Politics of pessimism: Why neither party is selling the American dream

When J.D. Vance announced his run for Senate in his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, last July, he vowed to fight in Washington on behalf of Ohioans who “look to the future more with frustration and fear than with hope and optimism.”

A Marine turned venture capitalist, whose bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” detailed his scrappy Appalachian upbringing, Mr. Vance talked about an American dream that’s become out of reach for most. He spent much of the speech in the trenches of resentment, excoriating the elites who “have plundered this country.”   ...