A potential Andy Beshear vs. JD Vance race was created by someone in a lab to make me suffer | Opinion
I am begging the powers that be, the spirits that control the levers of this grand universe, to grant me one simple wish: do not make a potential Andy Beshear vs. J.D. Vance race some weird referendum on who gets to be a “real” Kentuckian.
On Monday, Gov. Andy Beshear appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” He praised Democratic President Joe Biden’s record, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidential nomination and fired off some barbs at Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance.
Beshear, for those unaware, is reportedly in the mix to become Harris’ running mate as she seeks the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Also, if you missed it, President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
The quote most have latched onto from Beshear’s interview, and something that’s been promoted by Harris’ team online, is the following:
“J.D. Vance ain’t from here. Now, the nerve that he has to call the people of KY, of Eastern KY, lazy. Listen, these are the hard working coal miners that... created the strongest middle class the world has ever seen. We should be thanking them, Not calling them lazy.”
I agree with Beshear that Vance took a look at the people of Eastern Kentucky, and essentially said the reason things are so bad there is because the people lack work ethic and are lazy.
My dad tore his body at the seams working on the pipeline, but the Yale Law grad knows best.
If you want to read more of the tired “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mythology you’re welcome to read Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.” Alternatively titled, “Hillbilly Elegy or: How I Learned to Exploit the Working Class and Kickstart my Political Career.”
Last week I wrote about how Vance hypes up his Appalachian and Kentucky roots despite him almost certainly being a man that cares little about the same people he claims to speak for and would sell them out at the drop of a hat.
Let’s get a couple things straight: JD Vance was not born in Appalachia or Eastern Kentucky. He was born in Middletown, Ohio but his grandparents came from Jackson, Kentucky in Breathitt County, and he was largely raised by them and spent summers with them in Kentucky. Again, there’s a book about it.
The Appalachian Regional Commission’s (ARC) definition of Appalachia does not include Middletown in Butler County, Ohio. Now is the ARC’s definition (one approved by the United States Congress) a good way to define an area that spans 13 states, 206,000 square miles and includes nearly 27 million people? I don’t think so, but that’s a matter for another day.
It feels like harping on a technicality. Clermont County, Ohio, which is the furthest county west considered part of Appalachia in Ohio, is less than 50 miles from Middletown.
That’s why I take umbrage with this whole discourse surrounding Vance’s “hillbilly bonafides” because once you dig into it, it really just seems silly. Like the guy is already bad on his own merits, which includes the entire grift of writing his book in the first place. We don’t need some Kentucky fried purity test for the man.
My read on it is there exists an argument that Vance has to be stripped of his Eastern Kentucky roots because he is a freak venture capitalist, technocratic conservative who doesn’t believe in really anything other than amassing power for himself. When in reality he can have his messed up proto-natalist beliefs and be a hillbilly all the same! In fact, one has to consider how his professed identity and politics influence one another.
It’s even worth interrogating how Vance’s Kentucky roots came to influence his ideology and why he took the lessons he did from his own upbringing.
In a less online-pilled reading of Beshear’s comments he likely meant that Kentuckians don’t badmouth their neighbors and are there for each other. Of course that’s ignoring the contingent of people who think Louisville is wholly separate from Kentucky and liberal Kentuckians who do very much think their neighbors in the coalfields are political doofuses. Nevertheless!
Some people are running wild with it on the Twitter dot com using the hashtag #HeAintFromHere. There’s even merchandise!
This might upset a few people, but I am landing firmly on the side that Vance is Appalachian. My apologies to the ARC and the Appalachian Studies field.
Now that doesn’t give the man carte blanche to say he speaks for the region, because he doesn’t and one one does (neither do I!). Nor does it give him a pass for being a vice presidential reverse carpetbagger.
For all the love I have for my home region of Eastern Kentucky, people do a disservice by thinking it’s all just this beautiful scenery and home to wonderful hard-working people who have been given a bad draw (true, though!).
There is racism, sexism, hatred, homophobia, transphobia and all sorts of horrid things that live in those mountains, too. It doesn’t discount the good that comes outta those hollers, but there are people like JD Vance who live there whether people want to admit it or not. It doesn’t somehow sully the region for recognizing that.
Should Beshear become Harris’ (or someone else’s) VP nominee then there’s enough of a contrast between the two men to warrant a debate on issues and not solely identity.
Vance has argued against the need for rape and incest exceptions in abortion laws; he’s also made comments in support of a nationwide abortion ban. Beshear has called for an end to Kentucky’s abortion ban, one of the most restrictive in the country.
Vance introduced a bill that would criminalize gender-affirming care for transgender minors. Beshear vetoed a bill that did the same thing in Kentucky (his veto was overridden).
Does all of this make Beshear more of a Kentuckian than Vance? Does that even matter? If anything Beshear shouldn’t invite even the hint of any such comparisons considering his upbringing as the son of former Governor Steve Beshear. I mean Beshear graduated from high school in Lexington, and was also born there. Not to mention his stint working at Stites & Harbison in Louisville, where the elder Beshear was a member of the firm.
Kentuckians cannot write off Vance just because of his horrible political beliefs and say he “ain’t from here” because odds are you know someone like Vance in your life, too, I know I do and they are still very much from here.
Correction: This column previously stated Gov. Andy Beshear was born in Louisville. This is incorrect, Beshear was born in Lexington. The Herald-Leader regrets the error.
This story was originally published July 23, 2024 at 10:43 AM.
