After doing some of the readings on culture and regime, I’m incredibly interested in America’s unique relationship between culture and political regime. A politician which currently embodies this relationship for America is J.D Vance – Trumps vice presidential electorate. Vance comes from ‘white rural poor’ America, coming from an impoverished family with a mum who struggled with addiction. Despite knowing the issues that economic circumstances bring to poorer communities, he still claims that it is a cultural and laziness issue, not an economic one. Vance has also swung back and forth from more liberal views (including taking stances against Trump) to the other end of the pendulum as Trump’ V.P. electorate. I find that his story of a hardworking underdog resonates with many republicans and epitomizes the ‘American Dream’. I thought this article below had some interesting insights into his particular case.
I think this is a really interesting point to make! Especially when you take into account Vance's comments around subsidized childcare by implying that families should reach out to there extended family more. I think there has become a culture of choosing candidates based less on there ideals or policies and more so about wether we can see similarities between ourselves and them. We can see this in Trumps push to get religious voters while seeming to be not religious in the least in practice.
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