A review of three books--including Vance's Hillbilly Elegy

The rocket-like ascendency of J. D. Vance to political power in Trump's Republican Party is, to many, astonishing. I knew, somewhere along the line, that I'd written and published a review of Vance's best-selling Hillbilly Elegy, a masterful study of Donald Trump's own ascent to power, a book that opened the floodgates (I've used that cliche often lately!) for all kinds of writers and pundits to try their own hands at understanding the bizarre popularity of a man who'd been little more than a thug--a billionaire, too, of course, but grifter. 

What I could find was a larger review of two other books I compared to Hillbilly Elegy. It appeared in the March, 2022, issue of Pro Rege. You can read the whole article here, or wait for it to come out on the blog in three pieces.

No one makes more news right now than J. D. Vance. I thought I'd add my own two-cents worth.

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It’s not difficult to look up at Dignity, South Dakota’s most recent gigantic sculpture (a la Rushmore and Crazy Horse) and register more than a little snobbishness, despite her remarkable size and beauty. Historically at least, white folks haven’t shown all that much respect to Native Americans, women especially, some might argue. 

If crime figures tally anything, yet today indigenous women don’t command much respect. Still, there she stands, far above the northern end of Lake Francis Case, a gorgeous, fifty-foot Indian princess looking down at once was the Missouri River but is now one of a series of reservoirs that, ironically, collectively drowned a substantial historical record of Native history and culture forever. 

Dignity? Sure. Anyway, there she stands in her diamond-studded raiment, like the royalty Indian women rarely have been, perfectly beautiful as she receives a dazzling star quilt. Night or day, she’s impressive—she really is. 

Still, it’s difficult to be enthralled. South Dakota’s Dignity can perhaps too easily be seen as yet another iteration of the white man’s desire to romanticize Native life. Dignity may well be the latest version of the “noble savage.” 

I couldn’t help thinking of Dignity, that fine sculpture, when I read Chris Arnade’s Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back-Row America, because in it, Arnade does everything he can to feature fellow human beings (of all races, by the way) who in the common mind may least express what most of us believe to be dignity. It’s a precious task he’s up to. 

“The image of God” is not a phrase you’ll find in Arnade’s Dignity, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t on the trail of the foundational, Christian truth. He wants to know society’s most unloved, so he hangs out at McDonalds, attends shaky Pentecostal fellowships and smoky strip clubs on seamy streets all over the country, rural areas as well as urban, looking for dignity among those we too easily assume have none. In Dignity, he ends up looking to find something of the image of God. 

Arnade’s Dignity is one of a shelf full of roughly similar books. Oddly enough, J. D. Vance is presently running for a U. S. Senate seat from Ohio and has become almost exactly the kind of politician Trump himself appears able to clone. Whatever he is today, he was the first to alert the public to Trump’s beloved reception among those men and women aggrieved by tribal politics and the virtual disappearance of jobs that pay enough to raise a family. They were left behind, and Trump knew it.

more of the review tomorrow. . .