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Yesterday's most active thread was the Kamila Harris thread that I discussed yesterday and will skip today. After that was a thread that was created back in April 2022 but was revived recently due to renewed interest in its topic. Titled, "What the hell happened to JD Vance?", and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the original poster expresses surprise that J. D. Vance — at that time known mostly as the author of "Hillbilly Elegy" — had turned full MAGA during his Senate campaign. The renewed interest in the thread is obviously because Vance was recently selected as the running mate of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. I didn't read this thread when it was originally created and looking at it now, the first thing I noticed is how much the discourse surrounding "Hillbilly Elegy" had changed between the time it was published and 2022. When the book originally gained popularity, it was overwhelmingly praised. So much so that, as I wrote in an earlier blog post, when I discussed the book on DCUM I was half convinced that something was wrong with me for not being impressed by it. The posts discussing "Hillbilly Elegy" in this thread generally contained thoughts much closer to mine and the unvarnished praise that originally greeted the book was gone. More importantly, posters were frequently able to discern signals in the memoir that suggested that Vance was perfectly capable of making the transition from "intelligent, reasonable Republican" to MAGA cultist. Nobody seemed to believe that Vance's conversion was authentic. Rather, the general feeling was that Vance understood that turning MAGA was a political necessity. The more generous of the posters suggested that Vance might actually act more responsibly once he was in office. Now, two years after this thread was created, it is even more difficult to determine who is the real J. D. Vance. Vance was never the son of Appalachia as his book led many to believe. He grew up in suburban Ohio in a middle class neighborhood. Far from being a defender or advocate for those trapped in poverty in the mountains, Vance held them in disdain, viewing them as being responsible for their own failures. The people of Appalachia were little more than a prop that Vance used to promote the right-wing ideology favored by his billionaire mentor Peter Thiel. Now, in his new MAGA persona, Vance portrays himself as the proponent of the poor and working class that many wrongly assumed he was when "Hillbilly Elegy" first came out. But whereas this may have been believable back in 2016, despite his memoir demonstrating otherwise, few seem to believe it now. The opinion of Vance most frequently presented in this thread is that he is a valueless opportunist who will do whatever is necessary to gain power.