James David Vanceclass 198450th Vice President of the United States from 20 January 2025 chosen by Donald Trumphas recently risen to the headlines for his brazen aggressionon the occasion of the encounter with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. In this article we retrace his biography, which can be surprising: the current vice -president of the United States comes from one of the poorer regions of the United States (his difficult childhood It was told in the autobiographical book American elegia) and was senator in Ohio in the Republican Party.
JD Vance, childhood in the poorest region in the United States
JD Vance was born in 1984 a Middletowna town in Kentucky, located in the Appalachi mountains. He grows dividing his time between the mother’s house, who moved to Ohio by fighting with drug addiction, and his grandparents’ house in Kentucky, his hometown. This environment is a mirror of deep America, which rarely buy in the media or in the films: that of the vast mountain region of the Appalachi mountains, located in the eastern part of the USA, extended from north to south.
This area is also known as Iron Belt, That is “iron belt”, because once the economy was largely based on the exploitation of the iron minespartially closed or in any case very reduced. Today the valleys around the Appalachi mountains are sadly famous for the high rate of unemploymentthe poverty and the high rate of dependence on alcohol and drugs.
Vance’s family fully reflects this reality: the mother has drug addiction problems, while grandparents embody the ideals of the Irish and Scottish immigrants, which in America are nicknamed in a contemptuous way “Hillbilly“. Their cultural substrate is described by Vance in these terms:
Extreme loyalty, total dedication to the family and the country. But also with many negative characteristics: we do not like strangers and the different, even if the difference lies only in their appearance and in the way of acting.
The studies and the first works of Trump’s deputy
Vance therefore grows in a context of strong contrasts, but still finds its way. First, enter the Marines and is sent to Iraq as a military correspondent.
His path then seems to embody the American dream: he attends the State University of Ohio and the Yale Law School, where he graduated in Law and History and meets his future wife. After graduation, he works first as corporate lawyer in the prestige law firm Sidley Austinthen in the technological sector of Silicon Valley and finally in an investment company.
The political career: from criticism to Trump to vice -president
Thanks to the popularity obtained following the publication of his autobiographical novel, the voices of an entry into Vance politics begin to multiply. It is interesting to note that at the time, when he was asked what he thought of the then president Donald Trump, on his first term, he replied with comments that are certainly not admiration. We report below, an interview released in 2016 in which Vance said: “Trump is a bad candidate, and frankly he is a bad person”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwwov7fiako
Over the years, then, his opinion changed. In the 2021 Vance announced his candidacy for the Senate in Ohio with the support of the Republican party.
During the campaign for the Senate of 2022 He apologized to his previous public criticisms of Trump and obtained the support of New York Tychoon. His political career was therefore lightning: on January 31, 2023 Vance supported Donald Trump on the race in the presidential primary of the Republican Party. A last fundamental date in the story of JD Vance is that of July 15, 2024: on the occasion of the Republican National Convention, Trump announced that he had chosen Vance as vice -president for his second presidential mandate.
