Since announcing last July that he was joining the Republican race for the Ohio U.S. Senate, venture capitalist J.D. Vance has fully transformed himself from the seemingly thoughtful, Hollywood-ready memoirist behind Hillbilly Elegy into an extremist demagogue. But as a Washington Post Magazine feature that we highlight below argues, Vance’s new persona might not be the result of a personal transformation, but instead an example of a conservative trying to make inroads with dissatisfied working-class voters.

Read all about it in this week’s Weekend Reader, exclusively for paying subscribers below.