Former President Donald J. Trump announced on July 15, 2024 that Ohio Senator J. D. Vance will be his vice-presidential candidate on the Republican ticket.
Vance is in the second year of his first term, so his entire political experience will span 22 months by the time of the election Nov. 5.
Vance’s only other claim to fame is his book, Hillbilly Elegy, which reached the NY Times bestseller list after its 2016 publication. Described as “a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis”—that of white working-class Americans—the book decries the collapse of families due to addiction, lack of education, and unwillingness to change with the times.
Vance’s grandparents left Kentucky after WW II and strove for a middle-class life. But those grandparents, an aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled with their new lives, unable to escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic in Appalachia.
Without explicitly saying so, the volume is an outcry against the gains made by other hardworking Americans—especially Blacks, Hispanics, and women—at what he considers the expense of Vance’s preferred demographic, white Christian males. Given his history and outlook, based on failure, self-pity, and racism, J.D. Vance is a perfect fit for Trump.
Read the full article here
