The Problem with JD Vance

  

   JD Vance and I actually have a lot in common. We were both born to drug addicted mothers who frankly lived in poverty and we both came from an evangelical background and converted to the Catholic faith by choice… But that’s where the similarities end. We spend a lot of time in this country talking about JD Vance’s strange interpretation of the Catholic faith but I think we’re missing a bigger issue. His interpretation of his own childhood and family is what we should really be talking about. 

   JD Vance treats his past as an obstacle to overcome, and his mother as a cautionary tale. To be fair it’s not hard to do in these types of situations. It’s the easiest conclusion you can come to to rationalize the life you’ve lived. The problem is though that just because it’s easy to come to that conclusion doesn’t mean it’s right. Sure we can sit here and blame the poor for being poor, blame the addict for being an addict, blame our parents for the crappy way they raised us or their irresponsible way of bringing us into the world. But that doesn’t really solve anything. It doesn’t prevent more drug addiction, more poverty, or more broken homes. It doesn’t make the world any better.

   The fact of the matter is drug addiction often comes from different problems all of which stem from abuse and trauma. Studies suggest that drug addicted individuals have higher rates of narcissistic traits (not true in all cases). In today’s society it’s very easy to say in response to that, “So they’re just bad people?” But how do you make a narcissist? The answer is unhealthy childhood environments. It would be very easy to sit here and blame my mother and be angry with her and I’ve already done that to be quite honest. But you know what’s hard to do? Take the time to understand. Is my birth mother by many people’s definition a sort of narcissist? Yeah probably. Does that mean she’s not a victim? No, it does not. 

   We can see by how JD Vance leads his life that he has spent a lifetime trying to run away from the background he came from as if it brings him shame. But there is nothing to be ashamed of. People get sick mentally and physically. The system doesn’t really care for those people or do what is in their best interests. Instead of using his own background to try to make things better and offer ways to women like his mother to get their lives together he condemns them. He seems convinced that if he rises up the social ladder the past will never be there to bring him down. But his mother will always be his mother. No amount of running away or social ladder climbing can change that. You can’t run from your past. You can only try to understand it and make something good out of it. 

   JD Vance claims to be a Catholic, which is a Christian, an yet he has so easily disposed of his mother and his family. He’s turned his back on them. Is that what Jesus preached? In Christianity we believe God gives us these types of struggles to make something good. God granted JD Vance an opportunity to advocate for people like his mother who are numerous in this country to try to make the lives of women like them and their children better. But JD Vance shrugged it off. He leaves his suffering in a box to change nothing. A missed opportunity. JD Vance chooses to be angry and to focus on how his mother has wronged him. But every mother who wrongs her child was once wronged and that’s the part he seems to have missed. 

   You can’t fix the drug crisis without fixing the broken people who keep buying them. To use a common conservative argument for gun rights no matter how many arrests for drug dealing are made or how many ships Trump bombs people who want drugs will get drugs. The problem will never go away because you’re only treating a symptom of the problem. If life was as simple as getting rid of drugs ends drug addiction then it would’ve happened a long time ago during the Reagan Administration. The most common drug of choice in the United States of America among the average Joe addict is methamphetamine. This drug does not have to be imported and in fact rarely is. It is made right here in these United States. I can’t speak for JD Vance’s mother, but mine was definitely hooked on meth. If JD Vance’s childhood is how he says the odds are she was hooked on meth as well. 

   It’s no wonder that JD Vance has no sympathy for the immigrants that he and Trump have worked so hard to condemn and demonize. If his way of dealing with suffering is to run and forget it then why would he want to help people in need? From his perspective anyone from those situation should just leave it all in the past and climb the ladder up, leaving their families behind. God called us to evangelize, but how can a Christian evangelize strangers if they won’t even evangelize their own family? In the Bible Jesus teaches us that he prioritizes forgiveness and mercy. Whoever forgives their neighbor and their enemies will be forgiven by God. Doesn’t seem like JD Vance has forgiven his enemies let alone his own mother. He missed the whole point of this religion. God did not send His Son to die on the cross so we could sit here and demonize each other. Jesus died on the cross to motivate our compassion and forgive our crimes and sins as well as the crimes and sins of others. Without honoring that key principle this religion becomes hollow and pointless.

   We spend so much time criticizing JD Vance’s faith but we don’t acknowledge his misguided faith is just a symptom of a bigger problem of turning his back on his past. A good comparison would be in the classic literature the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It’s an overrated book and author in my opinion, but nonetheless JD Vance is doing exactly what Jay Gatsby was doing and we all know how that worked out for him. Jay Gatsby was exposed as the fraud that he was and was shot and killed by a grieving sickly widower in his own pool for a hit-and-run he didn’t even commit. JD Vance would be wise to learn from Gatsby. You can’t run from the past. Nothing good comes from running away and nothing good that you gained from running away will ever taste as sweet as you imagined. You’ll be sorely disappointed. I think most of us can agree that if Gatsby had been honest about his childhood and his parentage instead of disposing of it like trash in hopes of a better, richer father figure and a more luxurious life his story might’ve ended differently or at the very least he would’ve died respected with more than one person attending his wake. 

   JD Vance’s way of handling his childhood is not an uncommon method. After all what is Jay Gatsby if not a composite of real figures? There’s a long list of troubled wealthy men running from the past. For a child who grows up with nothing dreaming of having everything makes perfect sense. But it’s a shallow and naive dream. Money cannot buy you happiness, luxury cannot heal your wounds, and the mark the past has left on your very being cannot be out run or erased. Until JD Vance deals with his past honestly and sincerely it will continue to be the demon that chases him and one day it will catch up and knock him right back down again. Perhaps when that day comes his faith will be renewed with more sincerity. I truly hope so.

   DISCLOSURE:

   My birth mother and I do not speak, but this is her decision not mine. Last time I looked into trying to contact her she was in prison and contacting someone in the prison system is not as simple as you’d think it would be. Although my mother doesn’t want to speak to me I have still taken the opportunity to work on and understand who she was and why she was. To be frank I owe her that.

   To evangelize: To be a beacon of Gods light for those in the dark to see. 

P.s. JD is not a hillbilly. His book was appropriating a term for Appalachian Hill folk. He is not Appalachian. He is just another white kid from a poor family. Poor and white does not equal hillbilly.