Vance is a Yale grad and a best selling author. It’s a good example of imposter syndrome; he’s better than Trump in any possible way, but lacks the intestinal fortitude to be anything but a lickspittle.
Hillbilly Elegy was a NY Times bestseller.
You can hate on the guy, but facts are facts.
Except that list gets manipulated all the time. It’s a known practice to order shit tons of your own book, get on the list for a week, and hand them out (or resell them) later.
It just means it sold a number of copies, there is zero judgement on the content. Sometimes a campaign will launder money directly to a candidate by purchasing many copies of that candidate’s book to give away. It is somehow legal.