Ohio U.S. Senate Candidate J.D. Vance Explains to CPAC Texas How the ‘Rise of the Hillbilly’ Will Save America

U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance (R-OH) explained his nascent outsider campaign to an audience at CPAC Texas in Dallas on Friday.

Vance, author of the bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy, said that the “rise of the hillbilly” will be what redeems America from the precipice of despotism and tyranny.

“I grew up in southwestern Ohio, I was raised by my mamaw and papaw, who came from southeastern Kentucky coal country,” Vance said, explaining his humble roots.

He left home for the Iraq War but kept his “hillbilly” values for the rest of his life. Vance said that his mother was initially worried about him serving in the U.S. marine core but came around after hearing how his sacrifice for the nation was necessary by a recruiter.

“The reason I am running for Senate, the reason that I love this country, is because the country was so good to me. The people who are here supporting me, the people who are there for me, everyone from public school teachers who took an interest in me to the marine core drill instructors who provided needed discipline,” Vance said.

“This country, ladies and gentlemen, is a great place, and it was an especially great place to a kid like me, and for that reason, I believe, it’s time to step up, it’s time to fight for it, and…it’s time to save this country and do it in the right way,” he added.

Vance said that his rise shows that the American Dream is not dead, and that people born into poverty and dysfunctional family lives can achieve great success if they are determined and have cultural and social systems that help them.

Formerly a Never Trumper, Vance has seen the light and become a staunch advocate of Trumpism. He was able to earn Trump’s endorsement after a hard campaign and wants to build upon the success of his movement to provide a better life for all Americans.

“There was something that President Trump said, something that never got as much attention as I thought it should because you hear a lot about this word “dreamers,” about people who are in this country, some of them in this country illegally, and about the dreams that they have,” Vance said.

“And he said that, you know, that we never talk about is that American citizens have dreams too, and I think about that at this moment when so many of our citizens…thanks to the policies of the Democrats and the Biden administration, thanks to the woke corporations who silence Americans and ship American jobs overseas, there are a lot of American citizens who are having their dreams challenged, and, ladies and gentlemen, it is time that we here in this room fought for them, and that’s exactly what we are going to do,” he added.

Vance urged for people at CPAC Texas to support his campaign for U.S. Senate on behalf of the forgotten man. His brand of populism flies in the face of the neoliberal “free market” orthodoxy that has dominated Republican politics for a generation.

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