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**MAY 2, 2022**
Kuttner on TAP
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**** Fake Populist Meets Real Populist
An Ohio Senate race between J.D. Vance and Paul Ryan would test the
appeal of cultural grievances versus economic ones.
J.D. Vance came to prominence at age 31 with his best-selling memoir
**Hillbilly Elegy**. The book was well reviewed, but a lot about it was
fake. It posed as an appreciation of his redneck neighbors and kinfolk,
but much of Vance's narrative blamed their travails on their own bad
values and behaviors.
Christopher Caldwell, writing in Sunday's
**Times**, described Vance as having written about Ohio's migrant
hillbillies "without condescension
."
Caldwell must have read a different book. The one I read dripped moral
superiority.
Having straightened himself out in the military, Vance went on to Ohio
State, Yale Law School, and ended up as a senior executive at Peter
Thiel's private equity firm. Billionaire Thiel is now bankrolling
Vance's Senate campaign, where Vance has positioned himself as a
born-again Trumper.
No long ago, Vance was ridiculing Trump, calling him "reprehensible" and
"an idiot." Now, no right-wing fringe position is too lunatic for him.
Vance secured Trump's endorsement; and thanks to Thiel's money and
the TV ads it pays for, Vance polls narrowly in the lead
,
in a primary with multiple candidates. His contradictions could still
sink him.
If Vance does win, he will do so by having savaged other Republicans in
the race, notably former State Treasurer Josh Mandel, who was the
front-runner until Vance made off with Trump's endorsement. Mandel,
like Vance, migrated from thoughtful conservative to Trump wannabe. But
Vance proved to be the more shameless opportunist. And Trump, the
ultimate opportunist, forgave Vance for his earlier attacks. (At a
Sunday rally, Trump couldn't keep the names straight, and referred to
his endorsed candidate as J.D. Mandel
.)
A contest between Vance and the likely Democrat, Congressman Paul Ryan,
will test several questions. How divisive and damaging is Trump in the
Republican Party? Would traditional conservatives hold their noses and
vote for Vance in the general election? How does the raw appeal of
Trumpism to Trump's base affect swing voters in this quintessential
swing state? And most importantly, can genuine economic populism beat
fake populism?
This last question is much bigger than the Ohio Senate race. Democrats
nationally have a shot at defeating Trumpism and incipient fascism only
if they succeed in refocusing debate on the downward slide that is
behind so much of the voter anger, and demanding bold measures to
reverse it. That will not be accomplished by private equity guys
wielding cultural hates.
****
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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