JD Vance speaks to those America ignores.
Originally published in the Columbus Dispatch, this is a slightly expanded version that goes into more detail. I truly appreciate the Dispatch for their willingness to include contrarian voices and headlines that help to sell newspapers.
Ohio may no longer be a presidential battleground but with former President Trump’s announcement of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, our state just might live up to our tourism slogan as the “Heart Of It All” anyway.
Trump’s choice of Sen. Vance is a well-calculated one that plays to his working class base while further broadening his appeal across the Midwest, where the Electoral College — and the presidency — will likely be won. As the first millennial candidate on a presidential ticket and a military veteran, Vance will also bolster Trump’s support with those parts of the electorate.
Vance grew up in Middletown, Ohio and his grandfather worked at the Armco Steel mill there. I don’t know Sen. Vance personally but my industrial distribution business had an office in Middletown for the entirety of my 40 year career, and I know what it’s like to work in that mill. While I didn’t see the darker side of Middletown Vance wrote about in his best-selling book “Hillbilly Elegy” I spent countless hours working along side the decent, hard-working people there who are an important part of the fabric of our state and our nation.
These are the kinds of people who feel they’ve been ignored or looked down upon by the political and progressive elites — Hillary Clinton’s “Deplorables” — for far too long.
As a former associate of Vance shared with me, these people who (in the disparaging words of Barack Obama) “cling to their guns or religion” are also the people who still courteously hold the door for a stranger — black or white, gay or straight — just as Mr. Vance does.
Much has already been written about Vance’s 180 degree turn in his views of Mr. Trump. While Democrats will no doubt try to use those earlier comments against the Trump-Vance ticket, it’s unlikely they’ll have much effect. Vance won his senate seat in the face of those attacks and as long as Trump trusts him, his voters will too.
To be clear, I’m no fan of Mr. Trump. I would have much preferred a different candidate. I voted accordingly in the primary election. My candidate lost. We don’t always get what we want and I respect the choice of my fellow citizens. That’s what democracy means.
It’s with that respect that I’ve spent considerable time trying to understand Trump’s appeal. With the failed assassination attempt just a few days ago and now his selection of Mr. Vance, I got a much clearer view of why Trump’s supporters are so drawn to him.
Trump is the quintessential silver-spoon, Ivy League, philandering elitist. You’d think he’d be the last person middle America would support. So why do they? In short, they see him as a fighter. The more the progressive elites try to take Trump down, the more Trump fights back, and the more his supporters see him as fighting for them.
When a would-be assassin’s bullet barely missed killing the former president but still drew blood, the fighter immediately stood defiantly with his blood streaming down the side of his head, shook his fist in the air, and, with the American flag in the background, rallied the crowd with shouts of “fight, fight, fight!”
The image from that scene will likely be the defining moment of this campaign, if not an historical image for the ages.
But it’s not just the image that’s defining; it’s the instinct that led to it. I’ve engaged in high risk sports and hobbies for most of my life including backcountry helicopter skiing, mountaineering, skydiving, private pilot, and a host of others. One of the reasons training is so important for these activities is to understand your instinctive response and train yourself to execute the correct one when under pressure.
Absent that training and regular practice, notwithstanding the notion of a “fight or flight” reflex, the most common response for most people in the moment is to freeze or panic. That’s one of the reasons you see protection details like the Secret Service or even lifeguards both restraining and physically moving the victim to a safe location.
While President Biden stumbles up the steps of Air Force One and struggles to finish a coherent sentence during their debate, Mr. Trump, within seconds of being shot, instinctively shook off his wound, stood above his Secret Service protectors and continued to fight.
Feeble vs fighter isn’t a hard choice.
This is not to lionize Mr. Trump. I prefer principled conservatism to rank populism. With his need for self aggrandizement and endless strings of inane superlatives, I find it almost impossible to listen to one of Trump’s speeches.
Maybe President Biden will gracefully withdraw from the race and finish his decades of public service while he still has the cognitive capacity to do so. Or maybe his party will push him out at their convention. Maybe then we’ll have a real competitive election. I know many who hope that’ll happen.
But maybe isn’t reality and hope isn’t a strategy. Until then, on July 13, 2024 a thankfully failed assassin likely assured the election of Donald J. Trump and J.D. Vance as the next President and Vice President of the United States.
It won’t be the end of our democracy; it’ll be a demonstration of it.
Photo credit: AP journalist Evan Vucci.