JD Vance – is he the Sister Carrie of 21st-century American politics?

Over half a century ago, when I was – very reluctantly – thrust into the army’s infantry basic training, my training platoon was a very mixed collection of young men. There were some (like the author) who had joined army reserve or national guard units for the lesser evil of six months of active duty, followed by weekend drills and two or three weeks of summer training exercises, rather than years of active duty and possible Vietnam time. Then there were a few men actually gung-ho about joining the military. There were also a few unlucky individuals who had been drafted into the active duty army. And there were even some trainees who – faced with a harsh choice between enlisting in the army or going to jail at the insistence of a judge – went with the camouflage green rather than prison overalls.  But there were also a few who had signed up precisely because they had come to recognise the trajectories of their lives were leading them to blasted futures and missed opportunities for any kind of decent future. Those young men realised that for them, joining the military was the only pathway to better life possibilities, real...