Not all of the white working class struggles. I knew even as a child that there were two separate sets of mores and social pressures. My grandparents… - JD Vance

believe that hard work pays off, then you work hard; if you think it’s hard to get ahead even when you try, then why try at all? Similarly,

Public policy can help, but there is no government that can fix these problems for us.

We’ll get fired for tardiness, or for stealing merchandise and selling it on eBay, or for having a customer complain about the smell of alcohol on our breath, or for taking five thirty-minute restroom breaks per shift. We talk about the value of hard work but tell ourselves that the reason we’re not working is some perceived unfairness: Obama shut down the coal mines, or all the jobs went to the Chinese. These are the lies we tell ourselves to solve the cognitive dissonance — the broken connection between the world we see and the values we preach.