It’s Official, Trump Endorses J.D. Vance. The Midterms Just Shifted Into Surreal On Steroids

Trump not only loves a convert, he loves having people in his debt. As to Vance, he’s almost a clone of Trump. They are both salesmen, first and foremost, they are their brand, first, last and always. And their brand is the same, faux populism. Intelligencer:

Scratch lightly at the surface of Hillbilly Elegy, and right-wing themes become apparent. Vance’s characterizations of the poor only repackaged myths about welfare queens and the terminal laziness of the disadvantaged. But since Vance branded himself as a graduate of the working-class, Appalachian experience, liberals graded his commentary on a sliding scale. His conservatism could be forgiven; his addict mother had abused him into it. Because of his background, he understood populism, and could explain it to the bubble-dwellers who propelled him to grand heights. He was a rarity, a true self-made man. Vance affirmed America’s innate, meritocratic greatness, which made him a safe and trustworthy figure to many.

Vance is not much of a writer. Hillbilly Elegy is little more than a collection of resentments in book form. Its observations are trite, its conclusions derivative. The same facts form the basis of Vance’s appeal. Vance did not challenge liberals or their perceptions of poor whites. The people who bought his memoir and recommended it to others did not need to be convinced that poor whites were trash, with a culture in decay. They already suspected this to be true. For decades, conservatives and neoliberals alike had preached the gospel of personal responsibility as the solution to poverty. Now here was Vance, acting as a kind of native informer, to repackage old ideas, to affirm old prejudices. Vance’s real skill is that of a marketer. He is a salesman, and the product he sells is himself.

He shares this trait with Trump. The former president also made himself out to be a self-made success with a finger on the populist pulse. Though this is a fabrication — Trump, recall, inherited millions from his parents – that is the image he projected to the world, with an assist from television’s dreaded liberal elites. Trump the man and Trump the brand are the same. There is no level to which he will not sink in the name of personal profit. He understands that his political future depends on his ability to keep up an act that appeals to his followers. So, too, does Vance. In fact Vance has always known this. He played the respectable conservative for as long as it benefited him to do so, and when the winds shifted, so did he.

Vance’s pivot is not so dramatic. It is no great reversal. He rose to fame on a tale of white culture in crisis, and moved further rightward, along with the rest of the GOP, after Trump gave them permission to do so. Trump has now rewarded him for his dedication. If that shocks liberals, they can ask themselves what they once found so compelling about Vance and Hillbilly Elegy. J.D. Vance is who he’s always been. The signs were present from the start.

I don’t know if you saw the movie, Hillbilly Elegy, but frankly it stank. It got terrible reviews and is arguably the worst film that Ron Howard ever made. Maybe the plan was to reveal some great social insight(s), as exemplified by Vance’s life, but what came across on film at the end of the day was a lot of self-destruction, dysfunction and self pity. Yes, the young J.D. Vance struggling to hold it together in law school while his junkie mother goes out and gets loaded once again was a compelling image, but the film lacked the ability to evoke any real compassion or sympathy for the characters.

The cast was fine, I certainly don’t fault the actors. And I will never fault a screenwriter because if in fact a script is defective, it behooves the producers and directors to get the flaws fixed before the piece is shot. So I guess the blame ends up on Ron Howard’s doorstep, which is pretty much consensus where it belongs.

Maybe the movie was made too soon. Maybe the real story is the character of J.D. Vance meeting up with Donald Trump and the two of them working together to take American culture even further downward than Trump was able to do on his own. Vance was spot on when he identified Trump as “another opioid.” Too bad he decided to decline reality and decency as alternatives and to swallow Trump’s red pill instead. But he did. And here we are.

With Oz and Vance in these races, things are going to get loco and I mean pronto. Watch.