as they try to transcend their circumstances. “How much of our lives, good or bad, are due to our personal decisions, and how much is the legacy of our culture, our families, the parents of our children who failed us?” he asked. The film isn’t too compelling, but it reinforces the point.
Trump recently said the book was about society’s unfair treatment of working-class men and women, but it appears he has never read the book. In fact, the book focuses on the ways in which poor people often sabotage fleeting opportunities and blame others for their plight. Vance later became a Marine, attended Ohio State University, and earned a law degree from Yale University.
My wife devoured the book and was particularly moved by Vance’s description of his awkward attempts to fit in with his classmates. She also grew up in a coal town in Appalachia. Her lumberjack father died young, leaving his wife and six daughters to survive on government assistance. Like Vance, she received a scholarship. When I met her at George Washington University, she had never taken a cab, rode in an elevator, or dined at a fancy restaurant.
Unfortunately, Vance, the author, seems very different from Vance, the vice presidential candidate. Power is seductive, but Donna and I still cringe because the positions he espouses seem at odds with the central point of his book. Rather than realizing that the American dream is still alive and beautiful—and that all her sisters are living successful lives—he now blames outsiders for the plight of the working class.
Vance also promotes big-government economic “populist” ideas and engages in nativism. His critics point to his obvious hypocrisy. After all, he was a middle-class suburban Midwesterner who attended an Ivy League school, married the daughter of immigrants, and was supported by Bay Area techies. I suspect his ideological embrace explains this shift more than raw ambition.
He gave some hints in his speech at the Republican National Convention: “America is more than an idea. It is a people with a common history and a common future. … When we allow new immigrants into our American family, we Allow them on our terms. Generations of Kentuckians were killed in the war and buried in his family’s cemetery, he said, noting, “People don’t fight for abstractions, but they fight for their homes. “
I’ve read countless criticisms of Vance’s comments, including vicious criticism of the childless cat lady. This is basically right-wing fringe rule. But the fiercest criticism came from Atlantic The column discussed Vance’s “insult to America.” Writer Jessica Gavora recalls her father’s harrowing flight from Czechoslovakia after Soviet troops occupied the country: “My father came here for a reason, and this is not the dirt of a cemetery.”
I agree with Gavora, but again my father fled Nazi Germany and my maternal grandparents fled the Holocaust in Russia. Almost all the immigrants I’ve met here—most of them from Latin America, Russia, and India—are some of the most patriotic people I’ve ever met. My wife’s Appalachian ancestors came from Poland and went to work in the Pennsylvania coal fields. What does it mean to require them to abide by “our terms”?
Vance’s statement defined the central dividing line between paleoconservatives like Patrick Buchanan and classical liberals like Reagan. The former believes that the United States is a country founded by and for a specific people. They dislike free markets because they corrode their cultural preferences. They want to drastically restrict immigration. They have no problem with big government as long as they control it.
In contrast, classical liberals believe that the United States was founded on the universal ideals of freedom and economic opportunity. They focus on reducing the size and power of government and creating opportunities for everyone or the place their ancestors were born. Classical liberals may want an orderly immigration process, but they are more interested in turning immigrants into Americans than sending them home.
Classical liberals—and I count myself among them—see free trade as a miracle, not a threat. While I have long been critical of America’s endless foreign interventions and wars, I (unlike Vance) care about what is happening in Ukraine. We believe in freedom for everyone, not just members of our clan.
In its own unique and terrifying way, the Democratic Party is hostile to freedom and progress. But I hope the Vance who wrote “Hillbilly Elegy” — not the paleoconservative shapeshifter we’re seeing now — is the guy on the Republican ticket who can prove it.
This column first appeared in the Orange County Register.
