https://amgreatness.com/2021/07/05/why-t...j-d-vance/

Vance is from Middletown, Ohio, a blue collar town that in 1900 had among the most millionaires per capita. Now it has closed steel plants.

"The Progressive Left has a bullseye on J. D. Vance. Ever since he announced his run for the U.S. Senate in Middletown, Ohio last week to replace retiring Republican Rob Portman, the media has been bashing him. The Daily Beast claims he’s “an avatar of GOP corruption” and is upset that he mentioned Jeffrey Epstein and John Weaver as sex predators (the author says that’s a QAnon conspiracy!), while New York magazine says Vance’s campaign “feels doomed” less than 24 hours after he made his announcement speech in front of a pumped-up crowd of around 500.

The liberal press is joined in its opposition to Vance by the anti-Trump ex-Republicans at the Lincoln Project, which spent close to $100 million against Trump last year. Bill Kristol and a list of other D.C.-based Trump haters have spent the days since his announcement calling Vance a “dirtbag” and a racist for using horrible terms like “nation-state...."

How did Vance avoid the siren song? How did he avoid becoming just another guy who left middle America, went to some elite school, and forgot, despised, or denounced where he came from? I think the answer must come from two things: how he was raised and his faith.

His book talks about the value his family placed on loyalty, especially family loyalty, and that has clearly stuck with him. But the other part is his Christian faith which has clearly been both his rock and his hope. In his own words, he said “. . . the more I saw our ruling class from the inside, the more I realized he (Donald Trump) was right to attack them in the way he did.”

And that’s why he’ll continue to be the object of particularly ugly attacks. All of his political enemies know he can win. And they’ll do anything to stop him, because they’ve already offered him the world and he turned them down. "

Middletown, Ohio, where my sister once lived, is part of what helped me understand the Trump phenomena. It is the home of Armco Steel, now called AK Steel.
Everyone has known since the 90s that China was subsidizing its steel industry, damaging or destroying western companies like Armco. Nobody did anything about it. Armco is a shell of what it once was. The Father of one of my brother-in-laws helped shut down a US Steel plant as one of his last jobs before retiring.

Both parties did nothing for 30 years while our industry was destroyed by subsidized competition.

(07-06-2021 09:56 PM)bullet Wrote:  Middletown, Ohio, where my sister once lived, is part of what helped me understand the Trump phenomena. It is the home of Armco Steel, now called AK Steel.
Everyone has known since the 90s that China was subsidizing its steel industry, damaging or destroying western companies like Armco. Nobody did anything about it. Armco is a shell of what it once was. The Father of one of my brother-in-laws helped shut down a US Steel plant as one of his last jobs before retiring.

Both parties did nothing for 30 years while our industry was destroyed by subsidized competition.

Agree. There is still a mill just outside of Ashland, KY, near where I grew up. Could see the nighttime slang dumps light up the sky.

(07-07-2021 04:33 AM)EKUSteve Wrote:  

(07-06-2021 09:56 PM)bullet Wrote:  Middletown, Ohio, where my sister once lived, is part of what helped me understand the Trump phenomena. It is the home of Armco Steel, now called AK Steel.
Everyone has known since the 90s that China was subsidizing its steel industry, damaging or destroying western companies like Armco. Nobody did anything about it. Armco is a shell of what it once was. The Father of one of my brother-in-laws helped shut down a US Steel plant as one of his last jobs before retiring.

Both parties did nothing for 30 years while our industry was destroyed by subsidized competition.

Agree. There is still a mill just outside of Ashland, KY, near where I grew up. Could see the nighttime slang dumps light up the sky.

I used to call them midnight sunsets.