J. D. Vance

Vance published Hillbilly Elegy in 2016, a memoir of a childhood in Middletown, Ohio and Appalachian Kentucky, with his mother's addiction and his grandmother's rescue at the centre of it. It was read across America that autumn as an explanation of Trump's support, which the book does not really offer, and Appalachian scholars objected that a personal story was being taken for a regional diagnosis. He was a Marine in Iraq as a public affairs correspondent, went to Yale Law School, and worked in venture capital. He called Trump reprehensible in 2016 and compared him to a twentieth-century dictator, later reversed that, became a senator, and is now Vice President.