J.D. Vance recounted his troubled upbringing in small town America and showered former President Trump with praise Wednesday as he accepted the Republican vice presidential nomination before a rapt crowd of thousands of supporters at the GOP national convention in Milwaukee.
Framing himself as a millennial oracle of the Rust Belt, the first-term Ohio senator said he would work to ease the problems everyday Americans face because he survived all of them and more in a hardscrabble youth chronicled in his best-selling autobiography “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.”
“Things did not go well for some of the kids I grew up with,” Vance said, referring to childhood friends who died of drug overdoses. “That divide between the few with their power and wealth and the rest of us only gets wider.”
“A working class boy born far from the halls of power can stand on this stage as the next vice president of the United States of America,” Vance said to waves of applause.
Vance, 39, repeated the wrenching themes of surviving drugs and a broken family that catapulted him to national fame and made him one of the nation’s fastest-rising political stars.
In the best-selling book, which was also made into a movie directed by Hollywood director Ron Howard, Vance recalls growing up in Middletown, Ohio, a lower-middle class industrial town that has suffered economic decline and the opioid epidemic.
“It was a place that was cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class,” Vance said, deriding Biden’s support for trade agreements that he said hurt U.S. workers. “Joe Biden screwed up and our communities paid the price.”
Vance’s mother, who grew up poor in the depressed Appalachia region of Kentucky, grappled with drug abuse and a failed relationship.
He overcome the obstacles to make an inspirational journey to college, the Marines and even Yale Law School.
Channeling his underdog life story, Vance lauded Trump as a hero for showing defiance to his supporters after surviving the attempted assassination last weekend.
“When Donald Trump rose to his feet on that Pennsylvania field, all of America stood with him,” Vance said. “Even in his most perilous moment, we were on his mind.”
Sporting an oversized bandage on his bloodied ear, Trump enjoyed a hero’s welcome when he walked into the Milwaukee arena to watch Vance speak from his VIP box.
The real-estate mogul and onetime reality TV star broke with bipartisan tradition by attending the convention in person ahead of his own presidential acceptance speech set for Thursday.
The newly minted veep candidate praised Trump for suggesting he will call for national unity and skip his usual scorched earth attacks on Biden after the shooting.
“He’s tough but he cares about people,” Vance added. “Tonight we celebrate him as our once and future president.”
Trump picked Vance Monday from a veepstakes short list that included former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who is of Cuban descent and would have been the first Latino nominee on any major party ticket.
Vance replaces Mike Pence on Trump’s 2024 ticket. The former vice president long ago fell out with his ex-boss over Trump’s campaign to overturn his loss to President Biden in the 2020 vote, an effort that culminated with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Vance was introduced by his wife, Usha, his Yale sweetheart and the daughter of Indian immigrants. The photogenic couple have three young children.
Usha Vance called her husband a “tough Marine” who learned to appreciate her diverse heritage.
“That J.D. and I could meet let alone fall in love and get married is testament to what a great country we live in,” Usha Vance said. “It’s hard to think a more powerful example of the American dream.”
Vance was a harsh critic of Trump when the real estate mogul first burst onto the political scene, calling him an con man and a potential dictator.
But like many onetime GOP critics, Vance switched sides and enthusiastically backed Trump. He cultivated a friendship with Trump’s son, Don Jr., who lobbied hard for his selection as veep.
The GOP convention has so far gone without a hitch for Vance and Trump, with no vocal opposition whatsoever.
The Republican unity fest for Trump and Vance comes as Biden is still struggling mightily with the fallout from his shaky performance in the debate between the two men three weeks ago.