Before his elevation to Trump’s right hand, Vance was best known for his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, which was widely praised by the (non-Appalachian) cultural elites as a “tough love analysis of the poor who back Trump.” Appalachia, Vance wrote, is a “hub of misery.”
Those who love Appalachia choose to differ. Start with the title: “Hillbilly” – a pejorative for ignorant, lazy, and unsophisticated rubes. “Elegy” – a lament for the dead. It implies that hillbillies should mourn themselves and their culture.
Vance describes family and friends from his quasi-Appalachian youth (his grandparents who largely raised him were from Kentucky) as chronic spendthrifts, drug addicts, alcoholics, dependent on welfare, who mostly failed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Mamaw, Vance’s grandmother was a strong influence who “loathed disloyalty, and there was not greater disloyalty than class betrayal.” Mamaw tried. The more sociological parts of Hillbilly Elegy are class betrayal, pure and simple.
Like Trump, Vance has total contempt for the people he claims to speak for. He characterizes people from Appalachia as deserving their poverty because of their self-destructive moral failings
Vance’s simplistic rags-to-riches tale does have a hero: JD Vance. By sheer incredible strength of personal will, Vance says, Vance escaped from and rose above Appalachia.
From the Marines to Ohio State to Yale Law to venture capitalism in the techno-libertarian wing of Silicon Valley with Peter Thiel to the US Senate from Ohio thanks to Trump’s endorsement and $15 million from Thiel, 39-year-old Vance has always been a “hyper-ambitious shape-shifter who will do anything or be anyone to get ahead.” (David Frum)
In 2016, before Vance was a politician, he was a passionate Never-Trumper. He called Trump an “idiot” and “reprehensible.” “I go back and forth,” he said, “between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole . . . or that he’s America’s Hitler.” “Trump is ultimately a destructive force.”
In 2021, though, when he moved into politics, the hyper-ambitious man hopped on the MAGA train. Vance became a passionate Trump suckup. His pundit friends call him “ideologically flexible.”
As Trump put it succinctly from the stage at a Vance rally, “J.D. is kissing my ass, he wants my support so bad.”
Vance became more MAGA than MAGA.
Vance is the ultimate hardliner on abortion: no exceptions for rape or incest. He supports a nationwide abortion ban. He would use the Comstock Act to prevent abortion drugs from reaching women. He opposes IVF. (He converted to Catholicism at 35 and is a fervent believer.)
Vance says women should stay in violent relationships for the sake of the children. He disparages professional women. (His wife is a Yale Law grad who clerked for John Roberts and pursues a high powered law career.) Right wing rules are for the lower folk.
Vance leads Senate opposition to Ukraine support. “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other,” Vance said recently.
Vance is on-board with deporting millions of immigrants, claiming their cheap labor is taking jobs from real Americans. Build the wall, oppose any amnesty.
Vance willingly accepts right-wing anti-science stupidity. Climate change is not a threat. Climate has been changing for millenia. Do nothing and definitely do not support wind, solar, or electric vehicles. (Do educated people like Vance know the truth, but won’t say it, or do they just not care as storms ravage a burning planet?)
The 2020 election was stolen; Trump played no role in instigating the J6 demonstrators; if Vance were VP he would have rejected electoral votes from states Biden won; and he’s skeptical Pence was ever in danger.
Commentators who say the Vance nomination brought Trump nothing miss the point that Vance brings Trump a mini-Trump, younger and more virulent, who never heard a Trump-word he wasn’t willing to echo. Vance promises to extend pure MAGA, Christian nationalism, and Trumpism deep into the 21st century.
Behind his Trump mask, who is JD Vance? At the RNC he talked a lot about his hardscrabble roots and the wisdom of Mamaw and how he’s for the working man. He already told us in Hillbilly Elegy that that’s a lot of hooey.
Vance is the product of 5 years of billionaire Peter Thiel’s training and money, a tool of the right-wing, we-are-the-law billionaire libertarians of Silicon Valley. Like Thiel, Vance believes that freedom and democracy are incompatible, which is also the message of Project 2025.
Vance is Elon Musk’s choice. Musk promised Trump $45 million a month to a pro-Trump PAC if Vance were the VP pick. Vance opposes regulation of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence, important for Silicon Valley tech magnates who do not want government interference in their incredibly lucrative and possibly dangerous businesses. Also more tax breaks.
Vance is a pretty boy, a shiny object, who puts a new face on the otherwise identical sack of Trump MAGA authoritarian shit.
We must focus on what’s critical – women’ reproductive freedom, saving the planet, and resisting a dictatorship.
No matter who the candidate is, vote Democratic. It’s not a personality or a pretty baby contest. It’s a fight for our country’s future. Vote against everything JD Vance stands for. Vote Blue.
To paraphrase an labor leader I admire when commenting on Bill in clearing a bi-partisan comprise after a reconciliation conference hearing, "You can spread the bun with different condiments, but a shit sandwich still tastes like shit." Smoke and mirrors last night on the 4th episode of the 45 would be 47 variety illusion entertainment infomercial.
I especially enjoyed the hypnotic effect of empty stetons waving to fan the fantasy of American creation mythology.
Click! And life was real again up the holler, whose issues will not be medicated away by snake oil salesmen pedaling the common sense of worshipers of the gilded calf.
A vote in the Democratic column is the vote that recognizes common sense comes in many denominations to be tallied in free exchange. Ask yourself which branch at the crossroads leads to the Golden Rule!?!