JD Vance Is a Success Story for Forgotten America | Opinion

Severe childhood trauma is not a trivial experience for anyone, even someone who “made it” to Yale Law School and may become the next vice president.

Since J.D. Vance became former president Donald Trump‘s running mate, opponents have questioned his background, because it threatens their own messaging to the American working class. It’s hard to portray your party as caring for vulnerable Americans when you’re running a smear campaign against someone who used to be one.

Growing up amid drug abuse, fatherlessness, and domestic violence in the poverty-stricken Rust Belt, Vance’s ascension to political nobility is a statistical miracle. Few holders of high political office come from working-class backgrounds due to the millions of dollars required to run a campaign. Those who experienced multiple traumas like Vance did growing up have even lower odds of getting there.

Despite his current professional credentials, Vance was shaped by the people and places of his past, including those detailed in his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy.

The book is back on the bestseller lists, but Democrats are working hard to diffuse any sway Vance’s blue-collar background may have on voters.

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz sarcastically told a cheering crowd that Vance is just like the “regular people” he grew up with, who study at Yale and write best-selling books.

It’s understandable Walz is concerned about Vance’s appeal. The Minnesota governor has twisted the truth about his military service. In 2018, he was recorded misleading the public about his combat experience and was accused of abandoning his National Guard unit before deployment to Iraq.

Since Vance also served in the military—spending four years in the Marines—Walz lacks the usual edge he’d have against a civilian opponent. Vance’s military service, plus his law degree and professional achievements, embody the American dream that Walz and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris claim to champion. His relatable American story bridges the gap to a segment of people that most elite politicians ignore.

This bipartisan disconnect between political leaders and the working class is well documented and rarely acknowledged. The alienation is not just about party or policy. There’s a fundamental lack of cultural and emotional connection between voters and their prospective leaders.

If representation matters, and I believe it does, then Vance accomplishes this necessary connection for many forgotten Americans, like the 32 percent affected by addiction, nearly 38 million in poverty, and millions exposed to domestic violence. In his story, their lives are reflected back.

People desperately want to be seen as more than figures on a bar chart. Vance’s success gives them hope that their stories will be heard by someone who truly understands their struggles, not just those with theoretical knowledge of them. Studies indicate that when voters perceive a politician as “one of their own,” they are more likely to engage and participate in the political process.

But why do some Democrats doubt Vance’s “lived experience?” Some critics are still clinging to provable falsehoods.

Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear all but accused Vance of lying (“JD Vance ain’t from here,” Beshear said on MSNBC) about growing up in Kentucky, where he spent summers, holidays, and other parts of the year.

“To know that guy is to hate that guy,” former Texas representative Beto O’Rourke remarked during a fawning MSNBC interview run more like a Harris-Walz ad than a serious discussion.

A traumatic childhood shouldn’t protect Vance from fair criticism, but personal barbs and unsubstantiated claims are just gross gossip.

Vance’s history brings long-unstudied truths to light. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are a measurable framework designed to assess the long-term effects of childhood trauma. The more ACEs a person has lived through, the higher their risk for negative outcomes like addiction, depression, prison time, poverty, or suicide attempts.

Multiple incidents mentioned in Vance’s book fall under the ACEs structure:  emotional abuse, physical neglect, parental addiction, and childhood domestic violence, to name just a few. Consistent childhood traumas like these result in chronic stress that deeply affects how one’s life will play out.

In a brief by the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child, researchers found that “healthy emotional and cognitive development is shaped by responsive, dependable interaction with adults.”

Without these foundations, children are more likely to get trapped in the cycle of familial adversity. If your parents were divorced, you’re more likely to divorce. If your family was poor, you’ll probably be poor. If there’s addiction around you, you risk the same fate.

Vance wasn’t supposed to make it—and he knows that. Most Americans learning about him for the first time do not. Newbies may only be aware of a comment he made three years about “childless cat ladies,” because that’s what the mainstream media latched on to.

“I didn’t write this book because I’ve accomplished something extraordinary. I wrote this book because I’ve achieved something quite ordinary, which doesn’t happen to most kids who grow up like me,” wrote Vance in the introduction to Hillbilly Elegy.

It sounded familiar when I read it, because I’d heard something like it before—from my husband, whose childhood bore many of the same traumas as Vance’s. When we first spoke of our dreams for life together, I mentioned travel and adventure. His aspirations were different: a peaceful home, a stable job and a supportive wife.

“I want boring,” he told me. “‘Ordinary’ is a luxury.”

So many Americans just want this “ordinary” life that those of us privileged to grow up in stable, happy, healthy middle class homes take for granted.

To my husband and the millions like him, Vance represents something much bigger than politics. He symbolizes hope, which is far more powerful than any government program could ever be.

Ericka Andersen is a freelance writer in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is the author of the upcoming title Reason to Return: Why Women Need the Church and the Church Needs Women. You can find her work at ErickaAndersen.com.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.