I Grew Up in Appalachia Too. J.D. Vance Is a Hillbilly Phony

[Zorro]

I was raised in Coal City, West Virginia and when Monday’s big news about Trump’s vice presidential selection was announced, I felt instant rage. I wrote to my friends:

“J.D. Vance was named Trump’s running mate, which means people are talking about his stupid fucking book again, in which a venture capitalist from suburban Ohio who spent a couple of summers in Kentucky praises himself for pulling himself up by his bootstraps and blames the continued poverty of his ‘fellow’ hillbillies on their poor choices.

“Instead, read literally anything else. Read Appalachian Reckoning which responds to J.D. Vance’s stupid fucking book. Read Demon Copperhead. Read Another Appalachia. Dump a can of alphabet soup onto the floor and read whatever comes out of that. I guarantee it will be better than J.D. Vance's stupid fucking book.”

Vance fills me with rage, in part, because I’m a lot like him.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/i-grew-up-in-appalachia-too-jd-vance-is-a-hillbilly-phony-caleb-miller-writes

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. The Mini Thiel would rather be a Mini Musk. . . . . nt

[overleft]

2. Vance is a fraud and a fake mountain person. I live less than 100 miles from you

and jd vance is nothing like the people I live around. The folks that I live around are hard working and honest. Even if I don't agree with the way they vote most are good people who have been brain washed by the msm.

[Diamond_Dog]

3. It's unbelievable to me

That the people in his home town don’t hate his guts for being so judgemental and condescending.

He sure hasn’t done one thing to help that area, either.

[Goonch]

4. 👇👇👇👁️👁️

[notemason]

5. I grew up there as well

in an area so remote the gov't would fly over and drop leaflets to inform us. The lack of opportunity coupled with the extreme poverty and poor education creates a trap few of his "fellow hillbillies" could dodge. Haven't read the book (and won't) but I do know couple of summer visits couldn't begin to match the burden of the full experience.

[SWBTATTReg]

6. Thank you for your outrage and points about vance. These kinds of people, pretending to be something they're not,

piss me off too to no end.

I grew up in the Ozarks, and I know what you mean about stealing your thunder in being an appalachia native (I hoped I spelled this right).

I've always been proud of my Ozarks background, w/ good reason. Many generations of my family grew up in the Ozarks, and it was a unique experience, w/ unique people, neighbors, and friends.

Sadly, these times are long gone now, being that tourism and the lake culture (fishing, boating, etc.) have all taken over the entire interior of MO and its lakes, etc., and everything is now stuffed to the gills w/ tourist traps, and 2-lane roads crowded/jammed endlessly around the lakes. When is enough, enough? Many have moved to the Ozarks that I'm aware of, that were thinking 'oh my, we'll move to the Ozarks and get good prices, etc. on everything!'.

As my Mom told me later, NO. This is not true. Prices aren't better, and one has to drive literally 50 miles in any direction for doctors, hospitals, shopping, etc. Mostly over two-lane roads (and maybe you're lucky you have a state highway or Interstate available (but you still have to drive to it a number of miles). And she didn't like it being that no theaters, no shows, no events like in big cities etc. were available, unless she drove all the way to the Lake of the Ozarks or down South to Branson for a show, easily a 100 miles roundtrip.

[doc03]

7. Did JD Vance steal his idea of Hillbilly Elegy from Dwight Yoakam's song

Readin', Rightin' and Rt.23. Dwight was also a boy from Kentucy raised in Ohio that wrote about going back home to
Kentucy to see his grandparents on weekends. Could this be sort of like plagiarism?

?si=Kh_VjgfCOTNgFDpO

[JustAnotherGen]

8. I noticed Netflix

Has the movie highlighted again. Nope - still not gonna watch it!

[Jilly_in_VA]

9. I didn't grow up there

but I lived in east Tennessee for 35 years, in Cocke County and Hamblen County, and I worked among those people. I have been telling people that J.D. Is a phony for years. I'm more of a hillbilly than he is, and I don't even claim to be! (I can, however, speak fluent east Tennessee should the occasion call for it---I had to when I worked in home health!)

[lees1975]

10. I did not physically grow up in Appalachia, but

my parents moved from their native West Virginia to Arizona in the 50's, and when your crossed the threshold and entered our home, you were in West Virginia, from what was cooked for dinner every day to the decor, to the atmosphere. My parents were people with working class values, my mother had to drop out of school after junior high to take care of her widowed mother and younger sister, working as a hotel housekeeper in Clarksburg. My father, who lost his Dad at age 13 to the black lung disease he got from working in a carbon plant, was able to put himself through college and then volunteered for the Navy during World War 2 where he trained as an air conditioning mechanic. They moved everything they owned, along with my maternal grandmother, to Arizona in a 1955 Dodge Desoto.

But as a young adult, I did get to experience living in Appalachia, in Williamson, Mingo County, West Virginia, as a door to door salesman. I can honestly say that during the time I lived there, late 70's, I knocked on the door of every residence in Mingo, Logan and Wyoming Counties in West Virginia, in Pike County, Kentucky, and in Buchanan County, Virginia. And I got to know the people, good people, poor people mostly, but hard working people.

In spite of all the promises made, Trump did nothing for any of those people while he was in office. He didn't get the coal industry revived and moving again, he did nothing. They are facing a tragid opiod crisis, about which he did less than nothing, except that his policies made it worse. And much of that area is experencing a rural health care crisis, hospitals closing because too many people don't have insurance and can't afford care.

Biden's infrastructure bill, fight against inflation and is interest and economic policy has helped this region. There are jobs, and the employment picture is getting better. There are strides being made to deal with the opioid crisis. And the Biden administration recently appropriated funds, and working together with a local medical practice in Williamson, got their hospital re-opened.

Your best hope, people of Appalachia, is Joe Biden.