In his speech at the Republican National Convention, J.D. Vance, newly nominated Vice Presidential candidate, held up his “mamaw” and the nineteen loaded guns that she kept around the house, as the ideal of the American spirit. The crowd went wild with cheers.
This is not the first time that Vance apotheosizes his backwoods family.
In his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy”, he dove deep into the heart of American rural society, particularly the Appalachian region, exploring his upbringing in a poor family with roots in Kentucky, and how his background shaped his views on the socio-economic issues facing the white working-class Americans. The book, published in 2016, became a bestseller and sparked conversations across the political spectrum about the struggles and resilience of people in the Rust Belt and Appalachia and how they had been left behind by the politicians who don’t share their concerns.
In short, it is a book that personalized the gripes and grievances that Donald Trump built his presidency on. Now speaking from the stage as Vice Presidential nominee, it’s almost as if his memoir served as a calling card for Donald Trump. The book was Vance’s audition.
“Hillbilly Elegy” is a personal narrative that intertwines with broader themes of social decay, cultural values, and the American dream. Vance’s story is a reflection on his family’s history of poverty, addiction, and the pursuit of a better life. His journey from a troubled childhood to a graduate of Yale Law School offers a window into the complexities of family dynamics, personal responsibility, and societal expectations, but also embodies the American Dream in its most fundamental incarnation. It’s a story that encompasses all of the cliches that have shaped the ideal that has defined America for generations: overcoming adversity, the power of education, a solid work ethic.
As pundits tried to parse the reasons for which Trump selected him as his running mate, his celebrity (minor enough not to eclipse Trump’s) was one of them. The memoir was later adapted into a film directed by Ron Howard, featuring performances by Amy Adams and Glenn Close, which brought the story to a wider audience.
In his speech Vance reflected on how his Ohio hometown had been blighted by closed factories and addiction. “I had a guardian angel by my side. She was an old woman who could barely walk, but she was tough as nails,” he told the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“I called her mamaw, the name we hillbillies gave to our grandmothers,” said the 39-year-old Ohio senator and newly minted vice-presidential candidate.
Vance went on to describe how his grandmother had died in 2005, shortly before he left home to serve in the Iraq war.
“When we went through her things we found 19 loaded handguns,” explained Vance, drawing raucous cheers of “Mamaw, mamaw” from the partisan crowd.
“They were stashed all over her house — under her bed, in her closet, in the silverware drawer… 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,” he said.
Vance, Trump, and their cheering supporters saw no irony in the fact that the former president survived being shot in an assassination attempt just a few days before.
Nor did there seem to be any acknowledgement that gun violence is sky high in America, that guns can kill innocent victims–as they do every day in America–or any reference to the numbers of children that have been killed in school shootings.
