Where's the Liberal J.D. Vance?

What would that person even look like?

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I love memoir. In addition to writing one, I love to read them. My favorites include Jeanette Walls’ The Glass Castle, Tara Westover’s Educated, and Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died.¹

I also love certain literary themes, which are evident in my choices. These are themes that intersect with my own life: childhood neglect, personal triumph over adversity, and the beauty and dysfunction of rural country life. The wild and untouched beauty of rolling hills and forest, hymns rising from a one-room church, the grit and resourcefulness of common folk, the alcoholism, the unemployment, the simmering violence, the meth labs.

So I was primed to enjoy Hillbilly Elegy, especially when I remained ignorant of its author’s political aspirations. Vance’s unstable mother; his no-nonsense, chain-smoking grandmother; his bewilderment at the rituals of university, his eventual ascent to a more cosmopolitan life—these could have been snapshots from my own life.

Some pundits are saying the republican presidential nominee’s choice of Vance as running mate was a brilliant strategic move. Vance embodies the working class hero, they say, one who pulled himself up by the proverbial bootstraps and claimed his share of the American dream: the law degree, the beautiful wife and kids, the influential career, the wealth. For the party’s target audience, he’s a family man, a Christian, and living proof that personal responsibility can unlock success. For those with liberal leanings, he’s a well-read and articulate writer, Ivy-league insider, husband to a woman of color, and a critic of the much-reviled Appalachian culture to rival Schitt’s Creek. He cited Obama as a source of inspiration in his early years. Even haters must appreciate the sheen of competence and charm.

As a strong opponent of number 45, I do not mean to endorse whatever helps his odds. Nor do I claim that Vance is without flaw. The man is known for his political flip-flopping and his shady business connections, to say nothing of his troubling views on women and gays. Whatever; such is hardly unusual for the Republican party.

But his nomination raises a question: where’s the Left’s J.D. Vance? A guy who, if he hasn’t written beautiful prose, or inspired a popular motion picture starring Glenn Close, has otherwise charmed the world with his contributions. A well-spoken person exhibiting youthful vitality who seems full of creative ideas.

Here’s the bad news: the Democrats cannot have an admirable candidate until we stop, officially and as a party, disparaging all that is admirable. Whether a result of critical theories, postmodernism more generally, hipster irony, the Pride movement’s mission creep, or simply destructive fads, liberals have systematically decried everything good since Obama’s exit from the White House.

To articulate what’s ethical, for example, threatens liberals’ “sex positivity” and individualism, and risks sounding “judgmental.” Humor is problematic. Beauty is a cisheteronormative, patriarchal concern that runs afoul of the trans movement. Exercise has been coded “right wing” and challenges “fat positivity.” Science is inferior to “other ways of knowing,” which is why it’s been hijacked to promote gender propaganda and other pharma interests. Lawfulness means we can’t “defund the police.” Earnestness is uncool. Merit has been repeatedly called into question. Intelligence has been sidelined for fluency in intellectually bankrupt academic traditions. Anyone with sufficiently redeeming qualities to lead is seen as a sellout to the socialists and revolutionaries and nihilists we think we need on our side. That’s why the guy in the photo looks not like a Democratic candidate, but like a Republican candidate holding some theater props.

We don’t have to admire what Republicans admire. But we have to admire something.

Here’s a start: ethics that value “live and let live,” except where the vulnerable are impacted. Competence. Hard work. Compassion for the downtrodden—all the downtrodden, not just the races and sexualities currently trending. Attention to women’s rights, sex-based and otherwise. Tolerance of diverse lifestyles without endorsement of any. Intelligence that runs deep and spans multiple fields of study: what we once called a Renaissance man (or woman). Progress, which is to say: moving toward what’s better, not just toward what’s different.

How can we run a likeable candidate, when we’ve decided we don’t like likeability?

1. Also: Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman, Lit by Mary Karr, and of course, Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle.