Abandoned by his father to a troubled single mother; eventually raised by grandparents. He is then recruited from an Ivy league law school by shadow figures, a specific billionaire and a network of interests. He changes his name, writes a book about his life story, and with the support of the aforementioned – who eventually pays for a strategic campaign, becomes a Senator for 2 years before being quickly elevated into position in the White House.
Many people reading that paragraph are familiar with the life story of Barack Hussien Obama. However, that paragraph is not describing Obama, that paragraph describes James Donald Bowman, aka J.D. Vance.
On one side, we have an emotionally constructed political figure for the left. On the other side, we see an emotionally constructed political figure for the right. Each person, each emotional narrative, carrying the specific nuances to appeal to their audience; both follow the same playbook.
J.D. Vance was born James Donald Bowman in Middletown, Ohio (August 2, 1984). He then changed his name to James David Bowman. He then changed his name to James David Hamel. Eventually, in 2014, notably after Yale Law School (class of 2013, and after marrying his wife Usha, now age 30, he changed his name to write a book.
It was 2014, that’s when J.D. Vance was born.
Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy was published by Rupert Murdoch’s publishing house, Harper Collins in 2016. The book was made into a Netflix movie, [Reed Hastings] created by Imagine Entertainment and directed by Ron Howard (2020).
However, the interesting background on J.D. Vance goes back to Yale, and the Obamaesque tap on the shoulder that comes from a billionaire most are familiar with, Peter Thiel (PayPal and Palantir).
Thiel first recruited Vance into his circle while Vance was still a student at Yale Law School. Shortly thereafter, Vance joined Thiel’s investment firm Mithril Capital, where he worked for two years before joining Revolution Ventures. Vance played a major role in Revolution’s “Rise of the Rest” seed fund whose major investors included Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. {Citation}
J.D. Vance then launched his own venture capital firm Narya Capital in 2020, using startup money from both Peter Thiel and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
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