JD Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, may become President

[Cicada]

He is a Republican, conservative. Every review of his book says it is super duper fantastic. Ron Howard plans a movie based on it. He has an op ed in The NY Times today about health care policy that may be the only smart thing on health care any Republican has pitched since Obamacare passed. He works for a hedge fund and may be rich. His wife is ethnically Indian and has clerked for Justice Roberts so she is a genius too.

He plans to return to Ohio to start a charity to help the kind of poor folks he sprang form. He says he may run for office.

Unlike just about every other Republican this guy seems to actually know what he is doing.

Based on his op ed he clearly knows how to pitch bullet proof political arguments.

Since he is sane Republicans may grow to hate him but if not he's a rocket ship headed for Republican high office.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

1. Whosa what? nt

[exboyfil]

2. Kind of a Romney without the silver spoon

born on 3rd base.

You may be right. I think he fails to consider that his intelligence has something to do with his ability to escape poverty, and not everyone has a grandmother like his.

I also think he benefited from a form of unofficial affirmative action with his admission into Yale Law School. I might have as well in my admission to Purdue (I went to high school in Mississippi - not many applicants from that state).

My family is also from the same area where Vance grew up (West Virginia just across the rivers from Ohio and Kentucky) and the social dysfunction he describes in his book was my upbringing.

[tenderfoot]

3. JD Vance is an Ayn Rand/Peter Thiel loving libertarian douche

According to this actual hillbilly:

https://www.thisappalachialife.com/single-post/2017/05/10/My-Mother-Wasnt-Trash

"Judging from the emails I have received in the past few days, a good many people are interested in the way their own communities and stories are playing out right now to a national audience. They realize that people are listening, it seems, but are unsure that their voices are actually being heard. At least a fourth of the folks who have reached out since I published "Blessed are the White Trash" have asked how I feel about J. D. Vance's bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy. This book has, for many Americans, become their primary source of information about Appalachian culture and poverty. The short answer is that I disagree with both Vance's conclusions and his methodology. As I told a group of my students recently, I am heartbroken that Hillbilly Elegy will likely be the most popular and important book about Appalachia in a generation.

Vance writes: "I don't know what the answer is, precisely, but I know it starts when we stop blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what we can do to make things better" (256). While this is not blatant victim-blaming, it comes close. This line of reasoning promotes the individualistic philosophy so prominent among those on the political right in the US. It sounds like it came directly from the pen of Ayn Rand. It calls for a bootstraps-up set of solutions for people who lack boots. It calls on poor people to fix their own problems by changing their culture. Vance calls it a "culture in crisis." What his book lacks, however, is the important historical and economic context that explains how Appalachia came to be impoverished. While he is critical of Appalachian culture, he doesn't bother to find out how it came to be as it is. "

[dalton99a]

4. Another RW asshole.

[Cicada]

9. Yes, but unlike Ted Cruz this guy does not have a tin ear

Bill Clinton grew up among rural, southern whites and had a great ear for what appealed to them. He also had a great sense of what appeals to everyone else. An empathic genius. As opposed to the similarly smart Ted Cruz who is politically deaf to real normal people. This guy Vance sounds to me tuned in like Clinton, a guy who knows what will sell to a wide range of people.

We have to understand Vance to stop him.

[m-lekktor]

6. yikes! the OP makes him sound reasonable. thanks for this. nt

[airmid]

8. Thank you. He is from my hometwon and my family is from the same place as his. He is a

douche nozzle and many people here view him as a narcissist and someone who looks down his nose at them.

[oasis]

7. Screw all Republicans. The late, Jack Kemp was the last decent one.

[Me.]

10. Are You Endorsing Him?

[Cicada]

13. I am unlikely to endorse any Republican

Any Republican will help horrible things happen Susan Collins will endorse all Trump Supreme Court nominees. Right now all that matters is party membership. Any Democrat, even one who loves guns and hates planned parenthood, is better than any Republican. And any Republican, even sane rational ones, is a grave threat to the nation and the world.

Before Newt Gingrich I used to vote for some Republicans. Not since then.

Mr Vance is especially dangerous because he is NOT insane and NOT completely ideological. He is as much a danger to us as Bill Clinton was a danger to the Republicans.

[GeorgeGist]

11. Rubbish ...

Superduper rubbish

[La Lioness Priyanka]

12. err what? doesn't one first have to run and win a GOP primary

then run against a Democrat to win anything?

seems like this is VERY long shot shitty prediction

[La Lioness Priyanka]

16. LOL.

[NCTraveler]

15. "His wife is ethnically Indian and has clerked for Justice Roberts so she is a genius too. "

Line of the day. Thank you.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. god. i missed that gem.

thanks for bringing it to light