Trump: Tribune Of Poor White People (Why Hillbillies Support Trump)

[mountaineer]

Trump: Tribune Of Poor White People
By Rod Dreher • July 22, 2016, 10:58 AM

I wrote last week about the new nonfiction book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance, the Yale Law School graduate who grew up in the poverty and chaos of an Appalachian clan. The book is an American classic, an extraordinary testimony to the brokenness of the white working class, but also its strengths. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. With the possible exception of Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic, for Americans who care about politics and the future of our country, Hillbilly Elegy is the most important book of 2016. You cannot understand what’s happening now without first reading J.D. Vance. His book does for poor white people what Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book did for poor black people: give them voice and presence in the public square.

This interview I just did with Vance in two parts (the final question I asked after Trump’s convention speech) shows why.

RD: A friend who moved to West Virginia a couple of years ago tells me that she’s never seen poverty and hopelessness like what’s common there. And she says you can drive through the poorest parts of the state, and see nothing but TRUMP signs. Reading “Hillbilly Elegy” tells me why. Explain it to people who haven’t yet read your book.

J.D. VANCE: The simple answer is that these people–my people–are really struggling, and there hasn’t been a single political candidate who speaks to those struggles in a long time.  Donald Trump at least tries.

What many don’t understand is how truly desperate these places are, and we’re not talking about small enclaves or a few towns–we’re talking about multiple states where a significant chunk of the white working class struggles to get by.  Heroin addiction is rampant.  In my medium-sized Ohio county last year, deaths from drug addiction outnumbered deaths from natural causes.  The average kid will live in multiple homes over the course of her life, experience a constant cycle of growing close to a “stepdad” only to see him walk out on the family, know multiple drug users personally, maybe live in a foster home for a bit (or at least in the home of an unofficial foster like an aunt or grandparent), watch friends and family get arrested, and on and on.  And on top of that is the economic struggle, from the factories shuttering their doors to the Main Streets with nothing but cash-for-gold stores and pawn shops.

The two political parties have offered essentially nothing to these people for a few decades.  From the Left, they get some smug condescension, an exasperation that the white working class votes against their economic interests because of social issues, a la Thomas Frank (more on that below).  Maybe they get a few handouts, but many don’t want handouts to begin with. 

From the Right, they’ve gotten the basic Republican policy platform of tax cuts, free trade, deregulation, and paeans to the noble businessman and economic growth.  Whatever the merits of better tax policy and growth (and I believe there are many), the simple fact is that these policies have done little to address a very real social crisis. More importantly, these policies are culturally tone deaf: nobody from southern Ohio wants to hear about the nobility of the factory owner who just fired their brother.

Trump’s candidacy is music to their ears.  He criticizes the factories shipping jobs overseas.  His apocalyptic tone matches their lived experiences on the ground.  He seems to love to annoy the elites, which is something a lot of people wish they could do but can’t because they lack a platform. 

The last point I’ll make about Trump is this: these people, his voters, are proud.  A big chunk of the white working class has deep roots in Appalachia, and the Scots-Irish honor culture is alive and well.  We were taught to raise our fists to anyone who insulted our mother.  I probably got in a half dozen fights when I was six years old. Unsurprisingly, southern, rural whites enlist in the military at a disproportionate rate.  Can you imagine the humiliation these people feel at the successive failures of Bush/Obama foreign policy?  My military service is the thing I’m most proud of, but when I think of everything happening in the Middle East, I can’t help but tell myself: I wish we would have achieved some sort of lasting victory.  No one touched that subject before Trump, especially not in the Republican Party.   ...

Read the rest at The American Conservative (somewhat lengthy article)

There's probably something to this. I do see support for Trump here in northern W.Va., and have seen  his signs in peoples' yards in TV coverage of the flood-ravaged areas of southern W.Va. It's also true about military support here. An oft-cited statistic is that W.Va. has more veterans, per capita, than any state.

[TomSea]

I don't doubt it. Check somewhere like Bryson City North Carolina. That place is so removed from mainstream America, I guess that is what they mean in saying Appalachia. My heart really went out to the people, poor white folks like I'd hardly ever seen before.

And yet, people made jokes about hillbillies but these folks really are against it in ways.

Christian love has to help out everyone, to the best of our abilities, of course, one should be caring for those in their own house, own backyard, own environs first is what I think.

And just because I don't see that same kind of poverty wherever else, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[mountaineer]

The poverty in my own state, even in my county, is just appalling. Unfortunately, the younger generations have been thoroughly indoctrinated in the "dependency mentality" (thanks, Robert C. Sheets Byrd and 80+ years of Democrat control), and many of them expect that as soon as they're done with school, they'll start popping out babies, doing drugs and riding the welfare train from now to eternity. 

[geronl]

The Masses supported Lenin too, how'd that work out?

Hitler also appealed to the poor and used the bad economy to run.

[ABX]

In 1892 it was called agrarian populism and led to the farmers revolt. The platform is strikingly similar.

[geronl]

In 1892 it was called agrarian populism and led to the farmers revolt. The platform is strikingly similar.

We should have a daily Scampaign thread on TBR. Maybe after the Dem convention.

[TomSea]

The Masses supported Lenin too, how'd that work out?

Hitler also appealed to the poor and used the bad economy to run.

Yes, Hitler's masses really compare to hillbillies.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlUcUfHkdYk

Virtually all politicians make the appeal to make the economy better.

Shovel ready jobs, anyone??

[geronl]

Yes, Hitler's masses really compare to hillbillies.

Or, as Trump would call them, "losers". Because that is what Trump thinks of poor people.

[kartographer]

I don't doubt it. Check somewhere like Bryson City North Carolina. That place is so removed from mainstream America, I guess that is what they mean in saying Appalachia. My heart really went out to the people, poor white folks like I'd hardly ever seen before.

And yet, people made jokes about hillbillies but these folks really are against it in ways.

Christian love has to help out everyone, to the best of our abilities, of course, one should be caring for those in their own house, own backyard, own environs first is what I think.

And just because I don't see that same kind of poverty wherever else, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I love Bryson City! I miss it dearly! The best folks in the world. For years I spent as much of my summer there as I could. My ashes are to be scattered along Deep Creek. Know where I have ever been is so dear to my heart,

Now I am stuck in the high desert of New Mexico a God awful place of sand dust and wind. No water, no green and just miles and miles of miles and miles. 

[TomSea]

Treating illegal aliens better than vets and Americans, Appalachia or wherever. Those who do that are the losers.

[kartographer]

Trump: Tribune Of Poor White People
By Rod Dreher • July 22, 2016, 10:58 AM Read the rest at The American Conservative (somewhat lengthy article)

There's probably something to this. I do see support for Trump here in northern W.Va., and have seen  his signs in peoples' yards in TV coverage of the flood-ravaged areas of southern W.Va. It's also true about military support here. An oft-cited statistic is that W.Va. has more veterans, per capita, than any state.

Watch the movie 'A face in the Crowd'

Lonesome Rhodes: Rednecks, crackers, hillbillies, hausfraus, shut-ins, pea-pickers - everybody that's got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle. They don't know it yet, but they're all gonna be 'Fighters for Fuller'. They're mine! I own 'em! They think like I do. Only they're even more stupid than I am, so I gotta think for 'em.

[guitar4jesus]

I'm pretty sure the hillbillies are supporting this guy...

[geronl]

Watch the movie 'A face in the Crowd'

Lonesome Rhodes: Rednecks, crackers, hillbillies, hausfraus, shut-ins, pea-pickers - everybody that's got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle. They don't know it yet, but they're all gonna be 'Fighters for Fuller'. They're mine! I own 'em! They think like I do. Only they're even more stupid than I am, so I gotta think for 'em.

Con-Men know their mark when they see them.