ArcaMax

After reviewers tagged it as a must-read for those who want to understand Trump's voter base, the book soared up the New York Times Best-Sellers List last summer, where it remained ever since.

I'm happy for him. Although I grew up "too po' to afford the 'O'and the 'R'," as my father used to say, Vance had it worse. I grew up in Middletown's era of steel mills, paper mills and prosperity. Vance came along in the city's Rust Belt phase at the end of the century, when hope was running out and new plagues like heroin and other opiates were moving in.

"Many of Trump's voters have always felt a bit conflicted about him," Vance wrote. "On the one hand, he's able to identify and criticize many of the problems that people see in their own communities. But it often comes packaged with a personality or rhetoric that even his most ardent supporters sometimes roll their eyes at."

This speech was different, says Vance. It was "the first time that Trump -- either as a candidate or a president -- was able to harness the good, stay on message, and avoid the personality problems that bother many."

But can he fulfill his promises to his base? Or will be just another ambitious salesman- politician who promises the world but fails to deliver?

His speech to Congress showed a welcome change in style, more soft-spoken and presidential instead of a rambling, looking-for-laughs monologue. But its substance offered the same grand hyperinflated promises he offered on the campaign trail without much of any details as to how he's going to get the job done.

On his big promise to repeal and replace Obamacare with "something terrific," he mentioned "tax credits" and "expanded health savings accounts," which is fine for those who can afford them. But with almost half of the nation's workers making too little to income pay federal income tax, the tax credits and HSAs fall short of universal coverage that former President Barack Obama and other Democrats have sought.

Vance, as it turns out, is not waiting for politicians to catch up with our hometown's troubles. He's planning to move back to Middletown from San Francisco, he says, to start up a nonprofit to beat back the opiate overdose epidemic that, at present, has hit Ohio worse than any other state.

President Trump barely mentioned drugs in his speech to Congress. But the nation can't afford to forget it.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)

(c) 2017 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.