Hillbilly Eulogy

Today on TAP: Will Trump’s endorsement of J.D. Vance help Ohio’s hedge-fund hillbilly—or sink him?

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Author and financier J.D. Vance is in a primary battle for the Republican Senate nomination. It’s not clear whether Trump’s seal of approval is a benediction or the kiss of death.

Trump’s endorsements, one after another, have been accident-prone. Trump has an unfortunate habit of moving impulsively, failing to exercise due diligence, blowing off old allies, and endorsing losers. 

Trump hoped that his endorsements would clear the field. More often, they either blow up, or clear the field of stronger candidates. In Alabama, Trump dumped his endorsed Senate candidate, Mo Brooks. In Georgia, Trump candidate Herschel Walker, with a faked résumé, is barely ahead of Raphael Warnock in the polls. In the race for governor, Trump nemesis Brian Kemp, the incumbent, is well ahead of Trump’s branded candidate, David Perdue.

More from Robert Kuttner

Trump is attracted to TV fakes like himself. Consider the fellow showman-shaman with the perfectly Dickensian name Dr. Oz (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain). Trump endorsed Oz in the Pennsylvania primary over an establishment candidate, David McCormick, a former hedge fund CEO, who is a far stronger candidate.

The winning formula for papering over schisms between the MAGA base and the GOP establishment was displayed last year in Virginia, where Wall Street Republican Glenn Youngkin postured moderate but won over the Trump base with winks and nods. Trump was unable to screw that up because he didn’t have a viable surrogate.

But elsewhere, Trump’s hapless efforts to play kingmaker could be the Democrats’ secret weapon. In Ohio, Vance, like Trump, keeps reinventing himself and his positions. His best-selling book supposedly celebrated the grit of hillbillies, but the subtext was that people dealt a bad hand have only themselves to blame for their dysfunctional behavior. 

Vance also downplayed the fact that the grandparents who rescued him from a ruined life were New Deal Democrats. In this review of Hillbilly Elegy and several other books, I referred to Vance as “Charles Murray with a shit-eating grin.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s endorsement further splits the Republican electorate. At this writing, Vance is running fourth among Republicans in the polls.

If Vance were to be nominated, advantage Democrats. In a Senate race between a fake populist who became a hedge fund exec and a real populist—most likely Tim Ryan—who correctly blames structural factors rather than bad personal behavior for disappearing jobs, the real populist has the advantage.

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