A ‘hillbilly’ who saw the danger in Ukraine and the promise of Trump

I first became aware of J.D. Vance in 2016, soon after his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” came out. I knew the book had been published because I had no fewer than five friends or former colleagues send it to me. All with basically the same message: “This is the rural version of your childhood.”

Back in 2012, Simon & Schuster had published my memoir, “Rolling Pennies in the Dark.” It chronicled a childhood lived in abject poverty and homelessness brought about by severely dysfunctional alcoholic parents.

After the third copy of Vance’s book — soon to be a New York Times bestseller —arrived on my doorstep, I began to read it, and didn’t stop until I was finished. Not only did it move me, but it opened my eyes in so many needed ways.

Vance’s tale of his grandparents moving from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to an Ohio steel town in the hopes of creating a better life for them and their children; the divorce of his parents; his mother’s struggle with addiction; being raised in large part by his maternal grandparents; and his realization that he had to put aside excuses and rely on himself reverberated with me on multiple levels. While we did have shared pain and heartbreak, his rural life of despair was quite alien to me, and I was grateful to be afforded the window into that world he opened.

After reading the book, I began to pay more attention to Vance’s career. Most especially after he decided to run for political office.

Flash ahead to January 2023, after he took office as a senator from Ohio, and Vance has been anything but a shrinking violet. Of his many admirable traits, the two I have been most impressed with are his steadfastness in his beliefs and his ability to admit when he has made a mistake.

With regard to his beliefs, anyone who has read me from time to time in this space knows I have been against American involvement in the war in Ukraine from the start. My opposition has nothing to do with being “pro Putin” and everything to do with the destruction of that country; the hundreds of thousands killed; the millions who have fled; tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer money unaccounted for; and the multiple trip-wires that could be stepped on and trigger World War Three.

If anything, Vance has been my position on steroids. Against often withering criticism from elites who, from the luxury and safety of their homes and offices, advocate that Ukrainians march into the teeth of the Russian war machine, Vance hasn’t budged an inch — and dramatically dialed up the rhetoric against them and the war. Because of that, just minutes after former President Trump picked Vance as his running mate, multiple war-pushing news outlets in the U.S. and Europe criticized Vance anew for his opposition to America’s involvement in the war.

I have no doubt that Vance wears that criticism as a badge of honor for he knows that, as they criticize him, these same sites ignore or deliberately sweep under the rug the reports of upwards of 1 million killed or wounded in Ukraine. Men, women and children who many believe are being used as disposable pawns by “leaders” in the U.S. and Europe seeking to either prosecute a war against Putin; enrich defense contractors; or both.

While Vance has proven himself to be a principled warrior — including as a Marine in Iraq — he has also shown the wisdom and humility to admit when he was wrong. Never more so than with his criticism of candidate Trump in 2016, and during the first two years of the Trump presidency.

As Vance now readily admits, he bought into some of the harsh — and often false — media- and opposition-created caricatures of Trump before getting to know the man. As a highly educated Yale lawyer who also possesses a PhD in the brutal realities of life, Vance failed to do his homework and relied instead on biased and even hate-tinged CliffsNotes.

Since that time, Vance has met often with Trump in professional and family settings and has morphed into one of his most vehement and articulate defenders. More than that, he has become a true believer in the “Trump Doctrine.”

Back in the day, a powerful political leader told me that a vice presidential pick had “one job and one job only. To win his or her home state.” Maybe, but that won’t be the case here, as it is almost a certainty that Trump would win Vance’s state of Ohio regardless of his running mate.

That said, why did Trump pick the 39-year-old junior senator? To be sure, much of it has to do with the hope that Vance will resonate with younger voters; rust-belt blue-collar voters; independents; and even a percentage of Democrats.

But more than anything, it can be argued that Trump wants his policies to live on beyond his time in the White House. In Vance, he knows he is getting someone with not only the same fight and energy to take on entrenched institutions and elites, but who will carry on the Trump MAGA legacy.

As I write this, “Hillbilly Elegy” has vaulted back to the number-one bestselling slot on Amazon books. Back when the book was published eight years ago, Vance wrote quite humbly of himself in the introduction: “I am not a senator, a governor, or a former cabinet secretary. I haven’t started a billion-dollar company or a world-changing non-profit.”

No. But you are an American. A once dirt-poor “hillbilly” who, through hard work, determination and intelligence proved that realizing the American Dream is still a thing. A “hillbilly” who may be the next vice president of the United States.

What a country. One worth defending.

Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration.