Today’s guest was influenced in large part by his Mamaw, a devoted Christian woman with an unrepentant potty-mouth, and the bestselling memoir that made her, and him, famous. I’m reminded of the first saw him interviewed, shortly after the presidential election in 2016, by a panel of flabbergasted talking heads on CNN who were trying, desperately it seemed, to make sense of Trump’s unlikely victory.
As you might recall, most of the pollsters got that one wrong, and a lot of deeply confused journalists were wondering why Trump won in Ohio, and in many so other places where Hillary Clinton was expected to easily prevail. The author of Hillbilly Elegy offered a thoughtful explanation, which came down to the simple fact that a lot of Americans in a lot of flyover states felt overlooked and underserved and taken for granted by their elected officials. Coincidentally, around the same time, I was invited on to Meet the Press to answer the same question. Prior to the election, I had predicted that the outcome was going to be a lot closer than people thought, and Chuck Todd wanted to know if the men and women I’d highlighted on Dirty Jobs might have provided me with some unique insight.
After the interview, Kim Strossel – a reporter at the Wall Street Journal who was also on the panel – asked me if I’d read Hillbilly Elegy or met the author.
“Not yet,” I said. “But I just saw him on CNN and liked what he had to say.”
“There’s an obvious parallel,” she said. “You’ve gotten famous working alongside a lot of forgotten Americans, and he’s gotten famous writing about them. You two would probably have a lot to discuss.”
Ten years later, it seems that Kim was right. I do in fact, have a lot to discuss with the author of Hillbilly Elegy, including his latest bestseller, Communion, which he’s been writing for the last decade. I suspect he’d have published it sooner had he not been distracted with his run for the Ohio Senate and subsequent elevation to Vice President of the United States. But regardless, Communion is finally available, and JD Vance has dropped by to discuss it, along various matters of national importance.
Our whole conversation is here. https://bit.ly/TWIHI493JDVance
A short clip is attached. Hopefully, Mamaw is watching