J.D. Vance, the Republican candidate for U.S. Vice President, wove the story of his childhood struggle in a decrepit white working class community in Ohio into America First politics, vowing to regenerate manufacturing jobs in the country and avoid U.S. entanglement in global conflicts. “Our jobs were sent overseas and our children were sent to war,” Mr. Vance, 39, who has emerged as the poster boy of the American working class, told the Republican National Convention on Wednesday.
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His Indian-origin wife Usha introduced the VP candidate — U.S. Senator from Ohio — at the convention as someone who realised the American dream. “He has the same ambition for all Americans,” she said recalling how Mr. Vance learnt to cook Indian vegetarian food and embraced her family of Indian immigrant parents and sister. “That JD and I could meet and fall in love is testament to this great country,” she said.
The couple met as classmates at Yale Law School. Mr. Vance blamed illegal inflow of people into the U.S. for a runaway crisis in housing and inflation even as he made it clear that immigration was integral to being American. “We are a people with a shared history and a shared future. In short, we are a nation... As part of that tradition, we welcome newcomers. When we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms — that is the way we preserve the continuity of this project,” Mr. Vance said, pointing out that his wife’s family “genuinely enriched” the U.S.
Mr. Vance was raised by his grandmother who he said loved God and the F word. His single mother had fallen to addiction even as jobs and factories disappeared from the community to global trade. In his acceptance speech, Mr. Vance linked the decline of his family and the community directly to U.S. President Joe Biden.
Forgotten by rulers
“It was also a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington. When I was in grade four, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden supported NAFTA — a bad trade deal that sent countless good jobs to Mexico. When I was a sophomore in high school that same career politician named Joe Biden gave China a sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good American middle class manufacturing jobs; when I was a senior in high school that same Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq and at each step of the way in small towns like mine and Ohio or next door in Pennsylvania or Michigan in States all across our country, jobs were sent overseas and our children were sent to war,” Mr. Vance said, as the crowd chanted “Joe must go.” The America First nationalism mobilised by Mr. Trump has found a perfect champion in Mr. Vance, who dialled up the anger against trade and war with his personal tales of struggle and survival. Mr. Vance’s 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy was a bestselling book and later a film.
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Mr. Vance, who served as a marine in Iraq, said American soldiers would be sent to war only when they must. Allies will have to pay a fair share for joint defence, and there will be “no more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American tax payer”. The VP candidate has been a strong opponent of U.S. aid to Ukraine, and Mr. Trump has said Taiwan will have to pay the U.S. for its defence. “From Iraq to Afghanistan... America’s ruling class wrote the cheque and communities like mine paid the price,” said Mr. Vance, adding that a new Trump presidency will be focused on the welfare of the American working class.
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