On Oct. 10, 2017, a fresh-faced J.D. Vance was direct and pragmatic about America’s energy future when asked whether the U.S. “should protect the coal and steel industries.”
The then-33-year-old author of Hillbilly Elegy was talking about his hardscrabble upbringing in southern Ohio and Kentucky, where coal mines were closing and poverty was endemic. “I think that the story of the American industry has been one where some industries go away and then some industries arise to take their place. It’s been this constant disruption/innovation cycle,” he told an audience at New York’s 92nd Street Y, the city’s renowned cultural and spiritual center.
