FFormer President Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate, J.D. Vance, formally accepted his vice presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night and gave a speech aimed at appealing to working-class voters in states Rust Belt swing voters critical of November elections.
Vance, a 39-year-old first-term Ohio senator, used the primetime platform to introduce himself to Republican voters across the country and share his journey from a “forgotten” Ohio industrial town to the halls of the Capitol. “I grew up in a place that the ruling class in Washington had left out,” Vance told the crowd. “But in these forgotten corners of our nation, people don’t ask for much – they just want a fair chance and a government that works for them.”
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Vance’s narrative, filled with personal anecdotes about his hometown and his family, underscored his transformation from Trump skeptic to staunch ally. Just eight years ago, Vance called himself a “Never Trump guy.” On Wednesday, he declared: “President Trump represents America’s last ship to restore what, if lost, may never be found again: a country where a working-class boy born far from the corridors of power can step onto this stage as the next vice president. of the United States of America.”
Vance’s candidacy, as the first millennial on a major party’s presidential ticket and a self-proclaimed representative of the “American Dream,” is seen by many Republicans as a strategic asset to win over the Midwestern population and a new generation of voters in the entire country in Trump’s candidacy. for re-election.
Here are some of the biggest moments and themes from Vance’s speech.
Vance hits Biden on NAFTA, Iraq and inflation
“Joe Biden has been a politician in Washington longer than I have been alive,” Vance said of the president and presumptive Democratic nominee, whose career in politics began at the local level in 1970. “For half a century, he has been the champion of all major policy initiatives to make America weaker and poorer.”
Vance sought to portray Biden as “out of touch” and as having made mistakes throughout his career that have worsened the struggles of ordinary Americans.
“When I was in fourth grade, a career politician named Joe Biden supported NAFTA, a bad trade deal that sent countless good jobs to Mexico. When I was a sophomore in high school, the same career politician named Joe Biden gave China a trade deal that further destroyed good American middle-class manufacturing jobs. When I was a senior in high school, the same Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq,” Vance said.
“Every step of the way, in small towns like mine in Ohio or neighboring Pennsylvania or Michigan and in states across the country, jobs have been sent overseas and our children have been sent to war.”
Vance later criticized “Joe Biden’s inflationary crisis” and his administration’s “Green New Coup.”
Vance bets everything on Trump
Vance compared “the scars inflicted by Joe Biden and the rest of the corrupt infiltrators in Washington” with Trump, who he said “is right on all these issues.”
“President Trump’s vision is clear and powerful: We are putting America first and not catering to Wall Street or globalist interests,” Vance said.
Vance embraced Trump’s values throughout his speech, defending protectionist trade policies, limits on foreign military commitments and reinforced support for domestic production. During his less than two years in the Senate, Vance has carved out a distinct profile by championing issues that mix economic populism with nationalist fervor, often aligning himself with Trumpism.
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Referring to immigration, he said newcomers are welcome in the U.S., but added that “when we allow newcomers into the American family, we allow them on our terms.”
And while Vance did not specifically address his opposition to more U.S. funding for Ukraine, a position that drew rebuke from some Republicans, he did say: “No more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.”
Also conspicuously absent from Vance’s speech was any mention of his hard-line anti-abortion stance, which Democrats have made the focal point of their campaign against him.
The Biden campaign released a statement after the speech calling Vance “the poster boy for Project 2025,” an ultra-conservative agenda created by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. “Backed by Silicon Valley and the billionaires who bought his vice presidential selection, Vance is Project 2025 in human form — an agenda that puts extremism and the ultra-rich above our democracy,” the Biden campaign said.
Vance makes a direct appeal to four swing states
Presenting himself as a fighter for the working class, Vance leaned on his rural roots to make a direct appeal to Rust Belt voters, who are seen as essential in determining the outcome of the 2024 election. he stated that he would work to elevate the interests of blue-collar voters, repeatedly naming Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin as top of mind for him.
Although Trump is currently vote ahead of Biden in all swing states, both campaigns are expected to focus their efforts on the so-called “Blue Wall” states that Biden captured in 2020.
“This moment is not about me,” Vance said. “It’s about the auto worker in Michigan wondering why incompetent politicians are destroying their jobs.”
“It’s about a factory worker in Wisconsin who makes things with his hands and is proud of American craftsmanship,” he continued. “It’s about the energy worker in Pennsylvania and Ohio who doesn’t understand why Joe Biden is willing to buy energy from tin-pot dictators around the world when he can buy it from his own citizens, right here in his own country .”
“In small towns in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, we have seen jobs disappear and families torn apart by decisions made in the halls of power,” Vance said. “To the people of Middletown, Ohio, and all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and every corner of our nation – I promise you this, I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from. ”
Vance announces his family and ‘homeland’
Vance, who first rose to prominence as the author of his best-selling 2016 memoir Hillbilly elegy, recounted his difficult childhood in Middletown, Ohio, where his mother struggled with addiction and his father was absent. He paid homage to the woman who raised him – his “mommy, the name we country folk gave our grandmothers” – and then, in an emotional moment, celebrated his mother, who was in the audience.
“Our movement is about single mothers like mine who struggled with money and addiction but never gave up,” Vance said, adding that she will be 10 years sober next January. “If President Trump agrees to this, we will celebrate at the White House,” he said.
“I love you, mom,” Vance said, as the crowd erupted in chants of “JD’s mom!”
Vance chronicled his journey from Middletown to the Marines to Ohio State University to Yale Law School, where he met his wife Usha, who introduced him Wednesday night.
“Some people tell me I lived the American dream and of course they are right and I am very grateful,” he said. “But the American dream that always counted most wasn’t starting a business, or becoming a senator, or even being here with you good people, amazing though that is. My most important American dream was to become a good husband and a good father.”
Vance ended his speech by describing his family cemetery situated on a mountainside in eastern Kentucky, where seven generations of his ancestors rest. “This is a homeland. This is our homeland,” Vance said, invoking a sense of nationalism. “People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home.”
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
