J.D. Vance
(Image credit: Illustrated | AP Photo, iStock)

Like so many other liberals seeking to understand the then-incipient Donald Trump era, I read J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy when it was published in 2016. At the time, Vance was offered to the public as a sort of "Trump whisperer," somebody who had grown up among the white underclass but also attended an Ivy League school, and thus could bridge the two cultures. The memoir was far from perfect — I thought Vance was self-deluding about the role of race in the backlash against President Obama — but overall it seemed a worthy effort, a reminder in our polarized and self-sorted society that our fellow citizens are not two-dimensional movie villains, but flesh-and-blood people who have different ideas and priorities.

Vance announced Thursday he is running in Ohio's GOP primary for the U.S. Senate. Disappointingly, he's turned away from his thoughtful persona to become just another shrill Trumpist politician — armed with an elbow-throwing Twitter account and backed by the kind of oligarchical big money he claims to despise.

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Joel Mathis, The Week US

Joel Mathis is a freelance writer who has spent nine years as a syndicated columnist, co-writing the RedBlueAmerica column as the liberal half of a point-counterpoint duo. His work also regularly appears in National Geographic, The Kansas City Star and Heatmap News. His awards include best online commentary at the Online News Association and (twice) at the City and Regional Magazine Association.