OPINION: WTF is going on with JD Vance?

It was the donut order heard ‘round the world: On Aug. 22, JD Vance arrived at a donut shop in Valdosta, Georgia. He placed his order in the strangest manner imaginable — at one point ordering “whatever makes sense.”

His behavior immediately became the topic of internet ridicule. But it got me curious. Who is Vance, and why is he so weird?

So, I decided to go straight to the source. In 2016, Vance published his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.” I thought if anything was going to help me make sense of this man, it’d be his book. I steeled my nerves and read it.

“Hillbilly Elegy” details Vance’s upbringing, from his childhood to graduation from Yale Law School. He lived mostly in Ohio, but spent a lot of time in rural Kentucky with his grandmother, “Mamaw.” His whole family struggled with finances and cycles of abuse. His mother struggled with addiction and was a serial divorcee.

I went into “Hillbilly Elegy” expecting to hate it from start to finish. And, in many ways, I did. But bizarrely, as a storyteller, Vance had his moments of geniality. In moments when I forgot who he’d become, I liked him.

And then I remembered his declaration that women without children shouldn’t vote, and I shuddered in horror. What happened?

There’s a strange dissonance reading about sweet little JD and watching the work of vice-presidential candidate Vance. As mentioned, Vance spends a lot of time relaying stories about his strong, Appalachian grandmother.

He tells the story of her marriage and pregnancy at just 14 years old. The baby died.

“Today I often wonder: Without the baby … would she have run off with Jim Vance to foreign territory? Mamaw’s entire life — and the trajectory of our family — may have changed for a baby who lived only six days,” Vance wrote.

According to his account, Mamaw wanted to be a family lawyer that protected children, but because of the unexpected and unhealthy baby, she was unable to.

With better access to healthcare and support, Vance’s beloved Mamaw could’ve had the life she wanted. But now, Vance is pushing other women down the same dark path, when it doesn’t have to happen that way.

It made me think about a term I’ve heard thrown around a lot: “reactionary conservative.” Reading “Hillbilly Elegy,” I thought about it almost constantly. I could almost draw direct lines between the stories from his childhood and his policies now.

At times in “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance is right about the struggles that lower-class Americans face. However, the conclusions he comes to about the origins of and solutions to problems are bizarre, and at times, cruel.

Many of Vance’s policies fixate on marriage, family and parenthood. His absent, sometimes-neglectful mother led to a fixation on the idea of motherhood. He is strongly anti-abortion, anti-divorce and pro-natalist.

Vance has an obsession and hatred for women in his policy, but in his book, he seemed to revere them — his grandmother and sister particularly. However, much of this admiration was admiration of their struggles. Now, he seems to want to force all women to suffer the way the women in his life suffered, rather than protect women from suffering.

Conservatives love to brand progressives as overly sensitive; they posture as though their opponents are political crybabies, governing from knee-jerk emotional reactions. I don’t think that’s true, but even if it was…

Pot, kettle, Vance.

I don’t want it to seem as though I’m claiming Vance is a traumatized little boy and attempting to absolve him of his cruel and regressive policies.

No. Vance is traumatized, but more than that, he’s a sellout.

His book opens with the line: “I am not a senator, a governor, or a former cabinet secretary.” Oh, how that would change. That wouldn’t be the only time a line in Vance’s book turned out to be a lie. Vance talked about his disgust for rapists, liars, cheats and rich men. Now, he works for someone who is all of the above.

All I can say is apparently you can take the holla — a nickname for the wilds of Appalachia — out of the boy, if you dangle enough money and power in front of his face. Vance has forgotten all of the principles he seemed to hold so dear in “Hillbilly Elegy.”

Mamaw would be ashamed. 

Addison Fulton is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at [email protected] or on X @dailylobo