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Content

On JD Vance, Hillbilly Elegy, and arresting decline.

We discuss the Netflix adaptation of vice-presidential nominee JD Vance's memoir – and the memoir itself – and what it tells us about the direction of US politics, Trump, and MAGA. We ask:

What is Ryan's own anti-hillbilly elegy, drawn from his experience in Central Illinois?

How far does the character in the film correspond with Vance’s public persona today? 

How do we account for Vance’s political pivot – at least in rhetoric – from “lift yourself up by your bootstraps” meritocracy to pro-labour nationalism? 

What will happen to rural/small-town US American life?

Plus: Is reading books gay? Is a "hillbilly" just Hillary + Bill? And what is a horseshoe sandwich?

Links:

The State of Illinois is Killing My Family, Ryan Zickgraf, Jacobin

An anti-Hillbilly Elegy, Ryan Zickgraf, The Third Rail (Substack) 

Hillbilly Elegy Doesn’t Reflect the Appalachia I Know, Cassie Chambers Armstrong, The Atlantic 

Why the Left Gets J.D. Vance Wrong, Zaid Jilani, Compact

 

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Comments

Croatian Ox

Trillbilly Worker's Party podcast is legit left hillbilly (though they're more dirtbag than anything)

Richard R

Very fun episode ^_^

Jacob Bucci

Texas is cowboys, Appalachia is hillbillies. Texas was mostly settled by Germans and fought for the confederacy, Appalachia was mostly Scots-Irish and supported the union from behind enemy lines.

Davka Smolah Collective

In America we have giant housing because we made it illegal to build anything smaller.

jkjkjkj

I'm not sure where this idea that George and Phil have that Hillbilly Eligy is movie that only liberals hated comes from. As a movie and particularly as a book it was (at least initially and for most of its first few years) a story specifically targeted to liberals. A depiction of white trash America as lazy, backwards fucks ups stuck in the past and suffering due to a backwardness that is their fault and their choice. It was a favorite among MSNBC commentators becuase it validated all of their preconceptions of the imagined white rural trump voter

Mouldy L

"Everything is a little bit gay." - Paul Schrader

Stone

They didn't even talk about how he thinks he is Gandolf the Gray and the people from his hometown are Hobbits