In recent days, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz has repeatedly attacked his Republican opponent JD Vance for leaving home to attend law school at Yale:
“Like all the normal people I grew up with in the heartland, JD went to Yale,” Walz said sarcastically at the rally…. “Come on, that’s not what the American middle class is like,” Walz continued.
In a recent interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the governor expanded on this point, saying, “None of my hillbilly cousins went to Yale, and none of them went on to become venture capitalists or anything else…”
In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, he expressed a very similar view: “I grew up in a small town, Butte, Nebraska, with a population of 400. There were 24 kids in my high school class, and none of them went to Yale.”
There are many legitimate lines of attack against Vance, of whom I am no fan. But this is not one of them. There is nothing wrong with leaving home in search of opportunity—even by attending an elite educational institution in another part of the country. America was built by people who voted “with their feet” for such opportunities, both through international migration and domestic migration. And such mobility does not somehow become wrong when “hillbillies” do it. Ironically, among the speakers before Walz at the DNC was former President Bill Clinton, who grew up in a poor white family in Hope, Arkansas, and (like Vance) attended Georgetown and Yale Law School. Is Walz suggesting that Clinton should have stayed true to his “hillbilly roots” and stayed in Arkansas?
I must admit that I take such attacks somewhat personally. I also studied at Yale Law School and was the first in my family to study in the United States. My wife grew up in the typical working-class town of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Her parents (both public school teachers) and most of her other family members attended local colleges. She herself, however, chose Dartmouth College, an elite out-of-state institution that offered better opportunities. That was not wrong and certainly not a betrayal of her background.
The real problem with Vance is not that he left home to go to Yale, but that he and Donald Trump support policies like strict immigration restrictions and exclusion zones that deny others such opportunities. I wrote about this in a previous post about Vance:
When you read (Vance’s) … book, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that (mobility) changed his life: He left home to join the Marine Corps, get a college degree at Ohio State University, and eventually go to Yale, and that opened up opportunities for him that he probably never would have had if he hadn’t left home …
In my later book Free movementI pointed out that Vance’s story of success in turning out voters domestically is also similar to the story of people who have changed their lives through international migration. Almost all of the standard arguments against allowing migration apply to migration as well.
In recent years, Vance has undergone something of an ideological transformation, becoming a prominent proponent of the MAGA populism he once opposed. Unfortunately, the policies Vance now advocates would destroy opportunities for immigrants and natives alike, leaving America weaker and poorer as a result.
In addition to mass deportations and other harsh immigration restrictions, Vance and Trump also support the exclusion of communities that prevent millions of native-born Americans from moving to a country that offers them opportunity. This includes many poor white people who come from the same backgrounds as Vance and Walz. This hurts not only those who cannot move, but also American society as a whole, as it slows innovation and economic growth.
Walz’s record on such issues is less bad, but still very ambiguous. Unfortunately, the man is not the YIMBY that some have touted him as. Democrats support a number of questionable housing policies that, if implemented, would make the problem worse, although there are some reasonably good ones as well.
In summary, Walz is wrong to criticize Vance for seeking opportunity at Yale. But Vance is wrong to advocate policies that would predictably deny similar opportunities to others. Both men – and their respective parties – would do well to work to get more people to vote with their feet for better educational and job opportunities.
