Sarah Harte: We must ask: When we are fed an origin story, what lies beneath it?
US vice presidential Republican nominee JD Vance is killing it at the moment with his origin story which can be summed up as the ‘American dream’. Picture: Julia Nikhinson/AP
We live in the age of the origin story. You may not know it, but your life story may be a valuable asset if you decide to go into politics — but only if it has trauma or adversity in it.
Americans are mad for triumph over adversity backstories.
The hero or their family has some fragility, such as poverty, character defects like misplaced ego, relatives who are violent, bullies, sexually abusive, absent, or alcoholic.
Against all odds, the hero succeeds which at some level makes the audience believe that they too can have a shot at greatness.
US vice presidential Republican nominee JD Vance is killing it at the moment with his origin story which can be summed up as the ‘American dream’.
The son of a single addict mother, an ex-marine, from a background of extreme Appalachian poverty, complete with violence, who attended an Ivy League university, made money and has overcome hardship potentially chimes with swathes of voters.
I was discussing Vance with somebody at the weekend who knew nothing about him, and when I related his backstory, I was struck by the fact that he was immediately entranced.
His touchpoints are the patriarchy, religion, and the elite Silicon Valley venture capitalists who have backed him.
JD Vance believes in JD Vance, and he has firmly pulled the ladder up behind him.
Vance’s running mate Donald Trump is living proof that your creation myth doesn’t have to be authentic.
Born rich, Trump has managed to merge this reality, and the fact that his father gave him what he described as ‘a small loan’ of $1m to get into the real estate business.
He portrays himself as a little guy who the establishment has mistreated fighting for the little guy.
Trump’s genius lies in exaggerated simplicity and an ability to communicate this simple message (a pack of lies) to his target audience whose economic reality is a million miles from his background.
How Kamala Harris fares should she become, the Democratic presidential nominee will depend a lot on her origin story, and whether she can leverage race and gender.
These defining characteristics could be an asset, but on balance, the smart money would say a black woman is still not the American dream.
Sections of the right-wing in America have described her as a DEI candidate equating her with a diversity, equality and inclusion hire which is a way to denigrate her and say she didn’t get there on merit.
Kind of ironic given that JD Vance himself is a beneficiary of diversity and inclusion. To quote him, he received financial aid for college “because I was one of the poorest kids in school”.
But as the black writer Lydia Polgreen wrote this week, race is still the type of diversity most likely to be associated with unearned advantage.
If you’re a white, male from a hard-scrabble background then you have a better chance of having your disadvantage recognised.
Origin stories have crept into Irish politics. Taoiseach Simon Harris knows the value of a clear, compelling origin story telling one publication:
“I’m a 35-year-old man who grew up in Greystones. I’m the son of a taxi drive
r and an SNA who had an opportunity when my brother was born with special needs to get in touch and make a difference.
“If I can become a government minister anybody can.”
He has ticked many boxes here: class, disability, and place of birth.
Harris understands that his brand is strengthened by his ‘up by the bootstraps story’ which helps him to emotionally connect with a wider pool of voters and potentially younger Gen Z voters who love a good ole brand story.
But Harris’s story is authentic. He doesn’t come from the traditional cookie-cutter Fine Gael background — you know the type, of a socially conservative big farmer with a habit of putting his foot in his mouth, or South Dublin legal eagle who attended a Jesuit school and consequently possesses an ironclad misplaced conviction of innate social and intellectual superiority which encourages many of us to steer a wide berth of Roundstone or Schull during summer months. In that respect, he represents a change.
In theory, Leo Varadkar had a good origin story too, gay and mixed race, but sadly gay men of colour are still not as box office in a country where racism and homophobia persist particularly with older voters whatever inflated notions, we might hold about how perfectly liberal we are.
While it’s true that Leo Varadkar became taoiseach, both our first openly gay and mixed-race one and so in this way blazed a trail, he has endured far more racist and homophobic abuse than most of us will ever be able to imagine.
First minister of Northern Ireland Michelle O’Neill has a powerful backstory — the republican father once in jail, a single mother at the age of 16, was mistreated by the Catholic religious who taught her (more of a winner than if they had been Protestant because it aligns with a dominant anti-Catholic narrative), and had a mother who stepped in to raise the baby and said go get them Michelle.
Strong matriarchs who make sacrifices often feature in people’s backstories because we instinctively love strong mother archetypes.
In contrast, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald does not have a particularly helpful origin story; part of the reason she has an authenticity problem.
Going to a private South Dublin school and growing up in a “leafy suburb” just doesn’t ring those leftist, grassroots change-maker bells in the same way.
Migration and race will increasingly become part of the tapestry and therefore will become incrementally more embedded in Irish archetypes as we transcend traditional and limiting narratives of identity.
Let’s face it, in the past, you couldn’t necessarily knock much out of a white Catholic small farmer from Carlow or a white Catholic teacher from Tipp.
None of us ontologically belong to just one group, to some extent we all perform our identities. And stories help us make sense of a complex world.
They can also allow us to connect with people, who on the face of it look different, helping us to overcome unconscious prejudices.
For it to be successful storytelling it generally has to be authentic (Trump is an exception) we must see some version of ourselves or our aspirations in a candidate’s storytelling.
Also, to understand that individual stories have clear limitations.
When a successful person’s progress is too strongly connected with their traits then structural inequality gets glossed over.
Not everyone can transform their lives through sheer willpower and or luck.
Meanwhile, very best of luck to Kamala Harris, because she’s going to need more than a superhero cape and tights if she’s going to become the Democratic nominee and beat tan fantastic Trump.
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