How the white working class lost its patriotism
And why that led to the rise of Donald Trump.
By J. D. Vance July 25
J. D. Vance is the author of "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis."
(John Moore/Getty Images)
This excerpt is adapted from “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.”
In my culture, love of country used to be a civic religion. Our ancestral homeland in Appalachia — the birthplace of the grandparents who raised me — was Breathitt County, Ky., nicknamed “bloody” Breathitt. I knew little about the southwestern Ohio county in which I was actually born, but I did know that Breathitt allegedly earned its name because the county filled its World War I draft quota entirely with volunteers — the only county in the entire United States to do so.
I once interviewed my grandma — we called her Mamaw — for a class project. After 70 years filled with marriage, children, grandchildren, death, poverty and addiction, the thing about which Mamaw was unquestionably the proudest and most excited was that she and her family did their part during World War II. We spoke for minutes about everything else; we spoke for hours about war rations, Rosie the Riveter, her dad’s wartime love letters to her mother from the Pacific, and the day “we” dropped the bomb. Mamaw always had two gods: Jesus Christ and the United States of America. I was no different, and neither was anyone else I knew.
Mamaw taught me that we live in the best and greatest country on earth. This fact gave meaning to my childhood. Whenever times were tough — when I felt overwhelmed by the chaos and instability of my youth — I knew that better days were ahead because I lived in a country that allowed me to make the good choices that others in my neighborhood hadn’t. This wasn’t just an abstraction in our family: Like millions of their generation, my grandparents found good work and economic mobility in the factories of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Mamaw came by her patriotism honestly; with a little hard work, she reasoned, anyone could expect to live a comfortable, happy life.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/25/how-the-white-working-class-lost-its-patriotism/
