U.S. Vice President JD Vance built his name on a caricature, a hillbilly morality play dressed up as sociology.
His bestselling “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” was sold as an insider’s confession, but it reads like an obituary written by someone anxious to prove he’d escaped the body. He turned hardship into a brand, pain into a sales pitch, while ignoring the systems that keep both alive. Standing beside Donald Trump, he’s doubled down on the claim that Appalachia’s biggest problem is its own reflection.
But this region isn’t a tragedy. It’s breathing, building, and still creating its own kind of beauty. The people who raised barns, fixed trucks, and now rebuild lives through recovery and community are not elegies; they’re evidence of a revival.
At Healing Appalachia 2025 in Ashland, more than 25,000 people gathered to celebrate recovery through music and shared effort. No political machine built that stage. It rose from volunteer grit and faith, the kind Vance once claimed to respect, before grievance politics offered him easier applause. Kentuckians Tyler Childers and Chris Stapleton, along with a long list of other musicians, again donated their time and talent to raise money to support recovery organizations.
I wasn’t raised in the deep mountains. I’m from Kirksville, in the foothills in Madison County, where I had more chances than most, a professional father, a mother with a psychology degree, and the means to leave. Yet when my life collapsed from alcoholism, it was Eastern Kentucky that helped me stand again. People written off by the same system that crowned Vance a success story taught me what redemption really looks like: quiet endurance, shared strength, and an open door for anyone willing to walk through it.
That’s the real Appalachia, where recovery meetings feel like family reunions, where small businesses grow out of garages, and where neighbors check on each other even when no one’s watching. It doesn’t need pity; it needs partnership. It doesn’t need elegies; it needs investment, infrastructure and respect.
Vance sold the myth that Appalachia’s wounds are self-inflicted, that culture, not capitalism, is to blame. Those of us who live and work here know better. We see every day how treatment centers, nonprofits and peer-support groups do more for our communities than any press conference in Washington.
The real Appalachia isn’t trapped between the covers of a memoir or the sound bites of a campaign. It lives in every person who chooses hope over humiliation, connection over contempt. From Ashland to Pikeville, from the foothills to the hollers, this region isn’t dying; it’s rebuilding itself, one act of stubborn love at a time.
This commentary was originally published by the Kentucky Lantern and republished here with permission.