Thiele Strong is a sociology professor at San José State University and a public voices fellow at the The OpEd Project.
Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” resonated with me in many ways. My father went by Papa, pronounced Pawpaw, and my stepmother is Mawmaw. I grew up in a household with more than a couple of ACEs. Like Vance, I certainly can relate to the cultural shifts one experiences when entering elite spaces. He spit out sparkling water. I chewed the outside shell of edamame, thinking I would be able to eventually wear it down. I didn’t; it didn’t. I spit it out.
Like him, when I entered graduate school, I thought I had come from nothing. I knew I had overcome odds. However, as I read and analyzed my way through the work of hundreds of social scientists, I realized that while my upbringing had been difficult socio-economically, I was not a part of the underclass. Neither was Vance, and his inability to make that discernment is deeply problematic.
His family lineage is what he names hillbilly royalty, a force that ruled the hills. If his relatives who engaged in the violence he describes had been Black, Latino or non-Hillbilly royalty, they would have surely been jailed or killed. History shows that the advantages of being white as opposed to being a person of color allowed his family to persist without having to bear the just consequences of their malefactions. His relatives were able to use their power to either physically or verbally threaten people into submission and this ability seems to be an aspect of his heritage of which he both seeks to overcome and is the most proud.
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In his book Vance unabashedly gives several examples, including:
“When the driver — nicknamed Big Red because of his size and hair color — repeated the insult, Uncle Pet did what any rational business owner would do: He pulled the man from his truck, beat him unconscious, and ran an electric saw up and down his body. Big Red nearly bled to death but was rushed to the hospital and survived. Uncle Pet never went to jail, though.”
As social scientists know, advantage begets advantage. And J.D. Vance, while he had obstacles, also had tremendous advantages. His grandparents owned property. His great-grandparents owned property. Currently, in the United States, home ownership hovers around 66 percent.From 1890-1940, it stayed under 50 percent. He connects his lineage to the infamous Hatfield-McCoys. He describes a large and supportive family, many of whom succeeded in the high-stakes, highly competitive life chances race.
His current political orientations are disconnected from the most compelling experiences he describes in his memoir. And still, I, someone who feels that Donald Trump is ill equipped to serve as president of our nation, find Vance’s story compelling and perhaps even a bit hopeful. But, more than anything, I am concerned.
It’s not only the wanton victim-blaming that comes so easily to Vance that worries me. It’s also the way in which he too easily makes a victim of his own life. His narrative is that of someone really “making it,” a person at the bottom, rising to become a wealthy person, at the top. But he is not from a place where ladders are non-existent. He is not even from the bottom of the ladder. He is from the top of a ladder of one contingent of the white working class — and these distinctions matter. This tendency, to understate the many ways he had the deck stacked for him, is something he and Trump have in common. This lack of understanding and empathy disturbs me.
Vance would do well to gain more sociological insight. If he could better grasp and learn from our history of racism, patriarchy and violence, if he could really learn about the class struggle from those who had less than him, he could be as big an advocate for those who really are from the bottom as he is for those he views as like himself. He could be a powerful force for good in our nation instead of perpetuating the past. And that expansion of intellect could make J.D. Vance a true paradigm shifter, part of the legacy of the FDR New Deal — which his ancestry supported.
Until then we are left with a Vance who capitalizes on the narrative that he came from nothing, while part of a ticket whose legacy andfuture plans include expanding loopholes for the most advantaged in our nation.
When I was young, growing up in Missouri, my dad told me that in America anyone can be president. And we have seen presidents, such as Barack Obama, and presidential candidates, such as Kamala Harris, who give credence to this notion.
However, it is not enough to gain power. To do good, to create a society that is socially and economically just, one must use that power to raise the voices and empower those among us who are the least resourced. By aligning with the Trump dynasty, Vance’s message of overcoming hardship and anyone can succeed is lost to the reality that both he and Trump render significant contingents of the American public as the enemy. Data from Pew Research shows that the growth in income in recent decades has tilted dramatically to upper-income households while the share going to middle-and lower income households is falling.
We need political leaders who will unapologetically reverse this trend.
