Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Donald Trump’s veep pick, had the chance last night to tell the nation all about the abundant experience that qualifies him to be vice president, but since he doesn’t actually have any, he offered up a lot of populist mush, explaining that Donald Trump is the only person who can rescue America from its present sick sorry state, which is possibly the worst condition the country has ever been in.
Vance called attention to his childhood in Appalachia, where he grew up in poverty, in the kind of fractured family situation he usually blames on a lack of individual responsibility but which in his own case was apparently Joe Biden’s fault, because when Vance was in fourth grade, Biden, then in the Senate, voted for NAFTA and all the jobs went away, and then when Vance was a little older, Biden voted for a trade deal with China that made all the remaining jobs go away. Heck, when Vance was about to graduate from high school, Biden voted to authorize the Iraq War, making him solely responsible for George W. Bush’s greatest debacle, too. Here’s the video, if you’re a glutton for punishment.
Anyhow, Vance emphasized his rural roots, meaning that every article about the speech had to use the word “hardscrabble,” and now that includes this one. He promised he would never forget where he came from, which would be difficult since the main reason he’s a public figure was that book he wrote that so many people who are from Appalachia consider bullshit. And he promised that Donald Trump will be the real friend of the working class, unlike that monster Joe Biden. Please ignore the actual data showing that in Biden’s economy, “left behind” parts of the country —those counties whose economic and population growth lagged behind the rest of the nation’s from 2000 to 2016 — have had the best three years of economic growth since 2000.
Still, Vance sure made it sound like no one has a job. Let us annotate just one brief paragraph, shall we?
“This moment is not about me,” Vance said. “It’s about the auto worker in Michigan, wondering why out of touch politicians are destroying their jobs.”
Auto Workers have endorsed Joe Biden, who just last week announced additional spending from his climate bill that will reopen factories with good union jobs so they can transition to building electric vehicles and their components.
Vance: “It’s about the factory worker in Wisconsin, who makes things with their hands and is proud of American craftsmanship.”
Donald Trump touted Scott Walker’s huge taxpayer giveaways to bring a Chinese electronics company, Foxconn, to Wisconsin. The factory and jobs never materialized. Joe Biden went to the empty site of that failed project in April to announce that Microsoft, using incentives from the CHIPS and Science Act, would be investing $3.3 billion in a data center that the White House estimates will create 2,300 union construction jobs while it’s being built, and another 2,000 permanent jobs in the data center.
Vance: “It’s about the energy worker in Pennsylvania and Ohio, who doesn’t understand why Joe Biden is willing to buy energy from tinpot dictators across the world when he can buy it from his own citizens, right here in his own country.”
US oil production has never been higher under any other president. The clean energy industry is booming too, and in areas where fossil fuel production had already been declining.
But the real highlight of the speech was Vance’s gunhumper elegy for his grandmother, who mostly raised him.
"My Mamaw died shortly before I left for Iraq in 2005. And when we went through her things, we found 19 loaded handguns. Now, the thing is, they were stashed all over her house. Under her bed, in her closet, in the silverware drawer.
“And we wondered what was going on. And it occurred to us that towards the end of her life, Mamaw couldn’t get around so well. And so, this frail old woman made sure that no matter where she was, she was within arm’s length of whatever she needed to protect her family. That’s who we fight for. That’s American spirit!”
That really is the America the GOP dreams of. A place where people are filled with resentment and paranoia to the point where they stash multiple loaded guns in every room, because some bad guy might need to be blown away at any moment.
Happy news: Mamaw was not raising any children in her home by that point, whew. Firearms are now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the USA, thanks to Republican policies. But it would be tyranny to require guns be stored securely, to say nothing of how that would ruin a heartwarming anecdote about a nice grandma with a gun hoarding problem.
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Oh noes! I was in a hurry so I forgot to mention that after he finished speaking, Vance was played off to the guitar solo from Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow," and you could actually hear the 1992 Clinton Democratic Convention roll over in its grave.
I would add that but my new laptop won't let me edit anything that's already been posted, probably some weird Chrome hiccup I need to figure out.
My mom was raised in a company town in Wise, Kentucky. Her dad was paid in scrip and her mom (my Mamaw) went north to Michigan to work in the car factories and back again. Grandpa died of black lung, and my mother was shuttled between various relatives to keep her alive.
JD and his performative bullshit can burn in hell.