JD Vance is no pauper − he’s a classic example of ‘poornography,’ in which the rich try to speak on behalf of the poor

JD Vance has sold himself as a hillbilly, calling on his Appalachian background to bolster his credentials to speak for the American working class.

But there's a bit of a shell game going on when it comes to Vance ’s poverty credentials, says Julian Zelizer .

Zelizer : Vance 's work is actually part of a genre I call “poornography” created by middle- and upper-class people for like-minded readers.

John Sutter : The GOP 's young standard-bearer for the working classes simply repeats the same bootstrap rhetoric.

He says it's not simply a question about believing a politician or not, but it's about "representation inequality" He says poor people don't get to represent themselves, and those with cultural capital assume the right to speak for them.

In July 2024 , The New York Times reported that Vance ’s Yale law professor and author Amy Chua read an early version of what became Hillbilly Elegy ,” one that was more geared to an academic audience and grounded in political theory.

I would argue that his “grand theory” about the poor doesn’t work, because the poor unlike many other identity groups don’ve a platform to articulate and promote their own needs.