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Katie Bauer of Yarmouth is a freelance writer.
Eight years ago, J.D. Vance was a staunch never Trumper who claimed the former president was “noxious,” “a total fraud,” “America’s Hitler” and “unfit for our nation’s highest office.” He labeled him “cultural heroin.”
Fast forward six years to Ohio’s senatorial race and Vance has executed an about-face on Donald Trump saying: “All around he was a good president, I think he made a lot of good decisions” and “he’s the best president of my lifetime.”
If you, like many, are wondering how Vance could suddenly pledge his allegiance to one of America’s worst ranked presidents, you need go no further than Chapter 1 of his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.”
Coming from a small, dusty town down South, I can relate to the fierce pride and deep-seated loyalty he felt toward his hillbilly relatives. I know what it means to grow up “poor country.” I respected his stark portrayal of family dynamics as he attempted to understand his roots. He raises questions that are worth exploring.
Vance’s political platform today focuses on the family, particularly, the importance of a father. And no wonder. His mother’s home had a revolving door with a host of different men coming through. This meant learning an important coping skill that seems to have followed him into adulthood.
Near the beginning of his memoir, Vance writes: “In Ohio, I had grown especially skillful at navigating various father figures. With Steve, a midlife-crisis sufferer with an earring to prove it, I pretended earrings were cool — so much so that he thought it appropriate to pierce my ear, too. With Chip, an alcoholic police officer who saw my earring as a sign of ‘girlie-ness,’ I had thick skin and loved police cars. With Ken, an odd man who proposed to Mom three days into their relationship, I was a kind brother to his two children. But none of these things were really true. I hated earrings, I hated police cars, and I knew that Ken’s children would be out of my life by the next year.”
Vance becomes whatever he needs to be in order to survive — the same tactic he recently told reporters Kamala Harris employs.
It’s not uncommon for survivors of adverse childhood experiences to revert to former learned coping mechanisms when confronted with situations that trigger flashbacks of the need for self-preservation.
A 2019 article in The New York Times discusses the degree to which Trump uses fear and loyalty to control the Republican Party. The turnover record of senior positions during his administration illustrates his system of reward and punishment.
In 2021, after Vance stopped criticizing and began cheerleading, Trump endorsed his senatorial bid boasting “JD is kissing my ass he wants my support so much.”
Did Vance sacrifice his previous ideals to put his personal political survival and gain above the best interest of the American people?
Most recently, Vance has come under fire for comments he made in 2022 at Pacifica Christian saying he believes couples are too quick to get divorced, clarifying that, while it may be good for the adults in the situation, it “definitely” isn’t good for the children. He refers to his grandparents’ relationship and notes with pride how, although “chaotic” and sometimes “violent,” they “never got divorced.”
He left out a few key details in that interview that show up in his memoir. Like the time Mamaw poured gasoline all over Papaw after he came home drunk and then set him on fire and how he survived because their 11-year-old daughter doused the flames. That his mother (one of their daughters) later became a heroin addict. How her mothering left much to be desired.
And yet, Vance himself the product of divorce, is the one who, by all appearances, became a success. His own personal experience does not support his present line of reasoning, begging the question: Does Vance still not really know himself?
There’s a line in Vance’s memoir I truly admire for its beautiful craftmanship: “In Jackson, I was the grandson of the toughest woman anyone knew and the most skilled auto mechanic in town; in Ohio, I was the abandoned son of a man I hardly knew and a woman I wished I didn’t.”
It captures the inner turmoil and conflict of straddling two worlds. It becomes the cornerstone of the imposter syndrome Vance seems to experience as he struggles between going back to his roots and finding his wings. Hillbilly or hero? Ivy League or lay person? Civil servant or self-serving sell-out?
The American people deserve a quality candidate they can trust, someone they can depend on to stay true to their ethics. Not someone who buries his backbone to cower before the biggest bully in the room.
