Author-turned-senator-conservative JD Vance is now Donald Trump’s running mate.

It’s March 2022 and a Senate candidate JD Vance Standing under hot lights in a Cleveland television studio, he debated with four fellow Republicans whether America should support a no-fly zone over Ukraine, not a month into war with Russia.

“absolutely”, Vance said.

“I’m in the minority here,” the Marine added, “because at the end of the day, we as individuals can accept, look, it’s sad, it’s terrible. What Vladimir Putin did was wrong to invade a sovereign country on its border. But America has our own problems to focus on.

Vance “put America’s priorities above all else,” his campaign said, and he has drawn the attention of Donald Trump.

Within 25 days, the former president supported Vance, helping the teacher.Hillbilly Elegy” and the Yale-educated Silicon Valley venture capitalist defeated a crowded Republican field to eventually win Ohio’s vacant Senate seat.

Republican JD Vance went from “Hillbilly Elegy” memoir to U.S. senator and vice presidential confidante.

A relationship was born that landed Vance, 39, on Trump’s list of vice presidential candidates. Trump boosted Vance’s career, and Vance returned the favor by relentlessly defending Trump’s policies and behavior. His debating skills, ability to articulate Trump’s vision, and fundraising skills are assets to Vance.

Vance’s relationship with Trump didn’t start there. His best-selling book earned Vance a reputation as a “Trump whisperer,” helping to explain the New York businessman’s appeal to middle America, but Vance in 2016 was never a Trumpian. He called Trump “dangerous” and “”unable” to run for office. Vance, his wife, attorney Usha Silukuri Vance, is Indian-American and the mother of his three children, and criticized Trump’s racist rhetoric, calling him “America’s Hitler.”

Following Trump’s victory, Vance returned to his hometown of Ohio to create an anti-opioid charity. He participated in the lecture circuit and was a favorite guest at the Republican Party’s Lincoln Day dinners. His sought-after appearances didn’t sign the book as much as opportunities Sell ​​your ideas to fix the country An approach his opponents dismiss as more convenient preparatory exercises for entering politics in 2021.

Former Republican Ohio Senate President Larry Opoff, a Yale graduate, often shared the stage with Vance at the time. Vance’s story, she said, echoes the suffering and pain she experienced with her mother’s addiction. The opioid epidemic that ravaged Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia when he was a child killed an average of a dozen Ohioans a day in 2016.

“The struggles you speak of are struggles many can relate to.Opoff said.

Vance’s family has moved out of the home in Middletown where he grew up, but he still has one fan. Standing on the porch one recent morning, scattering her six teenage children’s shoes under a hammock, Amanda Bailey, 35, said she thought “Hillbilly Elegy” nailed it and that Trump and Vance would “make a great ensemble.”

“I grew up here my whole life; Moved on, came back. “I think it portrays Middletown very well,” he said. “All of it. The struggle, the economic aspect of it, the cultural aspect of it. All in all. “I think he hit the nail on the head.”

But not everyone sees the book that way, which was later made into a movie directed by Ron Howard and starring Glenn Close and Amy Adams. The book drew criticism from Appalachian scholars, many of whom said it It trafficked in cheap stereotypes and failed to trace the origins of the region’s turbulent history or offer viable political solutions.

Some Middletown city officials still shudder when they hear it. They fear their town is being branded an abandoned backwater despite investment in local industry, infrastructure and recreational opportunities.

The Senate office set up in the city remains locked.

“A lot of Appalachians worry about it because it’s not telling their own story. Halfway through the book, it goes from ‘I’ to ‘we,'” explains Meredith McCarroll, author of the 2019 book “Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy.” Associate Editor. “Appalachia is a 13-state region that is far from monolithic, and not only does he portray it as a monolithic place, he portrays it in a very negative and victim-blaming way.”.

Vance acknowledged some of the criticism. He announced recently The New York Times He left “Hillbilly Elegy” to “not wake up in 10 years and hate everything I’ve become.”

However, he made it known to the Trump family. Dan Jr. loved the book and met Vance when he went to start his political career. The two have since hit it off and remain friends. Ohio’s populist rhetoric seemed Trumpian.

By the time Vance met with Trump in 2021, he had changed his mind, citing Trump’s record as president.

McCarroll said in his book that Vance’s evolution and Trump “shows he’s willing to do what he really needs to do and say and say what he needs to do to find himself in a position of power.”

Once elected, Vance became Trump’s fiercest ally on Capitol Hill. Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said he is now a leading voice for the conservative movement on key issues, including interventionist foreign policy, free-market economics and a shift away from “American culture in general.”

“In terms of his upbringing, he didn’t get over it, but he used it to become a great patriot serving in the U.S. Navy, building a great career in business and now serving in the Senate,” Roberts said.

Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative advocacy group Turning Point USA, said Vance strongly expresses an America-first worldview and, as a partner, could help Trump in states that share Ohio’s values, demographics and economy.

“I generally say that JT Vance’s superpower is his ability to walk into unfavorable media environments and say something very compelling without raising his voice, calmly, coolly, and collected.Kirk said.

Vance’s politics may be hard to pigeonhole.

Democrats call him a terrorist, citing provocative positions Vance accepted but sometimes later modified. Vance signaled his support for a 15-week national abortion ban during his Senate career, for example, softening that stance once Ohio voters overwhelmingly supported an abortion rights amendment in 2023. In the 2020 election, he said he would not immediately certify the results. Had he been vice president and Trump had “very legitimate grievances.” Trump has set conditions that echo the results of the 2024 election.

“A Trump-Vance ticket will plunge the Republican Party into new depths of extremism,” Democratic National Committee spokesman Alex Floyd said in a statement.

In the Senate, Vance sometimes embraces bipartisanship. He and Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, co-sponsored a rail safety bill following a fiery train derailment in Ohio in East Palestine. He has sponsored legislation that would expand and increase funding for Great Lakes restoration, and supported bipartisan legislation to help workers and families.

Chris Tabe, his high school physics teacher, remembers Vance as a friendly and funny 17-year-old. According to the tape, Vance didn’t mention his difficult upbringing.

When Vance told him he was joining the Navy, Tab was surprised and told him he was talented enough to write his own bill. Vance said he loves his country and if he doesn’t want to serve it, “that’s just talk.”

“So I know something about him,” Tab said. “He believes in his country, he believes in doing it, and he’s willing to go straight down the hard road to do it.”

(AP)