I hail from western Ohio, not far from JD Vance’s hometown, Middletown. Like him, I grew up in a family marred by addiction, with a grandmother who was also my rock.

In the small city of Urbana, many of the mills and factories closed not long after I left for college in the 1980s, the same hollowing out Mr. Vance later witnessed in Middletown, as detailed in his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” The work my mom did building airplane navigation lights was shipped overseas or replaced by automation, our flagship factory sold to a Cleveland corporation in 1977 and, two mergers later, bought by an international conglomerate. Such moves were cheered by economists and pushed by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Mr. Vance’s mother, fortunately, made her way into treatment and out of addiction’s morass. I am always impressed by a fellow Ohioan who finds a way to a productive life beyond the limitations of home. My dad tried but could never manage it, dying at 57 of late-stage alcoholism and lung cancer.

You shouldn’t have to be exceptional to muscle your way into a healthy, productive life. Instead of peddling outrage in this week's vice-presidential debate with Gov. Tim Walz, Mr. Vance should focus on extending the ladder to those coming up behind him.

But I fear all we will hear is a replay of Mr. Vance’s public playbook — about how Americans in distressed communities simply need to bootstrap better, pray harder, have kids and blame their woes and work concerns on immigrants supposedly coming for their jobs. He has lectured that they should be wary of colleges, which, despite the life-changing impact of his higher education, he deemed the enemy. “Universities do not pursue knowledge and truth. They pursue deceit and lies,” he insisted in a 2021 speech at the National Conservatism Conference. (He has since sounded less strident.)

Public education — and then college — were my tickets out of poverty, just as they were for Mr. Vance. I became a first-generation college student courtesy of federally funded Pell Grants, which covered the entirety of my four-year state-college degree. Today the same grant would pay roughly 30 percent. Mr. Vance went to Ohio State on the federally funded G.I. Bill, then on to Yale Law School.

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