Notwithstanding this, I strongly applaud Vance for having the courage to write the book. His account reveals a very important point — and one that should not make the elite feel comfortable at all. For Vance believes that one of the biggest problems besetting white working-class communities in the US today is not just a sense of economic decline, but a disintegration of family structures, partly as a result of that economic stress. Most notably, in poor working-class communities, marital bonds are collapsing, with “maternal figures cycling through numerous partners”, Vance says. He argues that this has created a culture of instability, irresponsibility, anger, frustration and profound pessimism, made worse by opioid addiction and violence. “In my culture I learnt some very negative lessons about family life — these cultures leave demons that follow the kids around their entire life,” he told the NY Historical Society. “The issue is not primarily material deprivation, but that people are living in unstable families and communities where social capital is unhelpful or self-destructive.”
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Vance is not the first person to chronicle this problem: the controversial social scientist and libertarian writer Charles Murray described it powerfully a few years ago. But Vance’s account is particularly potent, since it is woven from his own life story. And if his argument is correct (as I think it is), it has an important policy implication: “solving” voter pain and rage in America will require far more than economic reform (or, say, tax cuts). What is also needed are active, aggressive measures to inject more stability and functional skills into the lives of white working-class children, to deal with a scarred generation