J.D. Vance: A Hillbilly Ancestry as Rewritten by Harvard
🏞️ Appalachia and the Scotch-Irish Fantasy
J.D. Vance, born James David Bowman in 1984 in Middletown, Ohio, rebranded himself with his stepfather’s surname “Vance”—an early step in his ongoing personal PR campaign.
His maternal ancestors hail from Jackson, Breathitt, and Knott Counties in Eastern Kentucky, deeply Appalachian and heavily Scotch-Irish 🏴🇮🇪 in ancestry. This lineage includes coal miners, veterans, and folks who genuinely struggled with poverty and addiction—people he’d later turn into political pawns and caricatures in his memoir Hillbilly Elegy.
Yes, Vance came from working-class stock.
No, he didn’t invent being poor.
And yes, he later used that pain as a springboard to Yale Law School, venture capital, and a bizarre political transformation from “Trump critic” to full MAGA mascot.
🧓 Family Dysfunction, Rewritten for TV
Vance’s mother, Bev Vance, struggled with addiction, while his grandmother, “Mamaw,” became the breakout character in his memoir. The family tale is marked by trauma—but also love, community, and resilience.
Instead of honoring that complexity, Vance flattened it into a morality play, where the real villain wasn’t the opioid crisis or lack of opportunity—it was personal failure and welfare dependency. His version of “ancestral pride” became a blueprint for blaming the poor while climbing over them.
He could’ve been a voice for nuance. Instead, he became the voice for white grievance politics wrapped in Harvard packaging.
🏴 Scotch-Irish? More Like Scotch-Tape Patriotism
Vance’s ancestry fits the profile of many white Southerners and Midwesterners: Scotch-Irish Protestants, likely with a mix of English, German, and possibly some Welsh roots—hardworking rural settlers who fought in America’s wars and built blue-collar towns.
But instead of honoring that heritage with humility, Vance wields it like a moral cudgel. He paints his ancestors as noble victims of liberal elitism, all while:
Sucking up to billionaires like Peter Thiel
Performing culture war cosplay on Fox News
Supporting policies that hurt the very people he claims to represent
In short, he took his ancestors’ real struggles and turned them into bumper sticker ideology for the highest bidder.
đź“ś The Vance Name: A Rebrand in Search of Relevance
The name “Vance” wasn’t even originally his. Born James David Bowman, he took the name of his stepfather—a symbolic shift from a chaotic early life to a more “presentable” identity. That change mirrors his public arc:
From working-class kid → to Yale Law social experiment → to Silicon Valley venture capitalist → to Trump loyalist senator.
Basically, Hillbilly Elegy is just The Prince if Machiavelli had written it while wearing Carhartt in a think tank.
🎠Final Thought: The Costume of Ancestry
J.D. Vance’s ancestry includes people who survived real suffering, built real communities, and lived with dignity—even without degrees or bestsellers.
Vance, by contrast, panders in their name, leveraging their story for political gain while spouting clichés, chasing clout, and cosplaying as a down-home patriot in designer boots.
He may be Scotch-Irish in blood, but in spirit, he’s 100% opportunist.