Hillbilly Elegy

adherents by the day.
Here is where the rhetoric of modern
conservatives (and I say this as one of
them) fails to meet the real challenges of
their biggest constituents. Instead of
encouraging engagement, conservatives
increasingly foment the kind of
detachment that has sapped the ambition
of so many of my peers. I have watched
some friends blossom into successful
adults and others fall victim to the worst
of Middletown’s temptations—
premature parenthood, drugs,
incarceration. What separates the
successful from the unsuccessful are the
expectations that they had for their own
lives. Yet the message of the right is