Rick does not work in politics. He has a desk job. He’s on the political left and said he viewed Vance from “a place of irreverence if not outright disrespect,” in part because he shares an upbringing not dissimilar to the hard-knock childhood Vance describes in “Hillbilly Elegy.” The political conclusions he drew from those experiences, though, differ markedly from Vance’s, he said.

“I have really enjoyed thinking about his team and all of the idiots associated with him having to grapple with this,” Rick said. “I think by the time the AP thing came out, I was talking to one of my sisters and saying, ‘Oh, yeah, Trump is already calling him a couch-fucker.’”