JD Vance, Race, Class, Misogyny and the Crude and Obscene Politics of Blind Ambition and Opportunism!
After all the speculation about whom he would choose, Donald Trump selected J. D. Vance, the junior senator of Ohio, as his running mate in the presidential race. A former “public affairs” marine turned venture capitalist, Vance rose to fame in 2016 with the publication of Hillbilly Elegy, an engaging narrative that detailed his challenging and adversarial upbringing in poverty-stricken southwestern Ohio and his later experiences at Yale law school. The book was touted as a modern day Horatio Alger story and became a national bestseller and the subject of the Ron Howard-directed 2020 film starring Glenn Close and Amy Adams. In fact, I assigned the book in one of my graduate seminars.
What a difference a few years can seem to make! Not that long ago, Vance was a vehement and outspoken Trump critic, deriding him as “America’s Hitler” and “a total fraud.” But he suddenly and abruptly embraced the former president when he ran for a Senate seat in 2022, eventually securing Trump’s support in a heavily crowded Republican primary. Indeed, both men acknowledged that they had not previously been politically fond of one another. “He’s the guy that said some bad shit about me,” Trump said at a rally in 2022. “If I went by that standard, I don’t think I would have ever endorsed anybody…
