How the left and J.D. Vance learnt to despise each other

Did j.d. vance betray America’s progressive elite, or is it the other way around? Not long ago Mr Vance was celebrated in left-of-centre columns and salons as a heartland Jeremiah, a prophet of working-class despair who could demystify Donald Trump’s popularity. His bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy”, was “a compassionate, discerning sociological analysis of the white underclass that has helped drive the politics of rebellion”, declared the New York Times. Mr Vance, the review said, was brave to blame fellow hillbillies, not structural forces, for their dismal choices: “Whether you agree with Mr Vance or not, you must admire him for his head-on confrontation with a taboo subject.”