JD Vance’s opportunistic elegy  

JD Vance had once, after Russia invaded Ukraine, said on TV that he didn’t care what happens in Ukraine. If he is elected as U.S. vice president, the Ukrainian people will suffer even more than they already do.  

I have no aspirations to hold public office, and the only time I was on TV was on the day of Russia’s full-scale invasion talking about how worried I am about my family in Ukraine. But although a nobody, I’d like Vance to know that I care what happens in his native Appalachia, a land as much under attack as my own, though by a different enemy. 

Vance is aware that there are many millions of people in Ukraine on whom Russian missiles rain daily, and whose bravest (or least fortunate) die on the frontlines every day. Given his background, I am very puzzled why he doesn’t care whether those people live or die. 

I learned about Vance’s land from his book, “Hillbilly Elegy.” I remember being struck by the similarities between Appalachia and even a pre-war Ukraine — kind, simple people suffering from evil largely beyond their control. Since I read Vance’s book, Ukraine’s fate has gotten far worse. Vance’s land — if you believe the speakers at the Republican National Committee — is also in crisis, along with the rest of the U.S. 

JD Vance and I are similar, not just because we both come from the land of misery — we also both ended up at Yale Law School.  

We even took the same course there. Professor Amy “Tiger Mother” “Kavanaugh-gate” Chua taught both of us international business transactions. Instead of requiring me to take an exam, Chua asked me to do some research for her book “World on Fire”, in which she explored the phenomenon of market-dominant minorities, or ethnic groups that control a disproportionate share of wealth. My research piece was about Russians dominating (only economically at that point) Ukraine. As part of the same course, four years later, Vance worked on his “Hillbilly Elegy” manuscript, a book that Chua encouraged him to write.  

He wrote his own book, I wrote a footnote (if that) to Chua’s. I got an Honors grade (Yale’s “A”) for my efforts. It might be that Vance will get a vice presidency for his. 

Which is why I am so sad that he said he doesn’t care about my land. Of all people, I thought he would care. Not being indifferent to others’ suffering is what makes us human, in my opinion. Even stranger, Vance is indifferent despite the fact that he comes from a land where people also live in pain, and despite the fact that he wrote a book about that land and how it shaped him. 

My ailing parents and sister live in Ukraine, with missiles whizzing over them. I am sad that JD Vance doesn’t care whether they are dead or alive. I am even sadder that he said so publicly; as a high-level public figure, he might now show others that it’s OK to feel the same way.  

Vance’s book was a plea to readers to care about his native land — and about him. While very different, the challenges his land faces are just as severe, and just as heart-breaking, as those my land faces. I remember being close to tears reading about his mother and how she fought her demons. If I could, I’d tell Vance how my mom runs to the cellar and prays every time she learns that the Russians launched missiles 500 miles away.  

Part of me wonders whether I’d have written a book about my own journey — landing in Boston in 1994 straight from a post-Soviet impoverished Ukraine with $20 in my pocket, speaking no English, and then enrolling in the Yale Law School five years later — if Professor Chua had encouraged me to do so. But my story — and Vance’s story — is not that different from the millions of other stories where people overcome the odds. Some, like Vance, write books about it. But all — or so I thought — genuinely care about places like the ones they come from, because they are self-aware enough to know that by not caring about others who suffer, they rob themselves of their identity.  

People dear to JD Vance — his family, his wife’s family, Professor Chua’s family — all come from down-on-their-luck places and survived because someone, something, cared for them enough to take care of their people when they could not. For Vance, it was the Marines, and then scholarships to Ohio State and Yale Law. For me, it was a U.S. government and Bates College scholarships and, like Vance, Yale Law. That Vance doesn’t care about places like the one he comes from means that, when in a position to help, he’d never help them. Having benefited himself, he isn’t willing to do for others what others did for him.  

If he has his way, his “Hillbilly Elegy” would be an elegy for one.  

I hope Chua would not suggest Vance write his book had she known where that suggestion would lead to. JD Vance has exploited the misery of his land and his people to make a name for himself. I am convinced that if he is elected our next vice president — if he successfully exploits our gullibility and our empathy — he won’t care for everyday Americans in the time of their need, just like he doesn’t care about Ukrainians in theirs.   

Anatoliy Bizhko is president and founder of the nongovernmental organization Partnership for Corruption-Free Ukraine.