Me, JD, and Bobby McGee: Bob Conklin

Janis Joplin’s version of “Me and Bobby McGee” was released on Jan. 12, 1971. One day earlier, a Food Stamp Amendment was passed, establishing uniform work requirements for eligibility. “Busted flat,” in faded jeans, the singer and ol’ Bobby would have qualified for food assistance, if only they could have held down a job and stopped their drifting ways, whose point of origin happened to be a “Kentucky coal mine.”

As recounted in his autobiography “Hillbilly Elegy,” now-Vice President JD Vance’s roots also lie in rural Kentucky. He grew up in a culture defined by the backwoods mores of his Mawmaw and Pawpaw, who immigrated to the more cultivated town of Middletown, Ohio. During the government shutdown that cut Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for many, Vance was accused of hypocrisy in social media posts for having benefited, through his mother and grandmother, from government programs that helped put meals on the table in his youth — even if the assistance may not have been directly in the form of food stamps.

To be fair, JD does exhibit an appreciation for the plight of the working-class poor, more than 40 million of whom currently depend upon SNAP. In his memoir, he sympathizes with disadvantaged kids in a transplanted hillbilly culture trapped in a generational cycle of frustration and the trauma of what sociologists refer to as “adverse childhood experiences” or ACEs, for short.

Now, I don’t want to equate myself with VP Vance. For one, I’m not the vice president of anything. I ran for office only once, campaigning for the position of Chief in Scouting’s Order of the Arrow. Somehow, I lost the election, even though I was running unopposed.

However, my upbringing was similar to JD’s in that I grew up with two siblings in a working-class household in Boardman, Ohio — Bernie Kosar’s hometown for Browns fans. Our father was out of work on several occasions as the steel-related companies that employed him went belly-up in the 1970s. At one low point, our aunt left groceries on the back porch, too embarrassed for our situation to present them in person. Yet we never, aside from unemployment checks, depended on government assistance for food.

Despite similar backgrounds, minus the ACEs Vance experienced growing up, politics is where JD and I part ways, as I religiously vote Democratic. JD’s political leanings appear to stem from the voting bloc of blue-collar constituents he left behind, who have coalesced around the GOP after a historically long affiliation with Democrats as the onetime exclusive party of the working class.

So now we have a seemingly unbridgeable political divide that the SNAP crisis has served to accentuate.

Bob Conklin is an author in Columbus.Courtesy of Bob Conklin

The other day, my sister told me of a grown man she encountered literally sobbing outside a grocery store because his benefits had expired. He was grateful for the $10 she spared to buy a loaf of bread, a block of cheese, and a can of soup so his children wouldn’t go hungry. Conservatives might view him as a scammer playing on my sister’s wokeness. Liberals might consider her a humanitarian to a fellow parent in need.

As the song says, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” The one thing I wouldn’t want us to lose throughout this debate is our ability to empathize. That man didn’t actually ask for a handout until my sister inquired what was wrong and how she could help. So why not give him the benefit of the doubt?

Conklin is the author of three novels, two of which are centered in the Appalachian foothills of southeastern Ohio. In support of loved ones, he advocates for transgender rights, eating-disorder recovery, and autism awareness.

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