Hope and Character Trump Race and Class
The stories of Vance and Scott speak to and transcend politics
Recently I read back-to-back the autobiographies of two political figures: A Hillbilly Elegy by Vice President J. D. Vance, and America: A Redemption Story by Senator Tim Scott. Despite their manifold differences, there is a striking resemblance between the two books—and the differences are less important than the similarities, which is itself instructive. At the core of each is the same essential message: hope in the face of adversity.
Vance’s account is well known at this point, having been adapted for a 2020 motion picture starring Glenn Close and Amy Adams. Born into a troubled household led by a mother who struggled with drug addiction and cycled through a series of husbands and lovers, Vance—the “son of a father I hardly knew and a woman I wished I didn’t”—learned to avoid forming relationships with any of the adult men who entered the family, rightly perceiving that the arrangement wasn’t long-term. The future vice president grew up in Middletown, Ohio, but the culture was Appalachian Kentucky—hillbilly, to use the term Vance himself does. Violence, prodigality, and lack of discipline suffused the neighborhood. Vance learned poor dietary and financial habits and often skipped school. By all appearances, and in line with what sociological norms would predict, the young Vance was headed for a life of economic and social dysfunction.
But there were countervailing influences as well. Most notably, his grandmother—Mamaw, in the provincial patois—though not in all respects a salutary influence, exhibited two key characteristics that made a crucial difference: constant availability and a high regard for education. Mamaw was the one person Vance could always rely on to be there when he needed her, materially or emotionally. This was enough to teach him the importance of stability, even if he didn’t experience enough of it. And Mamaw, who never reached high school herself, constantly stressed the importance of schooling as a path out of the poverty in which the family was immersed. Vance didn’t assimilate this lesson immediately, but eventually he put it into practice, graduating from Ohio State University and moving on to Yale Law School.
Tim Scott’s childhood was no walk in the park either. His most searing memory is of his mother walking out on his father when the man’s abuse and neglect reached a breaking point. His mother, his brother, and he moved in with his grandparents after his parents’ divorce, and his mother worked two jobs to keep the family afloat.
The hillbilly Vance grew up in the industrial North, while the black football star Scott confronted the culture of the Deep South. Both evince a love and appreciation for their roots, their ancestors, and the culture out of which they emerged, but both are also incisively critical of what they view as the weaknesses in those cultures and the faults of their forebears.
Vance paints a grim picture of hillbilly norms (what Thomas Sowell has called “cracker culture”) and the underclass of rust-belt America, about which there has been much commentary since the book appeared. He writes movingly about the shame of poverty and the ways in which class differences and biases determine the asymmetrical opportunities afforded to different Americans. Scott, in turn, describes the personal pain and societal impact of racial prejudice and racism. He stresses the continuing irritation of being treated differently because of the color of his skin.
Yet, what becomes clear in the pages of these accounts is that race and class are accidental, not essential. Class played a role in Vance’s life, to be sure; he felt shame at his poverty and wallowed for a time in the mire of low expectations. Similarly, racial prejudice had an undeniable impact on Scott’s life, and his African ancestry is part of who he is. Experiencing racism “infects your very identity,” he writes, and each encounter with it “is like ripping open a deep wound that never has enough time to heal.” But what defined the life trajectories of Vance and Scott was not race or class; it was character. Consistent love and support from figures who were close to them and timely interventions from others prevented disastrous downward spirals and furnished a foundation from which to reach higher. Their own character traits—perseverance, integrity, creativity, social engagement—provided the additional supports necessary to resist the pull of poverty and family breakdown that entrapped many of their peers.
The tone of Vance’s book is melancholic, while Scott’s is sanguine. Vance stresses the ongoing and seemingly intractable challenges of the white lower and working classes; Scott is more optimistic about the potential for success and redemption. But beneath these tonal differences is the same core message. Both care deeply about the people of America—more specifically, the kinds of people from which they came—and both believe that improvement is possible given the right ingredients. The take-away message of both books is hope rather than despair, of a brighter rather than a darker future.
These accounts also exhibit another element that is at work; what Vance sometimes frames as good fortune and for Scott is providence. The right opportunity at the right time or a pivotal encounter with a life-altering friend or mentor: In the mystery of God’s plan, some receive these opportunities and others don’t. But it’s important not to get caught up in what is extraordinary in these narratives. Vance and Scott wrote books because one was a successful venture capitalist (soon to be US senator) and one was already a senator. They are exceptional, obviously. But the heart of their stories—hope in the midst of hardship—applies universally. Embracing and practicing the virtues Vance and Scott describe is the recipe for a rewarding life, even if (as is likely) one never becomes a senator. Vance’s upward path could have ended at the Marine Corps—no Yale Law School, no Silicon Valley career, no Senate—and it still would have been a meaningful success story (with or without a book deal). Scott’s journey could have terminated with the creation of his insurance business; a life spent as an entrepreneur serving your community is no mean accomplishment.
Though neither author focuses on politics in his autobiography, it’s impossible, in light of their public stature, not to think about the political dimension, which highlights another similarity in the midst of difference. Both Vance and Scott emerged from contexts that were heavily Democratic, but both ended up in the Republican Party. It’s not too difficult to discern why. Although they say little about policy, it’s clear in both explicit and implicit ways that neither one views government as the primary solution to the problems they see as most threatening to American well-being. Neither is a hardcore libertarian, and both see a role for government assistance and intervention in various situations. But, as their own experiences suggest, government policy, good or bad, only goes so far. Personal character, family, and culture—not government—are the main actors in these stories. Vance’s diagnosis of what ails the white lower class admits the role of economic policy in various ways, but it is more focused on the deficiencies of hillbilly culture. His book “is about reacting to bad circumstances in the worst way possible. It’s about a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it.” Meanwhile, “the federal government can’t end racism or stop hatred,” Scott insists. “Embrace your responsibility. Stand up to injustice. Love your neighbor. Serve and encourage others.”
These are themes that seem to resonate more on the Republican side of the aisle these days, and Vance and Scott both see it that way. The rise to prominence of men like this reflects—and reinforces—the changing demographic and ideological composition of partisan politics in the twenty-first century.