J.D. Vance first caught the public’s attention with his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, a populist howl about Appalachia that accuses elites of betraying the white working class. Since then, Vance has cultivated some of the wealthiest elites in tech and venture capital—including former Google chairman Eric Schmidt and the billionaire VC Peter Thiel—to help him win a U.S. Senate seat and, in July, the Republican nomination for vice president.
With Donald Trump’s ticket on the rise, observers in the business community may well wonder what approach Vance will bring if voters put him in the White House. Will it be a radical populist agenda? Or will Vance deliver on the priorities of his well-heeled friends in Silicon Valley? It’s too soon to say, of course. But based on his record, Vanceonomics seems indifferent or even hostile to the traditional business priorities—such as laissez-faire industrial policy and easy access to goods and labor—that have been the bedrock of the Republican Party’s platform for over a century.
