Vance’s values.

A review of J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy”, first published in 2016. Quotes are from the 2024 updated UK paperback edition.

I bought the book in Southampton last week, in some trepidation that the sales assistant at the till might look on me unfavourably. So I felt it necessary to explain to him that I was seeking to understand the appeal of MAGA, and what made people vote for Trump and Vance.

I needn’t have worried- bookshop staff know that buying a book doesn’t mean you endorse its author. And the assistant proceeded to observe that none of the Americans who visited his shop had anything good to say about the Trump administration. Since the bookshop is a short walk from Southampton docks, many of these would be visiting cruise ship passengers. This led us to say in unison, “Trump supporters obviously don’t travel.” It occurred to me afterwards that they may not read many books either, just as Trump apparently doesn’t. I wonder, did he read Vance’s book, before selecting him as his running mate?

On further reflection I’ve realised that there may be another explanation for the lack of Trump supporters in a Southampton bookshop. Just as I felt embarrassed at the thought of being mistaken for a Trump supporter, it would be a very brave American who walked round Southampton in a red MAGA cap. Some people now read that as Make America Greatly Ashamed [see my previous post for some reasons why].

However Vance has nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to his book, apart from littering it with extremely coarse language- which I have avoided in quoting from it. It is an inspiring rags to riches story with much to teach the reader. The reviewer from the Observer on the back cover accurately describes the book as “an acute insight into the reasons why voters have put their trust in Trump”.  

Vance’s childhood was split between rural Kentucky and Middletown, Ohio, in the rust belt of the USA. Middletown has many parallels with the ex-coal mining towns of South Yorkshire, where I ministered for a few years. A local vicar told me everyone had a “chip on their shoulder” after Mrs Thatcher closed down the mines. There were many pit villages with no pits, which had lost their sole reason for existence.  A local resident told me she’d encouraged all her children to leave and find work elsewhere. She said there were no prospects for them if they remained in the area.

Vance says- “From low social mobility to poverty to divorce and drug addiction, my home is a hub of misery” [p4]. He is justifiably proud of overcoming many such obstacles- most especially the disruptive “revolving door of father figures” [p88] that his mother subjected him to. His reflections on it all have real force, “Are we tough enough to look ourselves in the mirror and admit that our conduct harms our children?” [p255]

Vance identifies many structural obstacles to succeeding as he did- “When the factories shut their doors, the people left behind were trapped in towns and cities that could no longer support such large populations with high-quality work…those who could…left, leaving behind…the “truly disadvantaged”.” [p144]

He makes another observation, that we also experienced in South Yorkshire, “…home ownership comes at a steep social cost. As jobs disappear in a given area, declining home values trap people in certain neighbourhoods.” [p52]

Vance’s book is a real eye-opener, and I hope it has already been read by those who most need to read it. Just as we felt like “foreigners” at times in South Yorkshire, many comfortably-off Americans probably look on the likes of Middletown as foreign territory. Vance has done a great service to all of us who know little about such places.

But, however hard their circumstances, Vance doesn’t want people to make excuses. He wants his own people to be “tough enough to look ourselves in the mirror”. He refuses to allow anyone to think of themselves as a helpless victim. So he admits that he himself “…spent the first eighteen years of my life pretending that everything in the world was a problem except me.” [p20]. And he says, “We choose not to work…we get fired for tardiness…or for taking thirty minute restroom breaks. We talk about the value of hard work but tell ourselves that the reasons we’re not working is some perceived unfairness: Obama shut down the coal mines, or all the jobs went to the Chinese. These are the lies we tell ourselves to solve the cognitive dissonance- the broken connection between the world we see and the values we preach.” [p147]

He then tells of running into an old acquaintance in a bar who, “quit his job because he was sick of waking up early…his status in life is directly attributable to the choices he’s made, and his life will improve only through better decisions. But for him to make better choices he has to live in an environment that forces him to ask tough questions about himself. There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government, and that movement gains adherents by the day.” [p194] 

But isn’t MAGA itself part of that “cultural movement”? And isn’t Trump’s stock in trade to play on this very “perceived unfairness”? And doesn’t the list of those Trump blames grow longer every day? And isn’t it apparent by now that most of his assertions are demonstrably false?

Vance seems to have unwittingly anticipated this, back in 2016 when he wrote the book. This quote is particularly prescient, “Many try to blame the anger and cynicism of working-class whites on misinformation. Admittedly, there is an industry of conspiracy-mongers and fringe lunatics writing about all manner of idiocy, from Obama’s alleged religious leanings to his ancestry…[but] only 6 percent of American voters believe that the media is “very trustworthy”…With little trust in the press, there’s no check on the Internet conspiracy theories that rule the digital world”[p192].

Trump continually attacks the press, and his conspiracy theories on social media led to the insurrection of January 6^th 2021. Didn’t voters “put their trust in Trump” precisely because he’d fed them misinformation and idiocy? Doesn’t Trump fan their anger and cynicism for his own benefit? He’s certainly done very little for most people’s benefit, apart from his cronies.

So if we believe MAGA is actually part of the problem, then where should we look for the solution? Vance certainly believes in the power of positive thinking – “I had learned helplessness at home, the Marines were teaching learned willfulness.” [p163] And “…if you believe that hard work pays off, then you work hard; if you think it’s hard to get ahead even when you try, then why try at all?” [p193] And, “Research does reveal a genetic disposition to substance abuse, but those who believe their addiction is a disease show less of an inclination to resist it.” [p116]

But Vance acknowledges that he would never have succeeded by optimism alone. He waxes lyrical about the support he had from his grandmother, sister, teachers, law school professor, and his wife Usha. He says he would have failed if any of these people had been, “…removed from the equation…” He goes on, “Other people who have overcome the odds cite the same sorts of interventions.” [p239]

However, in one of the most telling parts of the book he reveals the downside of many of those interventions which took place in his childhood- “We recognised instinctively that many of the people we depended on weren’t supposed to play that role in our lives…We were conditioned to feel that we couldn’t really depend on people…lest we fully tap the reservoir of goodwill serving as a safety valve…” [p104]. The entirety of page 104, amongst others, should be required reading for just about everyone.

As a Christian I would hope that the unconditional love of Christ for His people would be reflected in the way Christians parent their children, and play any role in the lives of other people’s children. And, indeed, Vance’s own hope for one disadvantaged young man is that he can, “access a church that will teach him lessons of Christian love, family and purpose.” [p255]

Amen to that. But tragically this was not Vance’s own experience of church as a boy. He  seems to have come so near to, yet so far from, a genuine, life changing encounter with Jesus Christ.  But, “I heard more about the gay lobby and the war on Christmas than about any particular character trait that a Christian should aspire to have…Morality was defined by not participating in this or that social malady: the gay agenda, evolutionary theory, Clintonian liberalism, or extramarital sex. Dad’s church required so little of me. It was easy to be a Christian.” [p98] Is this an example of why Christianity in the USA is sometimes described as three thousand miles wide but only half an inch deep? Easy believism like this does not change people’s hearts, nor does it save them.

This may help explain those unreformed character traits Vance still displays- for example in his Oval Office attack on Zelenskyy. He admits “Even at my best I’m a delayed explosion. I can be defused, but only with skill and precision.” [p230] He goes on to say “The very traits that enabled my survival during childhood inhibit my success as an adult…Usha still sometimes reminds me that not every perceived slight …is cause for a blood feud.” [p246]. Perhaps Vance might remind his vindictive boss of this!

I’m really looking forward to being able to move on from criticising Trump, whenever the day comes that his time is over. Of course Vance is aiming to be the next in line. In many ways he would make a far better President, who might actually help the disadvantaged instead of exploiting them. But, before he’s handed the nuclear trigger, let’s pray there are people around him with the right “skill and precision” to “defuse” him.

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