"... which serves to neatly underwrite the broader political fable of great-leader salvation.... As 'our country was flooded with cheap Chinese goods, cheap foreign labor, and in years to come with cheap Chines fentanyl,' Vance announced with relief, 'I had a guardian angel'—his Ohio grandmother, immortalized as 'Meemaw' in
Hillbilly Elegy. The rapt convention crowd took up the chant of 'MEEMAW' in jubilant recognition, and thrilled to Vance’s later parable of Meemaw’s cache of handguns. After she had died in 2005, he related in folksy relish, 'we went through her things [and] we found 19 loaded handguns,' strewn throughout various corners of her house.
The convention crowd hooted and applauded in recognition, and then Vance delivered another redemptive moral: As Meemaw contended with the challenges of aging and illness, she made sure that 'she was within arm’s length of whatever she needed to protect her family.' Here the crowd plunged into a reflexive chant of 'USA!'.... What does the domestic arsenal of an aging relative have to do with the glories of our Republic?... A bellicose citizenry must rally to save and bolster its imperiled birthright by any means necessary—under a great leader’s tutelage, of course."
Hey, at least cover your tracks if you're writing about a book you haven't read. It's not "Meemaw." Its Mamaw.
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46 comments:
Meemaw is a character from a libtard TV show, hence the confusion.
19? Mamaw got lucky. More than a few rats would rob her for them, and I've lived too long outside urban areas to be too secure about the pure intentions of heritage Americans.
The left is going berserk about that while claiming that Nick Fuentes considers him impure, but that's a sign that the wild extremes are losing it.
The left is already berzerk i thought they cared about oursourcing the iraq war not really a thing anymore
Don't believe the hype?
Is this writer claiming that Vance didn't grow up poor and underprivileged?
"forget it, he's rolling..."
Vance has working class roots. But there has been nothing working class about Vance's life since he went to college.
His military service was "War Correspondent." He went to Yale. It reeks of the same performative "join the military for my resume" bullshit Desantis pulled as a JAG. His time at Yale was problematic at best.
I just scoped through Usha Vance's past. She was been working for a very woke law firm that was doing the worst sort of woke civil litigation. There were a few articles that did the average "Republican Woman Stupid" thing.
She is not stupid. She is not on the sidelines. She has not been on the side of working class people or average Americans. Exactly the opposite.
I do not know what he said to convince Trump he was the right person. I have no faith he would carry on the MAGA agenda if Trump gets killed. We needed someone who would be a deterrent. Someone who would go full Pinochet if they killed Trump. I am not seeing that in Vance.
I hope to be proven wrong. But I see them preferring Vance to Trump 100% and I see no push back within the democrat party against their insane wing of loud murderous ghouls.
Apparently this triggered my lib/Dem cousin to post on Facebook that the Republicans love gun violence. So much so that one of "their" own tried to assassinate Pres. Trump. Thankfully we live in different states and I rarely ever see him in person.
Omg theres your sign
Hey. Achilles, FU.
LOL!
I want to find where this author lives and continuously put Trump/Vance signs in his yard throughout the campaign.
Free enterprise is NOT something invented by cynics to enable them to exploit the poor. Seriously, if YOU wanted to line your pockets with gold would you exploit the poor? The poor?
Get out of here! No, you'd go where the money is. In a developed economy that's the middle class. To most of you here, that's YOU and ME! We are the wealth producers. Isn't that what Trump and J.D.V. are preaching?
Achilles said...
Vance has working class roots. But there has been nothing working class about Vance's life since he went to college.
His military service was "War Correspondent." He went to Yale. It reeks of the same performative "join the military for my resume" bullshit Desantis pulled as a JAG. His time at Yale was problematic at best.
7/18/24, 5:14 PM
All of it true. But you're missing the point. No one who has that devotion and martial backing would ever be considered for the VP slot. It would be a huge waste of time for Trump, who aside from being a generally peaceful man wants America to remain intact. He gains much more playing nice with the "good" oligarchs than from trying to crush all of them and declare- national socialism? It's just not his style.
I wouldn't treat Vance as someone I would hand a rifle before David French, but any damage he could do as VP is on the President. By the same token, keeping all the billionaires out was never realistic.
Until we don't need them, of course.
She is not stupid. She is not on the sidelines. She is not on the ticket.
A rising pie lifts all boats.
Jamie said...
Is this writer claiming that Vance didn't grow up poor and underprivileged?
She and a lot of other people want to. They'd love to have him on their side so they could win the working classes back, but they don't and they're pissed off about it.
America's workers will stick with the authentic proletarian opinion leaders, like Katrina van den Heuvel.
The Nation… whew, boi!
"Apparently this triggered my lib/Dem cousin to post on Facebook that the Republicans love gun violence. So much so that one of "their" own tried to assassinate Pres. Trump."
If you loved gun violence so much, wouldn't you choose to exercise it in a way that wouldn't almost assuredly result in your death? I mean- so you can experience as much of that violence as possible?
Or is that overthinking things?
Jules steins (mca founder) grand daughter
Vance sounds like Dick Gephardt in 1988.
Achilles--I felt the same way about Vance--I thought Hillbilly Elegy sort of traded on the redneck roots to buy in to the "elite" Beltway Republican club.
His recent Q and A with an NYT (I think?) reporter (which Althouse posted about), in which he admitted he was wrong about Trump, questioned the Ukraine (and Iraq) war mythos, and the J6 narrative, seemed to announce a genuine commitment to what may be loosely termed "MAGA principles."
He's a politician, so maybe it was just a job application. Maybe we, and Trump, got snookered again. But who else would fill that role? Maybe Sarah Sanders.
The fact that John Hinderaker is disappointed tells me only good things.
Achilles give it a rest and get the chronology right. Son of a drug addicted mostly single mother with a lot of men trundling through his life. Mostly raised by his grandmother. Did not do well in high school, and joined the Marines right after he graduated. Yeah his MOS was "Combat Correspondent" but the Marines assigned that to him. He was no 'fortunate son" like Al Gore. Did six months in Iraq, then served out the rest of a four year hitch.
He was smart enough and worked hard enough to get through Ohio State University and earn a bachelor's degree in two years.
So yeah--he didn't get to Yale on a silver platter. And when he got there one of his Yale classmates --sort of in the Jean Fraud Kerry and Al Gore tradition--asked him "what are you doing here?" Class wise he didn't belong.
Achilles,
On the bright side, vp Vance will be just another grey Nothing as vp. Powerless to do anything meaningful. Unless he decides to be an active senate president (I hope but doubt)
In 4 years he will probably be the candidate for prez and, like every other vp but 2,will lose.
We will never hear his name again after Nov 28
That's why I am happy it was him, not Vivek.
Vance will be a fine vp. Hopefully we'll never need him.
John Henry
It's a bad pick. But, then again, VP's are supposed to be bad picks. Another Dan Quayle. Underwhelming, not just to the establishment, anyone on the Coast (But really, who cares about Coastal Elites? You need their votes, some of them, to win an election), College Educated, Women, Boomers, SJWs---some of whom are swing voters.
I read Hillbilly Elegy about 8 years ago and I was shocked at the amount of resentment and self-loathing Vance put forth. What I thought was supposed to a story of hope and gratitude about how someone who grew up hard-scrabble ---but then made a success of himself--- turned out to be page after page of diatribe and tirade raging against the hard-boiled life he was plunged into. A little too much whining and not enough appreciation and acknowledgement that through hardship, came great success.
Vance can't win Presidency in '28, but neither can Kamala, Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin, Walter Mondale, or any other historically bad picks for VP. Although Palin might have gone further if they hadn't tried to undermine her.
doctrev said...
All of it true. But you're missing the point. No one who has that devotion and martial backing would ever be considered for the VP slot. It would be a huge waste of time for Trump, who aside from being a generally peaceful man wants America to remain intact. He gains much more playing nice with the "good" oligarchs than from trying to crush all of them and declare- national socialism? It's just not his style.
Given what has happened on Saturday my views on the VP slot changed completely.
Trump will win if he is alive on November 8th.
The only purpose the VP has at this point is to be someone the Deep State is so scared of that they prefer Trump and if they kill Trump then there is instantly a leader who will step in and do what needs to be done.
People think this is over. I do not think this is over. They have done nothing but escalate ever since Trump became president.
The chances you all get to see Hell are way too high right now. About half of the democrat party is saying the most insane deranged shit right now.
Millions of people will tell you if asked they think Trump staged the attack and that Trump purposely killed his own supporter to gain support. Millions of them.
To me the two biggest dings on Vance are 1) he's a lawyer, and 2) he's married to a lawyer.
(I love this place despite all the lawtalk, not because of it.)
Are folks at The Nation unaware that "Mamaw" is a very common form of address for one's grandmother in the broader American South? I say "broader American South" because I have heard the term in rural Maryland too, Maryland being still south of the Mason-Dixon line. It may be in use in the Midwest and West, too, for all I know, but I have never heard it in my travels.
If I had a dime for every time I heard "Mamaw" or "Papaw" growing up in northern Alabama, I'd be a wealthy man.
I am still a bit skeptical about Vance but if a stuffed shirt like Hinderaker is opposed, he must be OK.
I posted something that got eaten so I am hesitant to completely repost it.
My main problem here with Vance and most especially with his wife is he claims this working class background but things need to be lined out:
He joined the marines. He went to college. Went to Yale.
Then he went into Venture Capital. Then Hillbilly Elegy. Then Senate.
His wife has been working civil litigation for one of the most progressive law firms in the country. Pure corporate activist BS. She resigned right after Vance was announced.
He says all of the right stuff. A appreciate the upward mobility.
But we have 2 Two Yale lawyers in the VP slot and one of them has been doing the trenches legal work to build the DEI regime in this country.
I will just leave it there. Sometimes I get tired of peeing in everyone's wheaties. I hope none of my concerns turn out to have merit.
OK, OK. He's an Ivy League lawyer married to an Ivy League lawyer.
Some of my best friends are (not Ivy League) lawyers.
Vance's life is an American story.
No wonder the Left hates him so much.
I would think that the bien pensants greatly prefer phony populism to real populism.
Populism = “You are not taking my son to fight in your war.”
Unacceptable!
Phony populism? Well…
What does the domestic arsenal of an aging relative have to do with the glories of our Republic
Because it's only a great nation like the USA where grandmas can own 19 handguns, and keep them, loaded, all around the house to make sure they don't have to die / be raped / be tortured waiting for the police to arrive.
And it's only great people like Americans where even the grandmas are pugnacious enough to be ready to shoot home invaders
Narr: (I love this place despite all the lawtalk, not because of it.)
Me too. And I'm a lawyer!
Achilles said...
The only purpose the VP has at this point is to be someone the Deep State is so scared of that they prefer Trump and if they kill Trump then there is instantly a leader who will step in and do what needs to be done.
7/18/24, 6:17 PM
Everything you have been saying is a hundred percent accurate, except this. Are you asking for someone with the will and ability to wage a wholesale campaign against the government AFTER they murder the prospective President? Because if you want a second Trump after they remove the first, that is not going to happen. You were generationally fortunate to get one such leader. I don't have to guess to know that a PAO like JD Vance is not going to be that man. If you want someone better than Trump, who has widespread and deep loyalty from the military, you are wishing for a unicorn. Colonel Hackworth wasn't that man: I think Patton's unpredictability in this regard "contributed" to his untimely death. You have some skill and knowledge, but you're not that guy, and I strongly doubt you know anyone who is.
He spent 4 years active as an enlisted marine. Came out as a corporal (e-4)
6 months in iraq don't know about the other 3 yesrs
A pretty decent set of medals. Mostly "I was there" but still more than many have at 4 years.
So a solid military hitch.
Then used gi bill for school and law school
His service is something to be proud of, of course. Hardly a big deal on a lawyers resume.
In some of the more woke firms, military service especially in the marines might even be a liability.
I don't know that anyone here has, but to anyone who wants to mock his service, go fuck yourselves.
Unless they've served themselves. Then they can have a dick measuring contest if they like.
John Henry
Vance isn't perfect.
Okay.
If you are waiting for perfection you are waiting for Godot.
Why would Donald Trump pick J.D. Vance? I think it is because Vance's life provides a great summary to Trump's message. Remembering the forgotten Americans.
I only read the nation when I am feeling nostalgic about Alger Hiss.
I didn't realize the Nation was even still a going concern. IIRC when I first encountered the Nation in my school library it was unique bc it was printed on inexpensive stock utility paper as with comic books and newspapers presumably bc of its lower cost than slick glossy paper unlike with most other magazines. It had way fewer advertisements as well. I figured the Nation had burned through Ms. vanden Heuvel's trust fund about the time David Corn left to go write for Mother Jones. Whatever else there is to say about the Nation they are wholly independent editorially speaking and which is a rare thing among the corporate Left media. As with I.F. Stone's Weekly and Ramparts we ignore it when it's around but we'll kind of miss it after it eventually folds.
doctrev said...
Achilles said...
The only purpose the VP has at this point is to be someone the Deep State is so scared of that they prefer Trump and if they kill Trump then there is instantly a leader who will step in and do what needs to be done.
7/18/24, 6:17 PM
Everything you have been saying is a hundred percent accurate, except this. Are you asking for someone with the will and ability to wage a wholesale campaign against the government AFTER they murder the prospective President? Because if you want a second Trump after they remove the first, that is not going to happen. You were generationally fortunate to get one such leader. I don't have to guess to know that a PAO like JD Vance is not going to be that man. If you want someone better than Trump, who has widespread and deep loyalty from the military, you are wishing for a unicorn. Colonel Hackworth wasn't that man: I think Patton's unpredictability in this regard "contributed" to his untimely death. You have some skill and knowledge, but you're not that guy, and I strongly doubt you know anyone who is.
I agree that Trump is a unique and historical figure. His skill as an executive is clearly a phenomena. I think our best scenarios center around Trump is elected, serves 4 years, and we never remember who his VP was.
Everything else is terrible and descends into Hell rather precipitously.
VPs have a really poor history when they somehow become president. I don't want the VP to be the inheritor of the crown in 2028. It needs to be an open race. I think it should be someone without personal ambitions.
Names that come to mind: Flynn, Rogers, Ham, Gabbard.
Tulsi was what would have made me happy in this situation.
Stop trying to make Tulsi happen. It's never gonna happen.
(Actually I haven't studied up on this at all, but the opportunity for the quote was just too perfect.)
Ah, remember the good old days when Bill Clinton's story of rising from poverty was considered inspirational? I guess that's not allowed for The Other Team.
Do Democrats and Progressives no longer want votes from the working class? The Nation's attitude is just so redolent of the attitude of the intelligentsia (The House of Government (Yuri Slezkhine), where they are very wary of them.
The Nation = lol leftist.
The Nation would prefer big daddy government be your savior.
Don't be fooled! oh loyal leftist... stay on soviet plantation of lies and government breeding. (illegal entrants)
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