Trump’s selection of JD Vance sends a message to the overlooked working class

When you hear the term “bootlegger” you may think of Burt Reynolds in a Firebird running from the law or Prohibition busts in 1920s speakeasies — not a 15-year-old high-school dropout trying to pay for her own rent and food.

That was me, though, helping run whisky to dry counties in Mississippi before I was even old enough to drive.

And my background makes me thrilled to see Donald Trump pick someone like Sen. JD Vance as his running mate.

By 15, I’d moved over 30 times, often by Greyhound bus. Welfare and food stamps were nearly the only income my mother had ever known.

When your only parent struggles with mental illness and in poverty, you grow up quickly.

I’d been the primary decision-maker in my home since age 11: If something was going to be decided or someone was going to be tossed out of the trailer, that was on me.

The only responsibility that wasn’t mine was choosing the many boyfriends my mom would allow to move in, including drunks, a child molester and a violent drug dealer who beat her many times within an inch of her life — always within earshot of us kids.

You never forget the hopelessness and fear of seeing your half-dressed mother chased around a trailer park by her boyfriend with a butcher knife, all while knowing she’ll go back to him — yes, even after this.

At 15, I was married and pregnant, and at 16, I welcomed my first child, my sweet Raychel.

Staring at that beautiful baby was a defining moment in my life: She deserved better.

I didn’t care how long it took, I was going to build a life for this precious gift God had trusted me with.

I wish my story were exclusive to me, but unfortunately I’m not alone.

Over 46 million Americans are battling substance abuse of some kind, but that number doesn’t account for the millions more impacted by it.

Nearly 38 million people live below the poverty line, most with no idea how to get out. Breaking from poverty isn’t easy when it’s all you know and it feels like there is no escape.

I found a way out: I got my GED and eventually graduated college and started my own successful business. In 2013, at 44, I was elected to public office for the first time.

Most important, I was able to give my children a better life than I had.

When Trump chose JD Vance, chills went down my spine — because I knew it sent a message to those from backgrounds like mine that anything is possible, and where they are is not where they need to stay.

Trump signaled to Americans across the country exactly who he was paying attention to: the forgotten class.

For my entire lifetime, White House wannabes have promised that they would be a president for the common man, a president for the middle class, for the low-income class — but never before has one proved it quite like Donald Trump has.

For most with backgrounds like mine, the American dream feels like just that, a mirage, out of our reach.

But under Trump’s first presidency, those dreams felt more like reality.

We experienced the lowest unemployment of my lifetime, while income rose for nearly every demographic in the country and businesses were helped to thrive.

It was a billionaire from New York that became the greatest champion the middle class and working class had ever known in the White House.

Today I serve as a state senator in Missouri. Every day I meet with voters who feel forgotten.

With his vice-presidential pick, Donald Trump signaled to my constituents and to millions of others, “No more.”

In Washington, DC, a town full of career politicians and trust-fund babies, Donald Trump picked the scrappy kid who grew up below the poverty line and created a life for himself and his family, someone who pulled himself out, but didn’t forget where he came from. 

Come November, we won’t forget it, either.

Holly Rehder represents District 27 in the Missouri State Senate.