Ohio Senator J.D. Vance was recently selected as Donald Trump’s vice-presidential nominee. Ever since his rise to prominence following the publication of his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, Vance has worked ceaselessly to portray himself as a representative of white, rural, working class people. In the book, his manifesto on the cause of poverty in the Appalachian region of the U.S., Vance proudly alleges that his “neighbors, friends, and family” are typically referred to as “hillbillies, rednecks, or white trash”. His identification with “hillbillies”, along with his attitude in Hillbilly Elegy that he “view[s] members of the elite with an almost primal scorn” have continued to this day. In his recent acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Vance claimed that his “ancestral home” is in Eastern Kentucky, “one of the 10 poorest counties in the entire United States”. He says, “we came from the mountains of Appalachia into the factories of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin”.
But no matter who J.D. Vance’s ancestors and former neighbors may be, his beliefs, his wealth, and his actions throughout his life in finance and politics are all squarely at odds with the working class. His attempts to distance himself from the ruling class fall apart with even the slightest glance at his biography. Vance is a graduate of Yale Law, the number one law school in the country every year since rankings began in 1990. After graduating, he went on to work in many of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital firms. He also obtained fellowships in right-wing think tanks such as the infamous American Enterprise Institute, one of the primary authors of American strategy in the Iraq War. His work has earned J.D. Vance close alliances with many of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world, with billionaire Peter Thiel funding Vance’s 2022 successful Senate campaign and Elon Musk urging Trump to select Vance for Vice President this year.
Vance makes his disdain for the poor quite clear in Hillbilly Elegy. The book argues that the cause of poverty in Appalachia is that its “irrational” residents promote “a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it”. Vance wants his readers to believe what is needed to overcome poverty is a willingness to stop giving in to the temptations of drug addiction, crime, teen pregnancy, poor parenting, abuse of food stamps, and low work ethic. While proclaiming that “we hillbillies are the toughest goddamned people on this earth”, Vance asks, “Are we tough enough to look ourselves in the mirror and admit that our conduct harms our children?” And while Hillbilly Elegy is specifically about poor people who are white, it also offers praise for Charles Murray, who has also participated in joint speaking events with Vance. Murray has offered similar explanations to Vance for poverty in urban Black neighborhoods, while also promoting even more egregious claims including the pseudoscientific and eugenicist argument that Black and Latino people are genetically inferior to white Americans.
Vance’s position that a struggling Ohioan’s “status in life is directly attributable to the choices he’s made, and his life will improve only through better decisions” is strategic. It is carefully designed to allow the Vance and other right-wing businessmen and politicians an excuse to accelerate the neglect of impoverished regions and struggling people. It’s poor people’s own fault, the argument goes; any cuts to profits for wage raises, to fund social programs, or to impose regulations on companies would be a downright waste of money. He’s skillfully put this destructive and dangerous strategy to work in his career in the Senate.
For example, after East Palestine, Ohio’s catastrophic train derailment and toxic chemical spill in 2023, Vance visited the town and proclaimed his commitment to making things right for the locals, demanding that the rest of the country “not forget these people”. He even said that he had introduced a bill requiring railroad companies to adopt safer train cars for the transportation of hazardous materials. This commitment to regulating the industry for the benefit of regular, working people was always a lie. After lobbying by the railway companies and chemical manufacturers, Vance amended the legislation to be significantly watered-down, admitting that the new version had “a lot of support from industry”.
Instead of speaking on behalf of the working class, Vance has acted as an ideological leader of the conservative movement in the last few years, pushing for a focus on culture war issues such as abortion access and trans healthcare. Meanwhile, while he poses for photos with striking workers, he has repeatedly voted to weaken collective bargaining rights in favor of preserving the power of corporations.
When J.D. Vance tries to portray himself as an ally of poor and working class people, we can’t fall for these hypocritical lies. When Vance writes of the conditions in poor regions of the US in Hillbilly Elegy, he says that “no government […] can fix these problems for us”. He means that the government and corporations are essentially blameless and should be let off the hook. This is a dangerous lie, but it is true that our government will not solve poverty. The US government and governments around the world are built of and for the capitalist ruling class (including J.D. Vance himself). They will never act in the interest of the regular people who do the work to make our society run. To solve the problems of people in Appalachia and everyone else who suffers the impact of this system, it will take a massive movement led by the working class to create a new system that truly prioritizes the collective good.
