When Donald Trump chose J.D. Vance as his running mate, he pushed rural issues and rural identity into the political spotlight. He’s also given us a huge opportunity to show how Vance, like Trump, is a fraud who pretends to help the working class but is really part of a system that holds them down.
Consider this, from BarnRaiser Media: “Like the huckster from the big city (Trump), Vance is the ‘smalltown’ shill who says the right things as he picks your pocket. He has little to say about the role of companies or policies in destroying rural communities. Instead, he blames big government for coddling drug addicts and welfare queens and calls for cuts to government programs that serve the poor and working class in the small-town regions he pretends to represent.
Or this, from Politico, in a memo about lessons learned from the 2022 Senate race in which Vance defeated Tim Ryan, which encourages telling voters about “the sham (opioid addiction) nonprofit Vance set up that paid for his political advisor and for polling without funding a single addiction program.”
Other “stunts” (the memo’s term) that worked well to persuade voters include “pointing out Vance’s recent move from California to his book trashing Middletown Ohio, to content about his wealthy out of state homes or profiting from outsourcing, or clips pointing out how often he flip flops on positions.”
“The biggest hit Ryan landed on Vance,” the memo said, “is a clip the Ryan campaign pitched to reporters of Vance discussing his views on marriage. Vance argues people should stay in violent marriages for the sake of their kids.” As U.S. News and World Report wrote, “He opposes no-fault divorce, including those who do so to leave abusive marriages. He’s compared abortion to slavery, supports a national abortion ban and rejects exceptions for rape…and argues that universal child care amounts to ‘class war against normal people.’”
Many of the most convincing takedowns come from people who grew up in Appalachia in circumstances like Vance’s. On the Belt Web site (back in February 2022), Skylar Baker-Jordan wrote “Vance never lived a day of his life in the hills and hollows of Eastern Kentucky, from where his family and mine both hail. He instead grew up in Middletown, Ohio—a suburb of Cincinnati—and spent a few weeks every year visiting relations down home….”
“…Vance is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, mentored by none other than Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal and an early outside investor in Facebook,” he wrote. “Vance sacrificed a lot to penetrate this elite echelon of American business and finance, and (his book) Hillbilly Elegy represents his attempt at monetizing that struggle and shoring up his own position.”
Finally, and most obviously, we can quote Vance’s own previously ferociously anti-Trump statements and ask him what’s changed since 2016. Or, if he claims he was wrong about Trump in 2016, we can ask why we should trust his judgement now?
There’s plenty of rich fodder here. The next question: how do we use it most effectively? Share your best ideas and I’ll re-share them in a future issue of The Rural Reporter.
Contact: Bob Scheier, bob.scheier@gmail.com
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