JD Vance vowed to ‘never forget’ Middletown. Some say he already has.

The Republican vice-presidential nominee has repeatedly rebuffed entreaties to lend a hand in the hometown he made famous in “Hillbilly Elegy.” MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — Ami Vitori was tired of politicians using her home city to illustrate the woes of the Rust Belt even as they neglected it outside of campaign season. Advertisement The friend was JD Vance, who had just been catapulted to stardom by his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy” — and who would soon return to Ohio on what he described as a mission to help forgotten communities like his hometown. “God help us with the Ivanka visit,” Vance wrote to Vitori in a Facebook message on Oct. 6, 2016, the day the former president’s daughter held an event at a local steel tube supplier. “I’ve encouraged hillary’s people to do something in Middletown,” he said in a follow-up message, adding, “I have told my Republican political friends that if they hadn’t ignored the Middletowns of the world for 30 years we might [not] have Trump to contend with in the first place.” Vance did not succeed in drawing the Clinton campaign to Middletown, an effort that has not previously been reported. Their belief was reinforced in early 2017, when Vance published a New York Times column that announced his imminent return to Ohio, described his friendship with Vitori, and declared that people like him should ask “whether the choices we make for ourselves are necessarily the best for our home communities — and for the country.” Middletown’s philanthropists and business leaders soon began seeking to get him involved in civic affairs. Vitori says she now believes Vance, who is no longer Trump’s antagonist but his running mate, has come to resemble the politicians he once criticized — talking big but doing little to help the Ohio steel city he depicted in his bestseller. “His national profile was traded off the back of Middletown,” said Vitori, who has owned multiple businesses downtown and served on the City Council. “Most people would expect that if you’ve gotten someplace by publicizing your story of a location, maybe that location deserves some continued engagement.” Interviews with dozens of residents, business owners and civic leaders in Middletown — as well as Vance’s previously undisclosed Facebook messages with Vitori and other private communications reviewed by The Washington Post — illuminate Vance’s fraught relationship in recent years with the southern Ohio city he put on America’s political and cultural map. Some acknowledge and excuse Vance’s absence from Middletown affairs, saying it’s appropriate for him to focus on national issues, particularly over his past 21 months as a first-term senator. His job is to make this country better,” said Linda Moorman, who owns a stained-glass store downtown with her husband and organizes the town’s annual Santa Parade. “He can’t fix our problems by himself.” Nevertheless, Moorman added with a wry smile, “I’d love to see him in my parade.” Others take a dimmer view, saying Vance’s actions show that he regards his hometown more as a political prop than as a community that could use the help of someone with his fame, power and connections. “I can tell you, I’ve spent my time in the trenches, doing my part to make Middletown better,” said Michael Bailey, a pastor and former steelworker who once headed the union that represented employees of the city’s storied steel plant. “Sen. Vance weighs every vote and policy position on how it will affect communities like Middletown, which have been harmed by decisions from Washington for far too long,” Vance spokesman Luke Schroeder said in an emailed statement. The vice-presidential nominee “has been and will continue to be a staunch opponent of policies that harm American workers and families,” he said. Schroeder said the former president’s agenda, including boosting U.S. manufacturing jobs and supply chains, “cutting taxes for workers, restoring energy dominance and putting an end to illegal mass migration, will deliver much needed relief for residents of Middletown and Americans across the country.” ‘You have a voice’ Middletown is more than the central backdrop of Vance’s memoir; it is a supporting character, whose story he interwove with the struggles and triumphs of his own family. He described how his grandparents, “dirt-poor and in love,” migrated from Appalachia two generations earlier, drawn by the promise of the city’s steel industry, “the engine that brought them from the hills of Kentucky into America’s middle class.” As Vance’s mother became addicted to opioids and his family descended into dysfunction, Middletown — in his telling — dwindled to “little more than a relic of American industrial glory” as its steel plant shed jobs and cash-for-gold stores overtook its downtown. Sam Ashworth, former executive director of the Middletown Historical Society, who worked for 15 years at the city’s steel corporation, said Vance’s description in the book of “an Ohio steel town that has been hemorrhaging jobs and hope for as long as I can remember” is off base. The closest it came was in 2006, when a bitter labor dispute led to a year-long lockout of unionized steelworkers — a crisis that is never mentioned in “Hillbilly Elegy.” Today, Middletown’s 124-year-old steel factory is owned by Cleveland-Cliffs, the country’s largest producer of flat-rolled steel, and still employs nearly 2,400 people, according to the company — less than a third of its workforce in the early 1980s, but still one of the county’s largest employers. “But the steel company survived, and today is thriving.” The Vance campaign defended the accuracy of Middletown’s portrayal in the candidate’s memoir, noting that other factories — including the paper mills that began operating in the 19th century — have closed. “There’s no debate that Middletown has struggled over the decades,” Schroeder said. “Sen. That’s the nature of publishing your life story.” Advertisement Vitori, 50, grew up in an affluent section of Middletown and attended the same high school as Vance. As Vitori tried to lure other businesses and people back downtown, she grew frustrated with what she considered the unfairly negative attention Vance’s memoir was bringing to Middletown. “I stormed over and introduced myself,” she said, telling Vance that if he spent more time in their home city, “he wouldn’t still be talking about Middletown when he goes on the talk shows in the way he is.” Vance was polite and seemed curious about her perspective, she said. A few days later, angered by a Washington Post article about Middletown Trump supporters that invoked “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vitori confronted Vance again, this time in a Facebook post. She pointed out that while Vance stated in “Hillbilly Elegy” that “Middletown produced zero Ivy League graduates” and “virtually no one will go to college out of state,” she personally knew at least three people from their high school who had gone to Harvard or Brown. “I’m sorry if you think that bringing attention to a large segment of the town who lives very tough lives isn’t ‘making a positive difference,’” he wrote. “No need to apologize at all, and I’m sorry if anything I said came off the wrong way,” he said. “I really think we’re on the same side in this whole thing.” ‘Committed citizens’ In February 2017, Vitori invited Vance to the upcoming gala of the Community Building Institute of Middletown, a nonprofit devoted to helping the city’s impoverished families and at-risk kids. Share this article Share “I’d love to have you as [a] supporter and would be happy to tell you more, give you a tour and introduce [you] to the amazing change makers running the organization,” she wrote in a Facebook message Feb. 10. I’d love that,” Vance wrote back the same day. “I’ll be in town in early March.” Advertisement Vance did come to Middletown in early March, delivering a public lecture at Miami University’s Middletown campus: “From Middletown to the Bestseller List: The Reality of the American Dream.” However, he did not attend the Community Building Institute gala and told Vitori he did not have time to tour the group’s office, their messages show. A week later, the Times published his column, “Why I’m Moving Home.” Vance devoted a substantial passage to Vitori, describing her as a friend who had returned to Ohio after finding success out of state, as he now planned to do. “Talking with Ami, I realized that we often frame civic responsibility in terms of government taxes and transfer payments,” Vance wrote. “But this focus can miss something important: that what many communities need most is not just financial support, but talent and energy and committed citizens to build viable businesses and other civic institutions.” To Vitori, such words signaled that Vance planned to use his newfound celebrity and influence to aid in Middletown’s revitalization. The Shift Commission never came to town, and the one investor Vance suggested to Vitori wasn’t interested, according to their messages. (It eventually closed, leading to later recriminations among employees who said it was a vehicle for Vance’s political ambitions; Vance has said the group encountered unforeseen hardship when a senior staff member was diagnosed with cancer.) Vance still had family members in Middletown, and was occasionally seen around the city — especially when Ron Howard, Glenn Close and Amy Adams showed up in 2019 to film the adaptation of “Hillbilly Elegy” in his old neighborhood. In early 2020, Vitori arranged for Vance to meet with officials from the Middletown Community Foundation — the city’s flagship nonprofit, famous for awarding hundreds of scholarships every year. John Kiser, the board’s president at the time, said he tried to enlist Vance for a new committee he was forming. “I said, ‘We’d love to have you sit in on some of the economic development committee meetings, or even serve on it,’” Kiser recalled. “And he said, ‘Yeah, I’d be interested in doing that.’” A couple of months later, the foundation’s chief executive, Traci Barnett, emailed Vance to follow up. “You can decide what would be the best use of your time and talent here in Middletown.” Vance replied: “I am definitely interested in being more involved, though I think it’s a little premature to commit to one particular board. I’d like to learn a bit more about the various organizations and where I might actually be useful.” At the end of 2020, Vance asked former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt to donate $10,000 to the foundation. Vance also donated signed copies of “Hillbilly Elegy” for a foundation fundraiser, according to his campaign. “Our office is open,” a man’s voice stated through an intercom, declining to unlock the door or answer questions about how many constituents had visited that day or whether anyone else was present with him. In a statement, Vance’s Senate office said that its Middletown branch is “one of the highest performing offices” and has resolved hundreds of constituent cases this year. The statement said that although the location is open to constituents, the door is locked as a security measure and “nearly all constituents choose to work with our staff via phone or email for their own convenience.” The statement added, “The procurement process for office signage has been ongoing for some time.” Earlier this year, the steel plant that employed Vance’s grandfather was awarded $500 million in federal funds to replace its blast furnace. Company officials said the investment would help them to expand their workforce and decrease production costs, effectively ensuring the industry’s survival in Middletown for at least another generation. Vance has assailed the bill, saying it is “dumb, does nothing for the environment and will make us all poorer.” Trump has vowed, if elected, to block the distribution of unspent funds, a move that could cut off Middletown. “Sen. Vance obviously wants to see more investment in cities like Middletown, both in Ohio and all across the country,” Vance campaign spokesman William Martin said. However, he said the “vast majority” of the bill was spent on other programs that were part of Harris’s “weak, failed and dangerously liberal agenda.” Kevin Kash, a Middletown attorney and former member of the Butler County Republican Central Committee whose son was close to Vance in high school, said he disagrees with complaints that Vance hasn’t done enough for his hometown. “People say, ‘Well, what’s he done for our community?’” Kash said. “When he came back to Middletown and we would spend time together talking about what was going on, or when we were messaging, I felt like he did genuinely care,” said Vitori, who plans to vote for Harris, the Democratic nominee. “I’m not exactly sure what the missing link is.” As she watches Vance campaigning today, she said, she wonders whether she was right to take him at his word. In his speech accepting the vice-presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in July, he described growing up in “a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington.” A few days later, when Vance held his first solo campaign rally as Trump’s running mate at Middletown High School, he promised that he would be different. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/10/01/jd-vance-middletown-ohio-hillbilly-elegy-texts/