For all his faults, Donald Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, was always very fond of his grandmother.
His best-selling 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, is a love letter to her. His grandparents were, he says, ‘the best things that ever happened to me’ — though his grandmother, whom he called ‘Mamaw’, was far from cuddly.
Her favourite show was The Sopranos and she particularly admired the main character, Tony Soprano.
‘Though he murdered countless enemies . . . Mamaw respected his loyalty and the fact that he would go to any length to protect the honour of his family.’
Born in 1933, and pregnant by 1946, Mamaw ‘came from a family that would shoot at you rather than argue with you’.
For all his faults, Donald Trump ‘s running mate, J.D. Vance , was always very fond of his grandmother, whom he called Mamaw
Aged 12, she spotted two men stealing the family cow.
‘She ran inside, grabbed a rifle, and fired a few rounds. One of the men collapsed — the result of a shot to the leg — and the other jumped into the truck and squealed away.
‘The would-be thief could barely crawl, so Mamaw approached him, raised the business end of her rifle to the man’s head, and prepared to finish the job.
‘Luckily for him, Uncle Pet intervened. Mamaw’s first confirmed kill would have to wait for another day.’
Eek! Mamaw was clearly a far cry from the grandmother celebrated by our very own St Winifred’s School Choir in their Christmas 1980 chart-topper:
There’s no one quite like Grandma
She always has a smile
She never hurries us along
But stays a little while.
Indeed not. Mamaw had a temper. She once poured a canister of petrol over Vance’s drunken grandfather, Papaw: ‘She lit a match and dropped it on his chest.
‘When Papaw burst into flames, their 11-year-old daughter jumped into action to put out the fire and save his life.
‘Miraculously, Papaw survived the episode with only mild burns.’
No matter how random or violent her behaviour, Vance sets Mamaw up as the great American role model.
For instance, she once ignored the direction signs on a highway and drove straight towards the oncoming traffic.
Vance paid tribute to his granny in his speech to the Republican convention in Milwaukee, as he officially accepted Trump’s vice presidential nomination
‘I was screaming in terror, but after a U-turn on a three-lane interstate, the only thing Mamaw said about the incident was, ‘We’re fine, goddammit. Don’t you know Jesus rides in the car with me?’
You or I might see this as the behaviour of a madwoman, but not Vance, who draws a cosy, cracker-barrel moral from it.
‘In Mamaw’s contradictions lay great wisdom,’ he reflects. ‘It provided a message I needed to hear.
‘To coast through life was to squander my God-given talent, so I had to work hard.
‘I had to take care of my family because Christian duty demanded it . . . I should never despair, for God had a plan.’
Vance paid tribute to his weirdo granny in his speech to the Republican convention in Milwaukee, as he officially accepted Trump’s vice presidential nomination.
He told delegates that, after Mamaw died in 2005, ‘we went through her things [and] we found 19 loaded handguns’ — pause for cheers — ‘now, the thing is, they were stashed all over her house.
‘Under her bed, in her closet. In the silverware drawer. And we wondered what was going on.’
And here comes the moral . . .
For one reason or another, Vance failed to mention how his grandmother kept ’19 loaded handguns’ in her home in Hillbilly Elegy, even though he covered his grandmother’s death and its aftermath. Did he consider it too sinister to mention? Or — possibly more likely — did he, invent it for his speech?
‘It occurred to us that towards the end of her life. Mamaw couldn’t get around very well. And so this frail old woman . . .’ — she was, in fact, six years younger than Donald Trump is now, but best not mention it — ‘made sure that no matter where she was, she was within arm’s length of whatever she needed to protect her family.
‘That’s who we are! That’s who we fight for! That’s American spirit!’
(More cheers from the crowd, accompanied by chants of ‘USA! USA! USA!’)
For one reason or another, Vance failed to mention this episode in Hillbilly Elegy, even though he covered his grandmother’s death and its aftermath.
Why not? Back then, did he consider it too sinister to mention? Or — possibly more likely — did he invent it for his speech, thinking, rightly or wrongly, that it would boost his electoral appeal?
There’s no one quite like Grandma
She always has a gun
She never needs to hurry us
She knows that we will run.
