I share JD Vance’s life story — but not how he sees the Appalachian people | Opinion

I was raised in similar circumstances to JD Vance, Donald Trump’s 2024 vice presidential running mate.

Vance and I were both raised in lower class households in towns with less-than-ideal economic opportunities. He in Middletown, Ohio among family members who were Appalachian transplants . I grew up in Cashiers, N.C. — in Appalachia.

Our relationships with our parents were heavily impacted by histories of drugs and alcohol, and we each attended Yale University. I’m a rising sophomore studying political science. Vance is a Yale Law School graduate. He wrote a memoir about his upbringing. I’m doing the same. My family even says we look alike.

You can imagine my surprise when I recently read his book, “Hillbilly Elegy.” It was almost as if I was reading about myself in an alternate universe where I was raised in Ohio instead of North Carolina. I see a lot of myself in Vance and I think our parallel experiences led us to some of the same conclusions in adulthood. For example, we both agree on certain economic policies such as raising tariffs on China and other hostile competitors to protect the American worker.

Despite this, I firmly dispute many of JD’s takeaways from his childhood.

The way I see it, JD seems very judgmental of those who live in Middletown, Ohio. He broadly describes them as lazy and pessimistic people who have failed to move up the economic ladder due to their lack of desire for a better life. Specifically, that as kids they lose hope in the fact that their positive actions — such as studying, attending class and staying ‘clean’ — will change the course of their lives for the better.

In my experience, this is fallacious. Kids in my hometown of Cashiers have the same dreams as everyone else. The first job I remember wanting as a kindergartner was a brain surgeon. I know that other young adults in Cashiers have big dreams too, and I know many people my age who have enough passion to move a mountain. What they lack instead are resources and knowledge to turn that passion into a successful career.

In JD’s vision of what he calls the “white working class,” government aid needs to be revoked, forcing people to work harder to improve their own lives. But in my view, more aid should be given — especially to children. As a country, we can improve economic and social outcomes by expanding the opportunities that we give to our poorest citizens.

In the future Appalachia I imagine, we expand pre-K in low-income communities, improve the quality and quantity of our public congregation spaces, increase the amount of resources — and pay — that public school teachers receive, and ensure that each student has access to a free mental health counselor every day of the year so they can heal from the trauma that often comes hand-in-hand with poverty.

Despite the similar childhoods that Vance and I share, I believe that his history of dismissing rural low-income Americans as “lazy” or “dispassionate” is not the answer. Instead, we need to invest in these communities in order to ever see true economic and social improvements for those who are raised in them.

I have a great amount of respect for Senator Vance, as I am someone who knows what it’s like to grow up as we have and then as adults move up the the socioeconomic ladder by attending Yale. But our visions for how to improve our respective communities almost could not be more different.

Garrett Warner is a rising sophomore at Yale University. He spent most of his childhood in Cashiers, N.C., the son of a single mom.