September 4, 2024 • 23 mins
Today on the Smarticle Podcast we welcome back Bobby Conn, author of 'In the Shadow of the Valley,' marking her as the show's first-ever two-time guest. We delve into her Time Magazine article critiquing JD Vance's memoir 'Hillbilly Elegy' and its portrayal of Appalachia. The discussion covers the importance of acknowledging the social structures that enable upward mobility in America, and what Vance could potentially do to help America's working poor if elected to a high office. The conversation emphasizes the significance of public schools, stability in the home, and social support systems in overcoming poverty and addiction.
00:00 Introduction and Welcome Back
00:43 Technical Difficulties and Co-Host Absence
01:27 Discussing Bobby Kahn's Writing
02:02 Hillbilly Elegy and J.D. Vance
03:12 Exploring J.D. Vance's Political Impact
07:35 The Myth of Bootstrapping
11:10 The Role of Social Structures
21:40 Final Thoughts and Call for Honest Dialogue
The Myth that J.D. Vance Bootstrapped His Way to the Top
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Episode Transcript
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(00:17):
Today on the show, we have the amazing,I don't know if for Bobby, it might
be the dubious honor of having ourfirst ever two time guest on the show.
And that is author Bobby Conn.
She wrote the book in the shadowof the Valley about growing up
in Eastern Kentucky, Appalachia,and what life was like there.
And we talked about it in our last show.
(00:38):
A lot about the article that weread that you wrote in time magazine
about growing up in Appalachia.
And the reason that we wanted to haveyou back on and by the way, Larry
would be with us today, but he hasthis is really funny because he and I
were talking on the phone yesterday.
His computer blew up on him and we'vebeen having all these technical problems.
He's on that West Coast.
I'm on the East Coast.
And we did an article a long time agoabout what was life was like for people.
(01:01):
In this day and age withoutcomputers in the majority of people
that live from lower socioeconomicbackgrounds that don't have computers.
And it's fascinating to have had thisexperience with him, where we've got
all this tech problems that don'taffect the majority of the, I guess the
world, or the United States, I wouldsay, but it's interesting that now
(01:21):
he can't be on the show with us todaybecause we're still waiting for the
tech stuff to be figured out on his end.
Anyway, I just say that becausethat he was with us last time and
he's not so welcome to the showBobby It's good to see you again.
Thank you for having me Brandon Wedid this wonderful show with you
talking about I guess rural poor andAppalachia We're never gonna butcher
the name like Larry did again, butit's Appalachia for those of us that
(01:45):
live in Appalachia But I follow you.
I think you're an amazing writer.
You're probably my favorite writer.
Oh, thank you.
I've read all your pieces.
It's just great.
And I guess it's because itspeaks to me personally, too.
You write so personally aboutthe world in which we come from.
But you wrote a piece, and when weinterviewed last time, Naturally, when
(02:07):
you're talking about Appalachia, itcomes up that Hillbilly Elegy by J.
D.
Vance sort of pops up.
What's really interesting aboutHillbilly Elegy is that it doesn't
necessarily cover what we've talkedabout because he's not really from
Appalachia, but it gets lumped in with.
So you wrote a piece inTime Magazine about J.
D.
Vance.
We're not going to necessarilytalk about the politics of J.
(02:28):
D.
Vance, but I wanted to talk withyou today about The article you
wrote, and specifically, I wantto just start it with the end.
If you don't mind, I'm just going toread the very last paragraph, and then
I'd love to launch into a conversationabout why you wrote it, what you
wrote about, and so on and so forth.
And the end of your article in TimeMagazine that I'm going to link to this
show is, you write, Throughout his career,Vance has developed options on every hot
(02:50):
button issue in our political landscape.
He claims to be for the workingclass, but it's now time to ask,
what will he actually do for us?
After all, we know what theworking class Has done for him.
So I want to start there at theend, and I want to work, if you
will, backwards from that point.
So what did you mean when, why didyou write this article is basically
(03:10):
the question I'm starting with.
Yeah of course there was a renewedinterest in him and his memoir
when he was named as Trump's VP.
I feel like, as you said, there's alot that's been established about J.
D.
Vance that, that makes him likea really fascinating character.
(03:31):
There's a lot of frustration about howhis memoir for people from Appalachia,
about how his memoir has been.
Interpreted and marketed as speaking forAppalachia as even really having to do
with Appalachia when he didn't grow upin Appalachia, or even spend much time in
Appalachia, at least, according to the wayhe wrote his memoir, that's very clear.
(03:56):
But when I set out to write this piece.
I really wanted to explore a differentangle of what it means for JD Vance
to be in the political landscape.
And then particularly, what doesit mean for him to be in such a
high ranking position as even justthe candidate or nominee for VP?
(04:20):
What are the implications?
Should he be elected?
I went to his website and Ithought let me see, what does
he do in his current position?
What kinds of policies has he enacted?
Do people feel like they, hispresence has helped the working
class, harmed the working class,or something completely different?
(04:42):
I really couldn't find a lotof information that would
help me come to a decision.
A conclusion 1 way or the other.
Which I thought was prettystrange because, several days
after he had been nominated.
And so I thought thisis the time when that.
The image of who he is in relationshipto his working class persona, really,
(05:03):
you would expect it to be cementedand firmed up and we would see
how is he going to be marketed tothe American people going forward.
From a personality standpoint, but asI said, I couldn't find any information
about his work and policies and how theyhave or would affect the working class
(05:25):
or the middle class for that matter.
I thought, rather than harping onfrustrations that a lot of us have
expressed since this memoir 1st came out.
In regard to his memoir and how itmisrepresents Appalachia, but also,
he positions himself as an expertof Appalachia without having, having
(05:49):
lived here rather than jumping onthat bandwagon, where I think there's
been plenty said and it's a lot ofit's valid, but, it's not stopping
him from becoming the VP nominee.
It hasn't stopped his memoir fromhitting bestseller lists twice.
So I thought in the spirit of the kindof like national conversations I think
(06:12):
we should be having, and I would liketo have, it's not what's wrong with him.
What has he done that's wrong?
From a writing perspective, but whatcould he do for the American people?
And what should we ask him to do?
What should we be asking him to speakto and looking at his experience,
(06:33):
especially with going to law school?
His undergrad degree was 1 thing, butbeing able to go to law school at Yale
and have any of that funded for him.
It's a huge leg up.
That's a huge opportunity and eventhings that he didn't talk about
things that most of us benefited from,like our public school educations.
(06:57):
Those are things that helped him createa stable and I would say flourishing
personal life, despite his mother'sdrug addiction, despite the mental
health issues that he grew up around,which created a lot of instability.
Now, he didn't come from poverty.
(07:18):
I think that's been conflateda lot with his story.
And I do think it's reallyimportant to separate that as a
different issue to be resolved.
But those support systems do stillhelp people rise out of poverty.
It's like We in America can, I'll justuse the phrase, pull ourselves up by our
(07:41):
bootstraps because we have systems thatallow us to do there are other countries
in the world where you can work all daylong and all night long, and you are not
going to rise out of your social class.
It's, it doesn't happen.
America allows us to do that in partthrough hard work and then in part because
(08:04):
we have social structures to support it.
And it's an unpopular opinionto some people, but I think it's
important that we acknowledge.
Even myself, I'm not aself made success story.
My success is in part because I've workedreally hard for years and years to pull
(08:24):
myself out of poverty, but it is alsobecause I received things and I had a
path forward if I would choose to take it.
That's why I wanted to write thatpiece because I think there's another
area for us to focus on and to focusour questions on rather than just.
The sort of standard vitriol thatwe've grown used to around politics.
(08:47):
Yeah.
And it strikes me a little bit, J.
D.
Vance is what J.
D.
Vance is, but there's often thissort of rewriting of history
that happens with people.
The criticism of Tim Walz's militarycareer and sort of these things
that when you're running forpolitical office, obviously you're
going to get the magnifying glass.
Why I found this piece particularlyinteresting as one, I really love your
(09:09):
bent on looking at the reality of what itmeans to be rural poor in this country.
Now, Appalachia is justa region in the country.
I love it here, but I livein Asheville, North Carolina.
It is a wealthy city.
There's lots going on here.
It is not a holler up in HarlanCounty, Kentucky, but I was raised
in a tiny little town with lotsof poor people in a poor family.
(09:30):
So I can relate with that.
But even I would say that had I nothad access to a public school that
taught me to read and write and dosome math and some other things,
give me an opportunity to play sportsthat was applied by the school.
That allowed me to go tocollege and all these things.
So I love what you say when you saythat no one is really a sort of a
self made person in this country.
(09:52):
We all had help.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants.
So why do you think, Larry wouldbe mad at me now because I've
asked the question so long.
He'd be like, come on, get to the point.
The question I guess I really am askingis, Why do you think people are so willing
to accept his story about being for a poorfrom Appalachia when he's actually not?
And it's easily proven.
(10:12):
He even says it himself.
So I think that's a really great question.
I don't know that it'snecessarily him who has.
Created that story about poverty forhimself when I've gone back and I don't
have a copy of the memoir anymore.
So I couldn't go backand reread it recently.
(10:34):
But when I did find some passagesonline and I was like, okay, so where
did my idea that he grew up poorcome from and I reread some passages.
And I think the.
Wakey words, things sometimes makes itapparent that he aligns, aligned himself
with the working class or thought thathe identified with the working class.
(10:56):
It's more difficult at least in my,novice researching it was a lot more
difficult to find actual facts aboutthe finances of his family, but there
were indications, that they were.
Comfortably middle classall the time for one.
I don't, I haven't found wherehe explicitly stated that he
(11:18):
come from, came from poverty.
I did find an old interview, funnyenough from NPR where when his memoir
first came out, the interviewer.
Stated that Vance came froman impoverished background,
something along those lines.
That's not the exact wording, but,Vance didn't correct the interviewer.
(11:39):
But I think the interviewer introducedthat idea through the interview question.
I could be completely wrong, butit seems to me like, because it
was easy, easy to misunderstand.
Based on how the memoir was written, quitea few people who didn't think to tease
(12:00):
out that detail and really criticallyseparate the questions of Rust Belt, Ohio,
and what addiction looks like there andthe mental health issues that Vance very
clearly outlines versus poverty, workingclass, financial and economic pressures.
(12:22):
I think that it's possible that it's.
That misunderstanding has just beencontinually perpetuated by people
who conflated his upbringing and it'sjust never been officially corrected.
And it doesn't feel likehe's gone way out of his way.
There is a guy that I followon LinkedIn of all places.
(12:43):
And he is, he makes leather belts.
He's just great.
Makes these great belts.
He's a former Navy seal.
And he was telling a story on thereand I could just feel his passion
coming out about stolen valor.
Are you familiar with that term?
Stolen valor.
I've seen it in headlines a wholelot here recently, but I think
I have a vague understanding.
It's the idea basically of saying that youserved in the military when you didn't.
(13:06):
So like you say, Oh, I servedin Afghanistan when you
never were in the military.
And it really bothers this guy a lot.
And so I don't, I think I equatethis a little bit to saying.
You can be fullysupportive of the military.
You can be fully supportiveof people in black or Asian
American community or whatever.
But if you're not black or AsianAmerican, or you didn't serve in the
military, you can't speak as if you did.
(13:28):
If that makes sense.
You can't say I grew up in a blackcommunity when you didn't grow up.
You can be an ally.
You can help.
You can try to understand, I thinkyou and I could speak about growing
up poor America because guess what?
We grew up poor America.
So there is this thing.
It doesn't mean thatit's, you're bad for that.
So I guess I wonder.
Again, Larry would be mad at me forasking this 7, 000 word question,
(13:49):
but what do you think that J.
D.
Vance if let's just say thatthe record was cleared up.
He said, yeah, I wasn't really poor,but what can he do to help America's
working poor or just poor people in ruralAppalachia or rural America or wherever
America, urban America's poor, what canhe do if say he's elected vice president?
What can he do specifically tohelp that, to fix that record?
(14:14):
That is such an interesting question.
Let me reword worded then it might makeit easier if you were back growing up
with a drug addicted parent and yourstory in the last show for people
that want to go back and listen.
It's amazing.
Your story is amazing.
I remember you talking aboutthe water staining your just
the whole life of being.
(14:34):
It's hard.
And if we look at that differently thanwe'd say, when you were a kid growing
up, if JD Vance was out there and youcould say to him, what would you need?
What would America's poor need from him?
If he could do whatever he couldmake wave a magic wand, clear things.
What would you ask him for?
I would ask him to look at and identifyand then support the structures
(14:59):
that we know help kids, especially.
But, to an extent adults as well togive them the tools and resources
to overcome, the impacts ofaddiction instability in the home.
And poverty addiction and poverty,both are huge contributors
to instability in the home.
(15:20):
And I think that that is whateverthe instability comes from.
Yeah, it has a negative impact on kids andtherefore it has, it leads to us having
dysfunctional, sub functional adults.
And then if you tack on violenceand abuse on top of that,
(15:41):
it's another set of problems.
In addition to that sort of base stabilityinstability and then poverty as well,
like all of those scenarios just createadditional complexity, but we know
that kids coming from stable homes whohave stable childhoods of some sort.
(16:04):
Are going to have a better chance ofbecoming stable and contributing members
of society, which is good for all of us.
It's not about let's justhandouts left and right.
And let's fix people's problems for them.
I think that's a, that's acomplaint against the idea
(16:25):
of just welfare on its face.
I understand why a lot of people areanti welfare, especially when it's going
toward supporting able bodied adults.
That conversation would take hours, Ithink, to talk through and really be
thoughtful and nuanced and cover all ofthe related subtopics that like adult
(16:50):
welfare, what should that look like?
What does it accomplish?
Who is it for?
Bye.
If we want to have a strong, healthysociety, we do have to overcome
some of the large social problems.
That we are already experiencing,some of which have been going on for
several decades now, and they arecreating another generation of children
(17:16):
who are going to be struggling.
I would ask J.
D.
Vance to identify what are the programs.
Oh, and institutions, includingpublic school education that made
it possible for people like himand people like me to overcome the
circumstances that we were born into.
(17:38):
The title of the article iscalled the myth that JD Vance
bootstrapped his way to the top.
I could argue that he's not maybe quite tothe top yet, but he's pretty darn close.
So when you wrote this inTime Magazine, if you said J.
D.
Vance read that and said, man, I feelconvicted, what would you have him
say to the world about his experience?
(17:58):
I think I would just ask him toacknowledge the impact and importance
of again, the institutions, thesystems, the social structures
that we have in place that haveallowed him to get to where he is.
Because that is really the, that'swhy we can achieve the American dream.
(18:20):
Those are the things being able togo to a public school and then get a
college degree and then, and the Marinesthe law school in other countries.
He would not have had the opportunitiesto do any of those things.
And I don't seek to take awayfrom the fact that he had to work
(18:40):
really hard at certain times inhis life to accomplish what he did.
But again, there are places in theworld where you can work really hard.
You are still not going to become amillionaire or even the middle class.
And so we need to be very cognizantas Americans that that is something
(19:02):
really special and important aboutwhat we're doing in this country is
creating the opportunities for upwardmobility, but then also just, people
to improve their stations in life.
From addiction from mental health issuesthat they were born into, like the
(19:22):
families having those kinds of problems.
We're not stuck in whatever problemsour families, our birth families have.
And so I think that Vance as a very, Ithink he's a self proclaimed patriot.
And to me that it is very patriotic tolook at what is it that America, what
(19:43):
opportunities does America provide.
That are important that benefit usall collectively in the end, but
also very personally, and then howdo we, how do we ensure that those
opportunities are funded, they'reaccessible and where do we innovate?
(20:03):
I think there's some, if I remembercorrectly, there's a correlation between
children attending preschool and theneither high school graduation, or maybe
even attending college, there's some justdemonstrated long term educational benefit
and preschool is something that is notavailable to everybody, to every kid.
(20:26):
We have a vested interest inmaking programs like that, for
instance, accessible so that wehave smarter, healthier, more
productive members of society.
It's an interesting thing to think about.
If somebody was raised in a family ofgreat affluence and had every opportunity,
you could see how they would say,hey, listen, I don't agree with these
(20:48):
programs or whatever, but when youhave somebody that specifically Got
something from this, like JD Vance, i.
e.
He went to Yale.
That is no small feat.
Clearly he's very intelligent.
He served in the military, butthese are all institutions that
were created to help people.
And I think that I'm going to saythat I think what you're asking,
Bobby, is that JD say, thank you.
(21:09):
Thank you to America.
Thank you to the peoplethat came before me.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants.
None of us would havegotten to where we are.
Including those people fromreally affluent families.
If someone hadn't done something for them.
So I do think, I love what yousaid that that's, patriotic.
I agree with you a hundred percent.
Forget about the politics of it.
Just the fact that we allneed help from other people.
(21:31):
Any last thoughts or words on JD or the JDVance, we'll call him as we move forward
to this next, November election coming up.
I just, I know some people, no matterhow nuanced I think my perspective
is, some people just conclude it'slike, I must hate JD Vance or I must.
(21:55):
Love something else or someone else.
I would rather just deal with thereality of where we're at now and try
to really have civil conversationswith each other about, what do we need?
What do politicians seekto do for our country?
(22:17):
And what are our values?
What's important to us?
Rather than the hate mongering and namecalling and every time I see a political
meme at this point, I'm just like really?
How are we going to move forwardtogether and we live together.
Yeah.
(22:43):
All right.
What I think I'm hearingyou say is you want J.
D.
Vance to come on and have an honestdialogue and discussion with you at
some point about the truth of who he is.
No, I do really appreciateyour words on that.
This article was incredible.
It's incredibly thought provoking.
I hope you continue towrite pieces like this.
I think it's important toremind people that no one really
(23:04):
bootstraps their way to the top.
But otherwise, Bobby Kahn, thank you somuch for coming on the show today and
it's always a pleasure to talk to you.
I look forward to your next piece whenI can come bother you to say, come
on and talk about this piece again.
But anyway, otherwise, thankyou so much for being here.
Brandon.
Today on the show, we have the amazing,I don't know if for Bobby, it might
be the dubious honor of having ourfirst ever two time guest on the show.
And that is author Bobby Conn.
She wrote the book in the shadowof the Valley about growing up
in Eastern Kentucky, Appalachia,and what life was like there.
And we talked about it in our last show.
(00:38):
A lot about the article that weread that you wrote in time magazine
about growing up in Appalachia.
And the reason that we wanted to haveyou back on and by the way, Larry
would be with us today, but he hasthis is really funny because he and I
were talking on the phone yesterday.
His computer blew up on him and we'vebeen having all these technical problems.
He's on that West Coast.
I'm on the East Coast.
And we did an article a long time agoabout what was life was like for people.
(01:01):
In this day and age withoutcomputers in the majority of people
that live from lower socioeconomicbackgrounds that don't have computers.
And it's fascinating to have had thisexperience with him, where we've got
all this tech problems that don'taffect the majority of the, I guess the
world, or the United States, I wouldsay, but it's interesting that now
(01:21):
he can't be on the show with us todaybecause we're still waiting for the
tech stuff to be figured out on his end.
Anyway, I just say that becausethat he was with us last time and
he's not so welcome to the showBobby It's good to see you again.
Thank you for having me Brandon Wedid this wonderful show with you
talking about I guess rural poor andAppalachia We're never gonna butcher
the name like Larry did again, butit's Appalachia for those of us that
(01:45):
live in Appalachia But I follow you.
I think you're an amazing writer.
You're probably my favorite writer.
Oh, thank you.
I've read all your pieces.
It's just great.
And I guess it's because itspeaks to me personally, too.
You write so personally aboutthe world in which we come from.
But you wrote a piece, and when weinterviewed last time, Naturally, when
(02:07):
you're talking about Appalachia, itcomes up that Hillbilly Elegy by J.
D.
Vance sort of pops up.
What's really interesting aboutHillbilly Elegy is that it doesn't
necessarily cover what we've talkedabout because he's not really from
Appalachia, but it gets lumped in with.
So you wrote a piece inTime Magazine about J.
D.
Vance.
We're not going to necessarilytalk about the politics of J.
(02:28):
D.
Vance, but I wanted to talk withyou today about The article you
wrote, and specifically, I wantto just start it with the end.
If you don't mind, I'm just going toread the very last paragraph, and then
I'd love to launch into a conversationabout why you wrote it, what you
wrote about, and so on and so forth.
And the end of your article in TimeMagazine that I'm going to link to this
show is, you write, Throughout his career,Vance has developed options on every hot
(02:50):
button issue in our political landscape.
He claims to be for the workingclass, but it's now time to ask,
what will he actually do for us?
After all, we know what theworking class Has done for him.
So I want to start there at theend, and I want to work, if you
will, backwards from that point.
So what did you mean when, why didyou write this article is basically
(03:10):
the question I'm starting with.
Yeah of course there was a renewedinterest in him and his memoir
when he was named as Trump's VP.
I feel like, as you said, there's alot that's been established about J.
D.
Vance that, that makes him likea really fascinating character.
(03:31):
There's a lot of frustration about howhis memoir for people from Appalachia,
about how his memoir has been.
Interpreted and marketed as speaking forAppalachia as even really having to do
with Appalachia when he didn't grow upin Appalachia, or even spend much time in
Appalachia, at least, according to the wayhe wrote his memoir, that's very clear.
(03:56):
But when I set out to write this piece.
I really wanted to explore a differentangle of what it means for JD Vance
to be in the political landscape.
And then particularly, what doesit mean for him to be in such a
high ranking position as even justthe candidate or nominee for VP?
(04:20):
What are the implications?
Should he be elected?
I went to his website and Ithought let me see, what does
he do in his current position?
What kinds of policies has he enacted?
Do people feel like they, hispresence has helped the working
class, harmed the working class,or something completely different?
(04:42):
I really couldn't find a lotof information that would
help me come to a decision.
A conclusion 1 way or the other.
Which I thought was prettystrange because, several days
after he had been nominated.
And so I thought thisis the time when that.
The image of who he is in relationshipto his working class persona, really,
(05:03):
you would expect it to be cementedand firmed up and we would see
how is he going to be marketed tothe American people going forward.
From a personality standpoint, but asI said, I couldn't find any information
about his work and policies and how theyhave or would affect the working class
(05:25):
or the middle class for that matter.
I thought, rather than harping onfrustrations that a lot of us have
expressed since this memoir 1st came out.
In regard to his memoir and how itmisrepresents Appalachia, but also,
he positions himself as an expertof Appalachia without having, having
(05:49):
lived here rather than jumping onthat bandwagon, where I think there's
been plenty said and it's a lot ofit's valid, but, it's not stopping
him from becoming the VP nominee.
It hasn't stopped his memoir fromhitting bestseller lists twice.
So I thought in the spirit of the kindof like national conversations I think
(06:12):
we should be having, and I would liketo have, it's not what's wrong with him.
What has he done that's wrong?
From a writing perspective, but whatcould he do for the American people?
And what should we ask him to do?
What should we be asking him to speakto and looking at his experience,
(06:33):
especially with going to law school?
His undergrad degree was 1 thing, butbeing able to go to law school at Yale
and have any of that funded for him.
It's a huge leg up.
That's a huge opportunity and eventhings that he didn't talk about
things that most of us benefited from,like our public school educations.
(06:57):
Those are things that helped him createa stable and I would say flourishing
personal life, despite his mother'sdrug addiction, despite the mental
health issues that he grew up around,which created a lot of instability.
Now, he didn't come from poverty.
(07:18):
I think that's been conflateda lot with his story.
And I do think it's reallyimportant to separate that as a
different issue to be resolved.
But those support systems do stillhelp people rise out of poverty.
It's like We in America can, I'll justuse the phrase, pull ourselves up by our
(07:41):
bootstraps because we have systems thatallow us to do there are other countries
in the world where you can work all daylong and all night long, and you are not
going to rise out of your social class.
It's, it doesn't happen.
America allows us to do that in partthrough hard work and then in part because
(08:04):
we have social structures to support it.
And it's an unpopular opinionto some people, but I think it's
important that we acknowledge.
Even myself, I'm not aself made success story.
My success is in part because I've workedreally hard for years and years to pull
(08:24):
myself out of poverty, but it is alsobecause I received things and I had a
path forward if I would choose to take it.
That's why I wanted to write thatpiece because I think there's another
area for us to focus on and to focusour questions on rather than just.
The sort of standard vitriol thatwe've grown used to around politics.
(08:47):
Yeah.
And it strikes me a little bit, J.
D.
Vance is what J.
D.
Vance is, but there's often thissort of rewriting of history
that happens with people.
The criticism of Tim Walz's militarycareer and sort of these things
that when you're running forpolitical office, obviously you're
going to get the magnifying glass.
Why I found this piece particularlyinteresting as one, I really love your
(09:09):
bent on looking at the reality of what itmeans to be rural poor in this country.
Now, Appalachia is justa region in the country.
I love it here, but I livein Asheville, North Carolina.
It is a wealthy city.
There's lots going on here.
It is not a holler up in HarlanCounty, Kentucky, but I was raised
in a tiny little town with lotsof poor people in a poor family.
(09:30):
So I can relate with that.
But even I would say that had I nothad access to a public school that
taught me to read and write and dosome math and some other things,
give me an opportunity to play sportsthat was applied by the school.
That allowed me to go tocollege and all these things.
So I love what you say when you saythat no one is really a sort of a
self made person in this country.
(09:52):
We all had help.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants.
So why do you think, Larry wouldbe mad at me now because I've
asked the question so long.
He'd be like, come on, get to the point.
The question I guess I really am askingis, Why do you think people are so willing
to accept his story about being for a poorfrom Appalachia when he's actually not?
And it's easily proven.
(10:12):
He even says it himself.
So I think that's a really great question.
I don't know that it'snecessarily him who has.
Created that story about poverty forhimself when I've gone back and I don't
have a copy of the memoir anymore.
So I couldn't go backand reread it recently.
(10:34):
But when I did find some passagesonline and I was like, okay, so where
did my idea that he grew up poorcome from and I reread some passages.
And I think the.
Wakey words, things sometimes makes itapparent that he aligns, aligned himself
with the working class or thought thathe identified with the working class.
(10:56):
It's more difficult at least in my,novice researching it was a lot more
difficult to find actual facts aboutthe finances of his family, but there
were indications, that they were.
Comfortably middle classall the time for one.
I don't, I haven't found wherehe explicitly stated that he
(11:18):
come from, came from poverty.
I did find an old interview, funnyenough from NPR where when his memoir
first came out, the interviewer.
Stated that Vance came froman impoverished background,
something along those lines.
That's not the exact wording, but,Vance didn't correct the interviewer.
(11:39):
But I think the interviewer introducedthat idea through the interview question.
I could be completely wrong, butit seems to me like, because it
was easy, easy to misunderstand.
Based on how the memoir was written, quitea few people who didn't think to tease
(12:00):
out that detail and really criticallyseparate the questions of Rust Belt, Ohio,
and what addiction looks like there andthe mental health issues that Vance very
clearly outlines versus poverty, workingclass, financial and economic pressures.
(12:22):
I think that it's possible that it's.
That misunderstanding has just beencontinually perpetuated by people
who conflated his upbringing and it'sjust never been officially corrected.
And it doesn't feel likehe's gone way out of his way.
There is a guy that I followon LinkedIn of all places.
(12:43):
And he is, he makes leather belts.
He's just great.
Makes these great belts.
He's a former Navy seal.
And he was telling a story on thereand I could just feel his passion
coming out about stolen valor.
Are you familiar with that term?
Stolen valor.
I've seen it in headlines a wholelot here recently, but I think
I have a vague understanding.
It's the idea basically of saying that youserved in the military when you didn't.
(13:06):
So like you say, Oh, I servedin Afghanistan when you
never were in the military.
And it really bothers this guy a lot.
And so I don't, I think I equatethis a little bit to saying.
You can be fullysupportive of the military.
You can be fully supportiveof people in black or Asian
American community or whatever.
But if you're not black or AsianAmerican, or you didn't serve in the
military, you can't speak as if you did.
(13:28):
If that makes sense.
You can't say I grew up in a blackcommunity when you didn't grow up.
You can be an ally.
You can help.
You can try to understand, I thinkyou and I could speak about growing
up poor America because guess what?
We grew up poor America.
So there is this thing.
It doesn't mean thatit's, you're bad for that.
So I guess I wonder.
Again, Larry would be mad at me forasking this 7, 000 word question,
(13:49):
but what do you think that J.
D.
Vance if let's just say thatthe record was cleared up.
He said, yeah, I wasn't really poor,but what can he do to help America's
working poor or just poor people in ruralAppalachia or rural America or wherever
America, urban America's poor, what canhe do if say he's elected vice president?
What can he do specifically tohelp that, to fix that record?
(14:14):
That is such an interesting question.
Let me reword worded then it might makeit easier if you were back growing up
with a drug addicted parent and yourstory in the last show for people
that want to go back and listen.
It's amazing.
Your story is amazing.
I remember you talking aboutthe water staining your just
the whole life of being.
(14:34):
It's hard.
And if we look at that differently thanwe'd say, when you were a kid growing
up, if JD Vance was out there and youcould say to him, what would you need?
What would America's poor need from him?
If he could do whatever he couldmake wave a magic wand, clear things.
What would you ask him for?
I would ask him to look at and identifyand then support the structures
(14:59):
that we know help kids, especially.
But, to an extent adults as well togive them the tools and resources
to overcome, the impacts ofaddiction instability in the home.
And poverty addiction and poverty,both are huge contributors
to instability in the home.
(15:20):
And I think that that is whateverthe instability comes from.
Yeah, it has a negative impact on kids andtherefore it has, it leads to us having
dysfunctional, sub functional adults.
And then if you tack on violenceand abuse on top of that,
(15:41):
it's another set of problems.
In addition to that sort of base stabilityinstability and then poverty as well,
like all of those scenarios just createadditional complexity, but we know
that kids coming from stable homes whohave stable childhoods of some sort.
(16:04):
Are going to have a better chance ofbecoming stable and contributing members
of society, which is good for all of us.
It's not about let's justhandouts left and right.
And let's fix people's problems for them.
I think that's a, that's acomplaint against the idea
(16:25):
of just welfare on its face.
I understand why a lot of people areanti welfare, especially when it's going
toward supporting able bodied adults.
That conversation would take hours, Ithink, to talk through and really be
thoughtful and nuanced and cover all ofthe related subtopics that like adult
(16:50):
welfare, what should that look like?
What does it accomplish?
Who is it for?
Bye.
If we want to have a strong, healthysociety, we do have to overcome
some of the large social problems.
That we are already experiencing,some of which have been going on for
several decades now, and they arecreating another generation of children
(17:16):
who are going to be struggling.
I would ask J.
D.
Vance to identify what are the programs.
Oh, and institutions, includingpublic school education that made
it possible for people like himand people like me to overcome the
circumstances that we were born into.
(17:38):
The title of the article iscalled the myth that JD Vance
bootstrapped his way to the top.
I could argue that he's not maybe quite tothe top yet, but he's pretty darn close.
So when you wrote this inTime Magazine, if you said J.
D.
Vance read that and said, man, I feelconvicted, what would you have him
say to the world about his experience?
(17:58):
I think I would just ask him toacknowledge the impact and importance
of again, the institutions, thesystems, the social structures
that we have in place that haveallowed him to get to where he is.
Because that is really the, that'swhy we can achieve the American dream.
(18:20):
Those are the things being able togo to a public school and then get a
college degree and then, and the Marinesthe law school in other countries.
He would not have had the opportunitiesto do any of those things.
And I don't seek to take awayfrom the fact that he had to work
(18:40):
really hard at certain times inhis life to accomplish what he did.
But again, there are places in theworld where you can work really hard.
You are still not going to become amillionaire or even the middle class.
And so we need to be very cognizantas Americans that that is something
(19:02):
really special and important aboutwhat we're doing in this country is
creating the opportunities for upwardmobility, but then also just, people
to improve their stations in life.
From addiction from mental health issuesthat they were born into, like the
(19:22):
families having those kinds of problems.
We're not stuck in whatever problemsour families, our birth families have.
And so I think that Vance as a very, Ithink he's a self proclaimed patriot.
And to me that it is very patriotic tolook at what is it that America, what
(19:43):
opportunities does America provide.
That are important that benefit usall collectively in the end, but
also very personally, and then howdo we, how do we ensure that those
opportunities are funded, they'reaccessible and where do we innovate?
(20:03):
I think there's some, if I remembercorrectly, there's a correlation between
children attending preschool and theneither high school graduation, or maybe
even attending college, there's some justdemonstrated long term educational benefit
and preschool is something that is notavailable to everybody, to every kid.
(20:26):
We have a vested interest inmaking programs like that, for
instance, accessible so that wehave smarter, healthier, more
productive members of society.
It's an interesting thing to think about.
If somebody was raised in a family ofgreat affluence and had every opportunity,
you could see how they would say,hey, listen, I don't agree with these
(20:48):
programs or whatever, but when youhave somebody that specifically Got
something from this, like JD Vance, i.
e.
He went to Yale.
That is no small feat.
Clearly he's very intelligent.
He served in the military, butthese are all institutions that
were created to help people.
And I think that I'm going to saythat I think what you're asking,
Bobby, is that JD say, thank you.
(21:09):
Thank you to America.
Thank you to the peoplethat came before me.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants.
None of us would havegotten to where we are.
Including those people fromreally affluent families.
If someone hadn't done something for them.
So I do think, I love what yousaid that that's, patriotic.
I agree with you a hundred percent.
Forget about the politics of it.
Just the fact that we allneed help from other people.
(21:31):
Any last thoughts or words on JD or the JDVance, we'll call him as we move forward
to this next, November election coming up.
I just, I know some people, no matterhow nuanced I think my perspective
is, some people just conclude it'slike, I must hate JD Vance or I must.
(21:55):
Love something else or someone else.
I would rather just deal with thereality of where we're at now and try
to really have civil conversationswith each other about, what do we need?
What do politicians seekto do for our country?
(22:17):
And what are our values?
What's important to us?
Rather than the hate mongering and namecalling and every time I see a political
meme at this point, I'm just like really?
How are we going to move forwardtogether and we live together.
Yeah.
(22:43):
All right.
What I think I'm hearingyou say is you want J.
D.
Vance to come on and have an honestdialogue and discussion with you at
some point about the truth of who he is.
No, I do really appreciateyour words on that.
This article was incredible.
It's incredibly thought provoking.
I hope you continue towrite pieces like this.
I think it's important toremind people that no one really
(23:04):
bootstraps their way to the top.
But otherwise, Bobby Kahn, thank you somuch for coming on the show today and
it's always a pleasure to talk to you.
I look forward to your next piece whenI can come bother you to say, come
on and talk about this piece again.
But anyway, otherwise, thankyou so much for being here.
Brandon.
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