JD Vance's book "Hillbilly Elegy" is also a searing critique of lower-middle class cultural mores

According to Vance, "Greater Appalachia" fosters "a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it," and he didn't think any public policy "solutions" could conceivably address the problem.

This is consistent with Vivek's present view. Vance says in Appalachia, "Too many young men" are "immune to hard work," and there's "a willingness to blame everyone but yourself" for economic misfortune and the pathologies that flow from this downtrodden status. For Vivek, the "solution" lies not in any public policy adjustments, but culturally hectoring these Americans to stop valorizing prom queens and watching Saturday morning cartoons. Vivek says they should instead adopt new cultural mores that advance their socioeconomic mobility.

Likewise, Vance speaks of a "spiritual" malady with this segment of Americans -- a malady which he also identified as driving them to misguidedly support Trump. Indeed, back in his "Never Trump" days, Vance's critique was very much in line with what Vivek is currently fulminating.