The lesson? Powerful people sometimes do things to help people like me without really understanding people like me. - JD Vance

While it’s tempting, and I’m sure it would make some big headlines, don’t worry any-ev-everybody I’m not going to try to take off my shirt here.

Psychologists call it “learned helplessness” when a person believes, as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life. From Middletown’s world of small expectations to the constant chaos of our home, life had taught me that I had no control. Mamaw and Papaw had saved me from succumbing entirely to that notion, and the Marine Corps broke new ground. If I had learned helplessness at home, the Marines were teaching learned willfulness.

Republicans lose minority voters for simple and obvious reasons: their policy proposals are tired, unoriginal, or openly hostile to non-whites.