Vance Highlights the Past, Looks to the Future in RNC Stemwinder

Ohio’s Sen. J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, used his acceptance speech Wednesday to share his own personal story of overcoming American dysfunction and hardship caused by decades of failed elite policy—and his plans to build a brighter future for the nation.

“For the last eight years, President Trump has given everything he has to fight for the people of our country. He didn’t need politics, but the country needed him. Prior to running for president, he was one of the most successful businessmen in the world,” said Vance. “He had everything anyone could ever want in a life. And yet, instead of choosing the easy path, he chose to endure abuse, slander, and persecution.”

Why did the country need him? Because of the policies of leaders like President Joe Biden. “When I was in the fourth grade, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden supported NAFTA, a bad trade deal that sent countless good American manufacturing jobs to Mexico. When I was a sophomore in high school, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden gave China a sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good middle class jobs,” Vance said. “And when I was a senior in high school, Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq. And at each step of the way, in small towns like mine in Ohio, or next door in Pennsylvania, or in Michigan and other states across our country, jobs were sent overseas and children were sent to war.”

But this establishment agenda was not to go without challenge. “Somehow, a real estate developer from New York by the name of Donald Trump was right on all of these issues while Joe Biden was wrong,” Vance said. “Donald Trump knew, even then, that we needed leaders who would put America first.”

Amid the chaos brought to the heartland and to Vance’s own family by the hollowing out of American industry, the Ohioan’s extended family stepped into the gap to keep the young man’s life together. 

“Now, I was lucky. Despite the closing factories and the growing addiction in towns like mine, in my life, I had a guardian angel by my side. She was an old woman who could barely walk but was tough as nails,” he said. “Mamaw raised me as her own as my own mother struggled with addiction. Thanks to Mamaw, things worked out for me.”

The speech was not all backward-looking; the vice presidential candidate discussed America’s future under the second Trump administration. “We will build factories again, put people to work making real products for American families, made with the hands of American workers” Vance said. “Together, we will protect the wages of American workers—union and non-union alike—and stop the Chinese Communist Party from building their middle class on the backs of our hard-working citizens.”

Nor is it a change only to the business-as-usual economic policies. “We will make our allies share in the burden of securing world peace: no more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer,” said Vance. “Together, we will send our kids to war only when we must.”

Vance’s actionable message throughout was clear: “Donald Trump represents America’s last best hope to restore what—if lost—may never be found again.”

Vance’s comments align with comments Vance’s close acquaintance, conservative media personality Charlie Kirk, made to The American Conservative. “It’s a rags-to-riches story. He grew up in rural poverty. We usually only hear about urban poverty. Rural poverty is the forgotten element of the underclass of this country. And J.D. Vance went from the underclass to the ruling class to now a class-traitor to go fight for the underclass,” said Kirk, speaking on Vance’s background. 

“We are not focused on abstractions, but instead on real issues that are concerning, the legitimate concerns of the citizenry. We are a country, not a colony” Kirk said.

“J.D. Vance was effective in helping people learn who he is and what he believes in,” Will Ruger, president of the American Institute of Economic Research, told The American Conservative. “If Vance was targeting those in suburbs and exurbs around the country who might be wary of voting for the Republican ticket, he succeeded by sounding mature, non-scary, and with a good story.”

“It is incredibly satisfying, as it was in 2016 with President Trump, to see a Republican VP candidate repudiate the failed foreign policy of the George W Bush era—from the debacle of Iraq, to free riding by our allies, to the foolishness of fighting for abstractions,” Ruger added.

Nor was Ruger the only one impressed by the substance of the speech. “Senator Vance did an incredible job tonight. He’s a real champion for working men and women everywhere,” said Riley Moore, a candidate for West Virginia’s Second Congressional District. “In West Virginia, Joe Biden and the Washington Establishment have killed off energy, manufacturing, and agricultural jobs by the thousands. Senator Vance speaks directly to those communities hurt at the hands of their own government. He laid out in definitive terms the America First doctrine of Donald Trump that will define this united Republican Party moving forward.”

“President Trump will have a strong partner in our fight to save America,” he added.

Moore wasn’t the only enthusiastic listener. “In one speech J.D. demonstrated why he is the perfect choice for President Trump’s running mate” said Saurabh Sharma, the president of American Moment. “He’s a living embodiment of the American dream, he champions the ideological revolution Trump began in 2015, he knows the threats to the American dream, and he loves his fellow countrymen from the bottom of his heart.”

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