Political commentators speculated on why Donald Trump chose JD Vance as his running mate. The answer was there for all to see who tuned into the Republican convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when Vance took the stage on Wednesday (July 17). A boy from a poor working class family who served as a Marine in Iraq, went on to Yale Law School and became a venture capitalist, Vance is a rags-to-riches story, a man who aced the American Dream.
But Trump put him on the ticket not because of how far he has risen in life but where he came from. He is a Rust Belt boy who grew up in the Midwest whose battleground states Trump has to win to be elected president.
Vance was born in Middletown, Ohio, once a battleground or swing state, but now solidly Republican. However, it is part of the Midwest, which includes three of the seven swing states: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. (The others are Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.)
Ohio-born Vance’s roots, however, go back to eastern Kentucky, where he has his ancestral home. That makes him a “hillbilly”, as he calls himself in his bestselling memoirs, Hillbilly Elegy, or a country boy. That is another group whose support Trump needs. He himself is a New Yorker.
Country-boy language and images
Vance used country-boy language and images in his speech to appeal to the crowd at the Republican convention on Wednesday night.
“I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands, and loved their God, their family, their community and their country with their whole hearts”, he recalled.
Talking about his grandmother, his Mamaw, who raised him while his mother struggled with drug addiction, he said:
“Now, my Mamaw died shortly before I left for Iraq, in 2005. And when we went through her things, we found 19 loaded handguns.
“They were stashed all over her house. Under her bed, in her closet. In the silverware drawer. And we wondered what was going on, and it occurred to us that towards the end of her life, Mamaw couldn’t get around very well. And so this frail old woman made sure that no matter where she was, she was within arms’ length of whatever she needed to protect her family. That’s who we fight for. That’s American spirit.”
The audience burst into cheers when he said that. He was speaking in favour of people having guns, which are popular in America.
Mom, clean and sober
People cheered his mother, too, who was in the audience, when he said she had got over her drug habit. “And I’m proud to say that tonight my mom is here, 10 years clean and sober,” he announced, pointing at his mother, who smiled and waved.
Vance made it clear he was reaching out not only to white Americans.
“Together, we will put the citizens of America first, whatever the colour of their skin,” he said.
Immigrants
“I am, of course, married to the daughter of South Asian immigrants to this country,” he added , referring to his wife, Usha, a lawyer who graduated with him from Yale Law School. “Incredible people,” he said, praising South Asians. “People who genuinely have enriched this country in so many ways.”
He and his wife hugged and embraced on stage after she introduced him. “That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry, is a testament to this great country,” she said.
But Vance vehemently opposes “illegal aliens” competing for jobs and housing with Americans.
Trump and Biden
He extolled Trump. “He didn’t need politics, but the country needed him,” he asserted. One of the most successful businessmen in the world, Trump had everything anyone could want in life, and yet he chose to endure slander, abuse and persecution because he loved his country, said Vance.
“He called for national unity, for national calm literally right after an assassin nearly took his life,” reminded Vance, referring to the shooting at a rally at Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
Biden, on the other hand, has supported policies that cost American jobs and lives, said Vance:
“When I was in the fourth grade, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden supported NAFTA, a bad trade deal that sent countless good jobs to Mexico.
“When I was a sophomore in high school, that same career politician named Joe Biden gave China a sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good American middle-class manufacturing jobs.
Vance went on: “When I was a senior in high school, that same Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq.
“And at each step of the way, in small towns like mine in Ohio, or next door in Pennsylvania or Michigan, in other states across our country, jobs were sent overseas and our children were sent to war.”
“President Trump represents America’s last best hope to restore what — if lost — may never be found again. A country where a working-class boy born far from the halls of power can stand on this stage as the next vice president of the United States of America,” said Vance.
American workers
He spoke fervently of creating American jobs and helping American workers.
“We’re done importing foreign labour; we’re going to fight for American citizens and their good jobs and their good wages,” he said.
“We’re going to build factories again, put people to work making real products for American families, made with the hands of American workers.
“Together, we will protect the wages of American workers — and stop the Chinese Communist Party from building their middle class on the backs of American citizens.”
Smiling, in simple yet resonant words, Vance articulated populism and nationalism, and it went down very well with the cheering crowd at the Republican convention. Vance may not be as eloquent as Barack Obama, but he speaks the language of the people whose votes Trump needs.