Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The JD Vance pick is addition by subtraction

Nolan Finley/Detroit News:

My beef with J.D. Vance

Vance’s pen fuels the myths, and confirms for many what they’re certain they know about “hillbillies.”

Let’s start with the book title itself and get this settled: Hillbilly is a pejorative, the same as any other derogatory descriptor assigned to a racial, ethnic or cultural group. It doesn’t matter that it was used in the title of a television show and on bread wrappers. It’s offensive, hurtful and intended to belittle. Anyone who has been the target of the word knows its sting.

That Vance chose to mainstream the smear on his book cover says a lot about how he views his own people.