Drawing on His Rust Belt Roots, Vance Campaigns for RepublicansThis headline is written as if the second Trump presidency isn't happening, as if the Times is prepared to turn the clock back to the days when Vance was seen as a thoughtful memoirist with many important things to tell coastal liberals about Heartland America.
Vice President JD Vance traveled to his hometown, Middletown, Ohio, and spoke at a steel factory where his grandfather once worked.
The story isn't much better.
In his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” JD Vance described a community in crisis.There are a lot of ways the author of this story, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, could have approached it. He could have said that Vance arrived as an emissary of an administration that's unpopular: Trump won Ohio three times, scoring a double-digit win in 2024, but his approval in the state is now -16 according to Civiqs and -26 according to YouGov. I think that would have been part of the lede if a Democratic VP turned up in a state that had once supported a Democratic president but had largely turned against that president. The word "embattled" would undoubtedly turn up somewhere, as would the fact that the party's gubernatorial and senatorial candidates are struggling in the polls. (A few paragraphs down, we're told, neutrally, that Republican Jon Husted "is trying to hold onto his seat in a race against Sherrod Brown, a former senator from the state.")
The steel mill where his grandfather worked for nearly 40 years had been neglected and had endured layoffs in the 1980s, turning his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, into “little more than a relic of American industrial glory.”
“There is a lack of agency here,” Mr. Vance wrote. “A feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself.”
On Friday, Mr. Vance returned to his roots with promises of a better future, and plenty of blame to go around.
We're told two things instead: Vance is still a figure whose backstory is fascinating, and he has many positive things to say about current Republican policies and many negative things to say about Democratic policies, all of which we should take very seriously.
Surrounded by union workers in the factory where his “Papaw” once welded steel, Mr. Vance said politicians of both parties had for decades embraced pro-immigrant and free trade policies that redirected jobs away from places like Middletown. He said the Democratic Party no longer resembled the one his grandfather once supported.This is not reported as a credulaity-straining prediction, one that's completely at odds with Ohioans' lived experience. We're not even told that Trump/Vance policies have failed to revitalize Rust Belt economies so far. It's just our normal political discourse, our normal pre-Trump political discourse -- GOP economic policies good, Democratic economic policies bad, Democrats elitist, Republicans (or at least Trump Republicans) pro-Volk -- and it's presented as if there's no evidence that the policies are failing.
And with an eye on the November midterm elections and his political future, Mr. Vance drew on his Rust Belt roots to persuade voters that President Trump’s tariff and immigration policies would protect factory jobs and revitalize struggling towns.
“The future of our homes and communities is going to be built right here in Middletown,” Mr. Vance said.
“Who do these Democrats put first? Everyone else,” said Mr. Vance....In answer to that second question, I wish someone had yelled out "Himself."
“You know who the Trump administration puts first?” Mr. Vance asked. “Americans.”
Kanno-Youngs acknowledges a few wispy gray clouds.
Mr. Trump also campaigned on resurrecting the U.S. manufacturing industry, although his on-again, off-again tariff policies have contributed to rising consumer prices.They also haven't increased employment in the U.S. manufacturing sector, which has shed 75,000 jobs in Trump's second term, a fact that goes unmentioned here.
And while Mr. Vance blamed immigration for threatening American jobs in the heartland, Ohio’s Republican governor has called the Trump administration’s plans to deport Haitians in the state a “mistake,” arguing that the move would hurt the local economy.No explanation is given for why Governor Mike DeWine said this. In fact, immigrants such as the Haitians who revitalized the economy in Springfield, Ohio, before Trump and Vance attacked them as pet-eating parasites have provided labor and served as additional consumers buying U.S. goods and services. But every Republican voter "knows" that immigrants do nothing but take, and Vance's rhetoric reinforcing that falsehood is essentially allowed to stand.
Ultimately, we're told:
Whether Mr. Vance is correct about the Trump administration’s investment improving the quality of life in Middletown will not just be key for local residents and Republican prospects in November, but also his own political future. Widely considered a potential heir of the MAGA movement, Mr. Vance and his origin story will only be scrutinized more if he seeks higher office.Vance's origin story is not relevant to the question of whether Trump's policies are working! But Kanno-Youngs thinks Vance's autobiography is such a solid news peg that he mentions it even here.
As for that improvement in Ohio's quality of life, Vance is quoted telling his audience that it's already happening:
“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy or it’s all going to happen overnight,” the vice president said. “But in just 18 months, we have seen an explosion of rebuilding in the American heartland.”We're given this quote, which is utter nonsense, and the story ends. This wild assertion is never fact-checked.
Of course it isn't. Republicans care about the Rust Belt and are generally excellent stewards of the economy has been an unchallenged notion in our political culture since long before Trump entered politics.
Vance is being portrayed here as a man with a fascinating life history, and as an heir to other Republicans who were depicted by the media as normal and rooted in the soil -- Ronald Reagan, even the Bushes. Vance should be struggling to shake off Trump's stink, but here, he's portrayed as if he's fresh as a daisy.
