Hillbilly Elegy director Ron Howard has taken a swipe at JD Vance, suggesting that Donald Trump’s Republican running mate has “changed” since he first met him.

Earlier this year, Vance was selected to be Trump’s possible vice president in the 2024 US presidential election race – but before his political career, he was known for being the author of memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which was later adapted into a Netflix film of the same name.

Since being announced as Trump’s running mate, Vance has been criticised for comments that saw him refer to women, such as Trump’s presidential rival Kamala Harris, as “childless cat ladies”. This prompted swift backlash and accusations of sexism, with Vance claiming the remarks were made in “sarcasm”.

  • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    “When we spoke around the time that I knew him, he was not involved in politics or claimed to be particularly interested. So that was then.”

    I have a hard time believing that. Filmed in June 2019, and Vance was elected November 2022, I simply don’t buy that he 180’d that hard just a year or two later. Perhaps Vance did not talk about campaign plans on set, but without question his narrow bigoted views would’ve been made clear. Ultimately, I too am surprised and disappointed, but in Ron Howard for making a movie about this ass.

    • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 months ago

      One of Vance’s former friends detailed the downfall of their friendship as Vance rose in politics. Despite their differences they were still friendly until 2021. Full article : https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/27/us/politics/jd-vance-friend-transgender.html

      During their last text exchange that was outlined in the article, they had this to say:

      “I know I can’t change your mind but the political voice you have become seems so far from the man I got to know in law school,” wrote Nelson, later explaining their position “as a trans person who accessed needed health care so I could live a full life.”

      It does seem like Vance did 180 from someone equating Trump to Hitler to Trump’s running mate in just a few years.

      • shinratdr@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        I don’t even know why this is a question, people can absolutely be radicalized in a short period time, especially the apolitical. Even faster when large sums of money are involved.

    • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      RFK also 180d from never wanting to go into politics to helping the Trump campaign. It’s almost like there’s something about the Republican party that draws in money-hungry grifters…

    • GetOffMyLan@programming.dev
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      2 months ago

      On his press tour, he had a lot of negative things to say about Trump. In conversation with Fresh Air’s Terry Gross, he said:

      “I can’t stomach Trump. I think that he’s noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place.”

      In public, Vance said that Trump was, “unfit for our nation’s highest office.”

      And in unearthed private messages, he compared Trump to Adolf Hitler.

      From 2016. Seems he did drastically change his opinions on trump once in politics.

      • breetai@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Vance actually had really good ideas until he went Trump. A mixture of far left and middle right politics. Now you never hear his working class ideas.

        It’s hard to imagine this is the guy who said declare war on corporations

          • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Fascism was originally supposed to be a mixture of “the best parts of the right and the left”.

            • ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              My point exactly (I actually wrote a clarification that pointed out some of the ways in which the right has and currently co opts leftist ideas and language to gain power, including the father of fascism himself Mussolini, but I ended up rambling so I deleted it all and left it as is lol)

              There is no compromise between two inherently incompatible views of the world, the one that wants to grow and expand and hoard power and resources at any cost simply won’t allow for any real equity or justice (E: or competition!) to exist, it depends on inequality, exploitation, division, and oppression to function, and will consume and destroy anything that gets in its way. It’s why capitalism cannot be reformed, it must be abolished.

              Or TL;DR:

              don't be the asshole in the middle

        • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 months ago

          Oh wait, did he spend any time implementing them or did he spend his time turning his nonprofit Our Ohio Renewal into a fucking grift?

          Bet you can guess the answer.

    • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Look into Vance a bit deeper. He’s no hillbilly. Nor Appalachian. He was born in Middletown Ohio. He went to Yale. He’s latched on to experiences only heard about in stories from his family. Pretending it was something he did. He’s the lowest kind of low.

      • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        The thing that f****** got me is he was all read this book and you’ll understand why we respond the way we do. And you go through the entire book waiting for the other shoe to drop or the first shoe to drop.

        It goes right from business drying up in Appalachia and drugs moving in, to him trying to scare the s*** out of the poor to hate the foreigners while taking their money and giving it to the corporations who don’t give two f**** about the people.

        The book itself is just a grift.

        • APassenger@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          It’s out front in a local Barnes and Noble in the SF Bay Area.

          His grift worked, I think. So many people on the left want to understand the right, that they reward bad behavior and put themselves in positions to be tugged right.

          It’s okay to simply reject the book without reading it (or buying it). But here we are. And it’s okay to not watch Fox News and reject their rhetoric without watching it.

          • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Oh I didn’t buy his book I just read it.

            And I’m here to tell people that it’s not worth their time or money. And I bring this up probably to the same 60 people every time just in case someone new happens to see it.

            I, however, don’t entirely agree on not watching Fox News. I certainly wouldn’t make it a habit of watching it but their coverage of the DNC was actually pretty enlightening. I was at a local pizza place the pizza is great but the family are of course staunch Republicans. We were stuck in the last booth in the place and I thought oh great I’m going to just have to deal with this s*** until the kids get their fill of pizza. But I occasionally looked up and found that they really had nothing. They bitched and complained about a bunch of stuff that was kind of nitpicky but for all the negative they wanted to sell they didn’t have anything meaningful to say about it. And that said a lot more than the actual CNN coverage of it.

          • Clent@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            It’s is possible to understand the right and not be pulled right.

            The people who are pulled, are pulled because they have something in them that resonated with the right’s hate filled ideology.

            The ideology isn’t that compelling and the right wing voters are not victims. They are all active participants in the spread of hated.

            They see themselves as victims, their ideology is based in their own imagined victimhood. It is foolish to actually except their victimhood, that is their ideology tugging on you.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Yeah and for those who aren’t aware, Middletown is in the Dayton-Cincinnati area. It’s not even a little Appalachian, but rather extremely rust belt

    • breetai@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      His mentor says hillbilly elegy was written to propel him into politics. So I find it hard to believe he wasn’t interested when that was the reason for the book

    • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I said same thing not long ago when learned of the fucking movie and saw who directed it. I was sad to think that he was right wing and why would he direct this movie. Also fuck Netflix for funding it.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 months ago

      JD Vance’s Wikipedia page:

      In December 2016, Vance said he planned to move to Ohio and would consider starting a nonprofit or running for office.

      • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        He did start a nonprofit for help with addiction. No money was spent to help those with addiction issues. It was graft that he used to funnel to his campaign.