Driven, But Driven to What End? A Review of JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy

★★ 

JD Vance's upbringing by a "hillbilly" mom and grandparents from Kentucky was an interesting read. His ethnic background as a Scots Irish and the history and geography of the Scots Irish that Vance lays out is historically accurate and I was pleasantly surprised that he was aware of it. But what Vance attributes to the status of poor white working-class Scots-Irish - or hillbillies in Appalachia - is also prevalent in East Coast cities, and probably cities throughout the US. The attributes of poor Scots-Irish hillbillies are broken and dysfunctional families: divorces, single-mom households, domestic violence, verbal and emotional abuse, and economic struggles. This seems to fit the bill for most people I've grown up with to varying degrees, and I didn't grow up in Appalachia.

JD's grandparents eloped from Kentucky to Middletown, Ohio, in a bit of scandalous haste (she was pregnant before marriage). JD's mother was born and raised in Middletown, and then JD and his sister. Middletown is in the middle (hence the name) of an industrial corridor from Cincinnati to Dayton where factory jobs, steady at the time, offered the promise of better times. However, the familial dysfunction followed them. JD's mother was mentally and emotionally unstable. He didn't know his real father – an evangelical Pentecostal churchgoer – until age 14 or 15. Before then, men came and went. After reconnecting with his real father, JD, too, became an evangelical Pentecostal churchgoer, mostly to try to develop a sense of connection with his father and a sense of belonging with a group.

JD's grandmother, "mawmaw,' was the one that took him and his sister in when his mother had emotional breakdowns and, later, got hooked on drugs. Mawmaw was the stable one, though poor. She insisted on good grades and helped JD apply for college and student loans. He was the first in his family to be accepted to college: Ohio State University.

However, JD was frightened of college and didn't think he was able to navigate it successfully. He was intimidated by it. Instead, JD enlisted in the US Marines. He was attracted by the physical challenge for one, but also by the promise the Marines offered of becoming something important: a disciplined, confident, honorable young man.

JD excelled in the Marines and afterward followed through with Ohio State University. The Marines had taught him how to be independent, including things like financial common sense (definitely NOT my own experience in the Navy), and he had no trouble navigating the college experience. Again, he excelled. More than that, he was motivated. When the GI Bill wasn't enough, he took on part-time jobs. At one point, he had three while attending OSU full-time.

JD's dream was to attend law school. He didn't really have a plan after that. He didn't actually dream of becoming a lawyer, for example.

Somewhere along the line he was encouraged to apply to Yale Law School, one of the nation's best. He discovered that Yale reserved a few Pell grants and other financial support for students of meager means, though it isn't well advertised. To his shock, he was accepted. He was shocked again at the low cost. It was actually cheaper than if he had attended law school at OSU.

Academics at Yale was rigorous and challenging, but he threw himself into it. The biggest challenge, he discovered, was overcoming class differences. 99% of the students at Yale are the children of economic and political elites, millionaires all. One time, he was absorbed in a law book while walking and bumped into a man in the law library. When he looked up, he realized that he had just bowled into New York Governor George Pataki.

While this part of JD Vance's memoir is interesting, it is also where I think he goes off the rails a bit. Or, rather, JD reveals what he is about. And all it makes sense. It isn't like it comes out of left field.

JD Vance is a driven man. But he isn't driven to make the world a better place. He isn't driven to alleviate the suffering of others, or to become a great lawyer to defend the defenseless, or to take on rapacious corporations, or to prosecute repeat offenders, etc.

No, JD is driven to MAKE IT. He has a Napolean complex. He wants desperately to overcome his hillbilly background and become a respected man of means. He even minimizes the helping hands that helped him get where he is, like the GI Bill, Pell grants, and student loans. Instead, he emphasizes his Mawmaw and the hard work and grit that he himself poured forth. If only more people from Appalachia were like him, America would be much better off. And maybe his story will motivate others. That's it. That's his take away from his experience.

And now it makes sense that he would cozy up to Donald Trump and Trump Jr., people of economic and political means. He's IN now. He's MADE IT.

I'm sure he feels like an imposter, though. He said as much about his time at Yale, and then again after when went back home to Middletown. He feels like an imposter among elites, and now he feels like an imposter among the working class.

(Imposter Syndrome is actually pretty common among working class kids who make good in their careers. It is overcome with time and experience. After law school, Vance's Yale law degree and connections landed him a job for a couple of years at a law firm, then three or four years at a venture capital firm. After his memoir came out and became a bestseller, Vance became a bit of a celebrity. Peter Thiel, Vance's venture capitalist boss, was taken in by Vance's memoir. He encouraged Vance to run for the US Senate in 2022 and bankrolled his campaign. Less than two years in, he was selected by Trump as his VP nominee. So much for time and experience.)

JD Vance is all about status. You know the type. He seems to be all about making money, or the appearance of having money.

That's as far as it goes.  There's no there there.