Donald Trump announced Ohio’s junior U.S. Senator JD Vance as his running mate for the 2024 election on Monday, and I have some concerns.
Like JD Vance, I am 39 years ancient. I grew up in an ancient industrial town in Ohio that is struggling to survive. I have lost countless people in my community to the scourge of drug addiction, and I have spent a lot of time in Appalachia – albeit for nearly a decade as a reporter in the Appalachian foothills of Ohio, covering poverty, education, crime, courts, transportation, health care, the economy and jobs.
Where to begin? Maybe in 2016, when Vance first came into the national spotlight with his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. I found the memoir portion of the book captivating, gloomy, and heartbreaking, compared to all the other stories of childhood trauma I’ve experienced, heard, and reported on in families struggling with poverty.
Then there was the other part of his book, the diagnosis and prescription part, that I couldn’t understand or relate to: a certain seething contempt and disdain for the people of Appalachia and the Rust Belt of Ohio, as if their problems were the result of deep personal character flaws and lack of self-reliance rather than the predictable consequences of growing up indigent in a region plagued by exploitation, caught in cycles of intergenerational poverty and mired in the kind of despair that accompanies such things.
Most reporters focus on specific issues that interest them personally, and my issue has always been the plight of the indigent and all the ills that come with it. “Poverty” is not an issue in itself, but an issue tied to the greatest resource, funding, and thus achievement gaps in education. It is tied to the lack of reliable transportation to work or interviews. It is tied to the lack of access to basic health care and preventive care, and even the internet. It is tied to childhood trauma and hunger, and to the long-term lack of regular meals and nutritious food. It is tied to rising costs and regressive taxes: an ever-larger percentage of income goes to rent, utilities, groceries, and hygiene items.
I’ve known grandmothers who care for their grandchildren and have had to make do with a few boxes of macaroni and cheese and warm dogs, a loaf of bread, and peanut butter and jelly for a week. I’ve known mothers who work two jobs and have a high electric bill to pay, but don’t have enough money left over for shampoo and deodorant. Imagine the bullying at school that results, and then consider how that bullying is just another hardship – like never having a parent or parents around because they work two jobs, and having to care for younger siblings from age nine because you can’t afford child care.
It’s all overwhelming, year after year, decade after decade, a life of setbacks, traumas, relapses, car breakdowns, broken bones or illnesses that lead to huge medical bills, layoffs that push the family into crisis and bankruptcy – just imagine that and you begin to understand how poverty perpetuates itself, destroying everyone, with the huge majority having no chance to break the cycle. And of course, the vulnerability to addiction is high. Anything to escape the nightmare for a few hours. And that brings out all its own problems, cycles and traumas from then on. I learned all about it in the courtrooms and in addiction treatment centers.
And here’s my problem. While I’ve studied poverty in Appalachia, these are the cycles and problems of poverty in general, wherever you find it, in the cities or in the hills of the country, regardless of race, creed or religion, all over the country. This is not a cultural problem of Appalachia or the so-called “rust belt” – which is an offensive term, by the way, as is “hillbilly.” This is what poverty looks like all over America. All of that and more.
Appalachia itself is charming and classy. The “Hey Buddy” language and friendliness of so many people is downright charismatic. Many people are a hell of a lot of fun to ride an ATV with or chat with over a beer at the local pub. There is a genuine warmth and good humor. There is a genuine friendliness and there is no pretension. Then when you learn the history of the coal mines and the crushers and the corporate housing and the union busting and the Battle of Blair Mountain and the Matewon Massacre, you begin to understand what the region has been through and where it is today.
The rural Ohio I know is full of powerful, caring, resilient and community-minded people. I can say the same about the cities. I’m sometimes asked where I look for hope, and I always say it’s not the politicians, but the thousands of good-hearted people who work so tough every day to lend a hand their communities in cities, towns and villages across Ohio. In my work as a reporter, I’ve been fortunate to get to know quite a few of them.
After writing about their stories for years now, some things seem pretty obvious to me about what can be done to lend a hand these communities, and tax breaks for billionaires just aren’t one of them. But Donald Trump promises.
Nor should they be burdened with regressive financial burden of 10% tariffs, which corresponds to a tax of $1,700 for Americans and will Increase inflation The Poverty hits the indigent hardest. The is another Trump promise. Replacement of income tax by customs duties, as Trump also suggestedwould ruin millions of indigent families, who would not only have to pay much higher sales taxes and other levies to finance the state, but would also see vast parts of the support systems pulled out from under them. Rising costs would also prevent interest rates from being reduced. A devaluation of the dollar, as they propose, would also drive up inflation rates.Trump has also suggested Reduction of the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%after this share was already reduced from 35% to 21% in 2017.
Cutting funding for the US Department of Education as Trump suggested would Cut $18 billion per year for Title I schools in high-poverty areas, cut $15 billion per year for special education, and cut $28 billion per year for Pell GrantsThis would have devastating effects on these communities.
What these communities need is lots of funding and support to close the educational achievement gap created by poverty. This includes best practices: early childhood education, preschool programs with a nutritious breakfast for those in need, universal lunch during school hours, and afterschool programs with dinner and offerings from sports to music and art to media production and outdoor activities. We need comprehensive, diverse education, trauma-informed training for all teachers and public-facing staff, and connected, comprehensive support systems for families.
We should not cut our education budgets, Commercialization and privatization of education, as billionaires plan under Trumpand leaving entire communities out in the icy to perpetuate the vicious cycle. We should recognize that, to paraphrase Frederick Douglass, it is easier to give a child education, hope, and opportunity than to heal a broken person.
We should make our public schools palaces of learning, hope, and opportunity that keep children away from potentially harmful or neglectful home environments for as long as possible; that provide them with three square, nutritious meals a day when some need them; that give them good adult role models and mentors; that give them opportunities to explore a range of interests, to find individual passions to pursue and pave a path toward fulfilling, stable careers and lives in adulthood.
On Wednesday night, JD Vance addressed the “worker” in his vice presidential acceptance speech. When I look at Trump’s actual agenda, I just don’t know what he’s talking about. That’s my concern. Nothing in Trump’s agenda specifically promises to lend a hand the families that JD and I know so well. Quite the opposite. And when it comes to the heartbreaking threat of drug addiction, JD has already given priority to cutting funding for Ukraine over the fight against fentanyl.
I have many other concerns, such as his extreme moral and intellectual flexibility that raises solemn questions about his ethics and sincerity; and his advocacy of leaving Ukraine to the devastation of Putin; and his playing foot-fiddling with a neo-monarchist named Curtis Yarvin; and his remarks that the radical right Seizing institutions and ignoring the courts; and his accession to the list of a convicted felon — also found guilty of Sexual harassment And Economic fraud – WHO conspired to overturn the results of a free and fair election and deprive millions of Americans of their voteand instigated a violent mob attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to disrupt the constitutional business and peaceful transfer of power.
I am worried that JD has said he was part of a conspiracy to create a constitutional crisis by exceeding his powers as vice president and overturning the election results..
In brief, I have solemn doubts about JD Vance’s judgment and trustworthiness, and I do not understand his apparent desire to overthrow the post-war Pax Americana in favor of a kind of nationalist isolationism in which autocrats run amok, with a reactionary domestic agenda that dismantles programs for people in poverty and will only exacerbate and perpetuate their hardship and exploitation, while Trump and the five dozen billionaires who support him become even richer.
