It is a long road from Panbowl Branch Road in Jackson, Kentucky, to the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Even further than the distance itself might indicate. From the house where JD Vance spent his childhood summers, it is 782 kilometers to the vice president’s residence. The villa in the heart of Washington was built in 1893 and is situated in a 30-hectare (75-acre) park, at the entrance to which stands the Master Clock, displaying the time accurate to 100 picoseconds. In front of the house on Panbowl Branch Rd. are overflowing garbage bags, the skeleton of a gas barbecue and a smashed cooler with no lid. The roof looks like it might collapse at any moment, which is why the owner prefers living in a trailer propped up on stilts next to the structure. That, at least, is what locals say in the town below.

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There is, however, another explanation for Vance’s transformation. Opportunism. There is a long stream of earlier articles, interviews and leaked text messages documenting Vance’s disdain for Trump. Vance referred to him as the "American Hitler” and as the "opioid of the masses.” When Trump kicked off his first campaign for the Republican nomination in February 2016, Vance penned an opinion piece for USA Today in which he wrote: "I quickly realized that Trump’s actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd.” There was hardly anyone from the conservative camp who was harder on Trump than Vance. But when he decided to run for the Senate from Ohio, he needed Trump’s support. So he made a pilgrimage to his residence in Mar-a-Lago, became friends with Trump’s son Don Jr. and publicly renounced his own words.

It was such a transparent flip-flop that Vance bashing became a genre of its own in the liberal American press. "JD Vance Joins the Jackals,” was one headline. Another: "The Moral Collapse of JD Vance.” The most rueful piece was written by David Frum, the former speech writer for George W. Bush. As a law student, Vance had once written for Frum’s website. The piece exudes no anger, just disappointment in a person who so clearly sacrificed his principles to his ambition. "Many who knew the early Vance ponder the question: What happened to him? I don’t overthink that question; the answer seems obvious enough.”

Vance, if you will, has traveled the opposite direction in his assessment of Trump: He was initially disappointed only to then recognize the opportunities. Trump is 78 years old, and at last summer’s Republican Party convention in Milwaukee, he essentially declared Vance to be the heir to the MAGA movement. But Vance’s fate is now closely linked to that of the president. The radicalism of this administration could also drag Vance’s career into the abyss.

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