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It was an easy choice for President Donald Trump: he could choose as his running mate someone who merely understood his platform, and the new GOP platform—dedicated to "the forgotten men and women of America." Or he could choose someone who's lived it.
For anyone who has not read J.D. Vance's New York Times bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, or watched the 2020 Netflix adaptation directed by Ron Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind), both explain why the Ohio senator was an easy choice for Trump.
Vance was born in 1984 in Middletown Ohio, deep in America's Rust Belt. His mom and dad separated when he was young. His mother struggled with drug addiction, and Vance ended up being raised primarily by his grandparents, who saved him from some bad choices as a teen—and some bad influences. Along with these events, Hillbilly Elegy chronicles the story of a part of the country damaged by the outsourcing of local steel jobs, and what happens to men and women when they lose their jobs—and their hope.
The young Vance went from high school to the U.S. Marines, and served in the Iraq War as a combat correspondent. He went on to Ohio State, where he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in political science and philosophy. From there, Vance attended Yale Law School, where shined academically, serving as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. It was there that one of his professors, Amy Chua—author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother—encouraged him to write a memoir.
Vance was as stunned as anyone when that effort—his own life story—made its way to the top of the Times bestseller list in August of 2016 and became a Netflix film starring Glenn Close as his "mamaw." The film captures beautifully Vance's mom's struggle with a heroin addiction, and Vance's desire to help her while trying to advance his own career.
We learn a lot about Vance in his book. "I didn't write this book because I've accomplished something extraordinary. I wrote this book because I've achieved something quite ordinary, which doesn't happen to most kids who grow up like me," Vance writes in the introduction. "You see, I grew up poor, in the Rust Belt, in an Ohio steel town that has been hemorrhaging jobs and hope for as long as I can remember."
Vance describes his life and career as a credit to the people he knows and loves back home. "Whatever talents I have, I almost squandered until a handful of loving people rescued me," he writes. "That is the real story of my life.... I want people to know what it feels like to nearly give up on yourself and why you might do it."
Vance also addresses the topic of his racial background. "I may be white, but I do not identify with the WASPs of the Northeast," he writes. "Instead, I identify with the millions of working-class white Americans of Scots-Irish descent who have no college degree."
"Americans call them hillbillies, rednecks, or white trash. I call them neighbors, friends, and family."
After Yale, Vance moved to San Francisco and became a principal at a Silicon Valley venture capital fund run by billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel. But the tug of home kept calling him. He'd left Ohio, but Ohio hadn't left him.
So he did what few people do in the prime of their investing careers do: He and his beautiful wife Usha moved to Cincinnati to work on closing geographical gaps regarding access to venture capital.
Vance was an early critic of Trump, as many in the Republican Party were in 2016. But he quickly came to understand Trump's appeal to voters in his state. He learned that rural and working-class Ohioans voted for Trump not because he was wealthy or famous but because he was fighting for them. When Trump challenged America's trade policies—especially the way China used unfair trade practices to eviscerate the American steel industry—they loved him for it.
When Trump made illegal immigration a central part of his campaign, Ohioans loved him for that too—not because they were racists, but because Trump dared to challenge the Republican establishment, which supported cheap labor, and the Democratic Party, which cared more about building a voting bloc than attending to the needs of struggling Americans.
When Trump challenged the climate change crowd, Ohioans loved him for that too. Energy jobs are a lifeline to the middle class for Americans without college degrees. Workers in those industries know American oil, natural gas, and coal are the cleanest in the world. If we don't export our energy resources, countries like Iran and Venezuela, which make dirtier energy, will export theirs. They also know that the more America drills, mines, and fracks, the more energy prices will decline. And few benefit more from low energy prices than rural and working-class Americans.
Vance also learned that his fellow Ohioans love Trump because he loves the country as much as they do. They fly American flags in front of their houses, celebrate July the Fourth, and honor their dead on Memorial Day. No demographic in the nation serves its country in uniform at higher rates.
Like his fellow Ohioans, Vance came to understand not merely Trump's visceral appeal but his appeal on the merits. And on the issues Ohioans most care about.
The fact is, Vance didn't change; he came full circle. After detours to Yale, Silicon Valley, and some Washington, D.C., think tanks—where he was praised for his literary insights—he came home again.
Returning as an older version of himself, Vance was focused and dedicated to the plight of his people. And willing to do more than just write about them. He entered the political arena to fight for them.
He will now represent the people he so loves and cares about on the biggest and most important stage in the world: the national American political stage. In one of the most consequential elections of our lifetimes.
Lee Habeeb is vice president of content for Salem Radio Network and host of Our American Stories. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife, Valerie, and his daughter, Reagan.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
