Hillbilly Elegy: The Book That Made JD Vance Famous First

Showing 5 Hillbilly Elegy videos from Charlie Kirk's video collection.

Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance's 2016 memoir about his Appalachian upbringing, initially made him a celebrated figure among left-leaning elites who invited him to keynote the Aspen Ideas Festival and treated him as a credible interpreter of Donald Trump's working-class appeal, a status Charlie Kirk says Vance deliberately sacrificed once he chose full political engagement instead. Kirk, an early endorser of Vance's underdog Ohio Senate primary campaign when polling showed him at just one or two percent against establishment-backed opponents, describes this trajectory from literary celebrity to America First politician as evidence of Vance's genuine conviction rather than opportunism. Kirk frames Vance's selection as Trump's running mate around this same class-traitor narrative, arguing Vance's willingness to forfeit elite approval for a cause he believed in mirrors Trump's own political evolution. Separately and unrelated to Vance, Kirk analyzes the Luigi Mangione case, discussing the arrest of the suspect in the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting and comparing his brief manifesto's anti-corporate rhetoric to the Unabomber's writings, alongside unrelated commentary celebrating Daniel Penny's acquittal on criminal charges.