Humans appear to have some need to look down on someone; there's just a basic tribalistic impulse in all of us," Vance recently told The American Con… - JD Vance

People like Brian and me don’t lose contact with our parents because we don’t care; we lose contact with them to survive. We never stop loving, and we never lose hope that our loved ones will change. Rather, we are forced, either by wisdom or by the law, to take the path of self-preservation.

[On attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East from forces connected to Iran] They have attacked, certain militia groups have attacked and I think we've done the right thing, a proportionate response. If they hit us, we have to hit them back but if you're talking about an attack on the Iranian mainland, that would be a significant escalation right now that would be a mistake.

Every time the drill instructor screamed at me and I stood proudly; every time I thought I’d fall behind during a run and kept up; every time I learned to do something I thought impossible, like climb the rope, I came a little closer to believing in myself. 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.