With the news that JD Vance was chosen by Donald Trump to be the Vice Presidential candidate, I shuddered in recognition. As an author and an editor, I have been publishing-adjacent for most of my life. Vance’s story—as recounted in his bestselling book , a rags-to-riches tale that struck a chord with Americans—was brought into the world by the liberal Manhattan publishing industry in 2016, and after that adapted and adopted by Democratic Hollywood.
Pundits quoted Vance constantly for at least a year after the book was published, as if the author was a seer of the poor. They and the progressive culture-makers who were originally smitten by the story of Vance’s authentic hard knock life as well as his speedy ascent into the overclass, are as responsible for Vance’s mythos as Peter Thiel and the Republican Party. In this way, Vance is our monster.
Welcome to the Art of the Deal of the Hillbilly. Trump for much of his career was alternately mocked, admired and amplified by New York’s liberal media. Like Vance, he also peddled what I think of as .
(Perhaps all prosperity populism is crappy?) is the claim that all success is due to individual gifts and efforts, and anyone who tries hard can make it. It’s also the faith that this achievement is best measured in both dollars and entrance into the highest reaches of society. Finally, it’s a contempt for the poor—in Vance’s case, his own family members, who he blames for their own condition.
As Vance wrote in , of .
