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Commonweal editor Matt Sitman joins us to take apart everyone’s favorite new pathological study of the American yokel, “Hillbilly Elegy” by J.D. Vance. We discover that Vance, who has ditched his beloved hillbilly roots to become a venture capital Silicon Valley vampire, is an Ohio version of Raylan Givens.

Here is Matt’s personal essay in Dissent on abandoning the conservatism he learned in his blue collar upbringing: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/leaving-conservatism-behind-blue-collar-republican-progressive

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Comments

CJ Canton

Cletus was awesome. Most folk'll never lose a toe and then again some folk'll, like Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel!

gamethatneverends

Class politics is where it's at!!! Braaaaaaaaatbraatttt

Mac Watson

Butternut was first used before the civil war, for people who moved up to farm/work in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. Butternuts are tree nuts, used in fabric dye. They dye clothes a grey-brown color, and the term was thus used to describe copperheads from those states who opposed the civil war and shared crops and a lifestyle with southerners.

Steve Dixon

Great episode. Near the 57:00 mark Matt notes that he did a lot of reading on the economic history of the last 40-50 years. Do the Dry Boys have any recommendations in particular?

Dave Rohlfman

Ruby Tuesday sometimes has salad bar

leedo

"payday microloan" holy shit

AU

Commonweal

Mark Mollineaux

Great discussion, but really didn't buy the argument that rural poverty isn't very different than urban poverty―Matt Sitman at the end talked about the lack of class consciousness in central PA, and I think this correctly reflects that the class system is very different in rural vs. urban surroundings.

Kodi

matt's tirade was appreciated and Amber was great as always

iceland

Do you think the urban poor have greater class consciousness? I think they have strong identities based around race, but so do the rural poor

Mark Mollineaux

I think it's definitely a different experience when the rich send their children to private schools and generally inhabit a sphere that is completely disparate to that of the urban poor, yeah. Compare to the rural rich family, who as Matt Sitman puts it, usually is just the owner of a successful business.

Erik Weissengruber

Amber calls out the urban, petty-bouj terror of the fecund hill dwellers that lies behind H.P. Lovecraft's "the hills rise wild," and, in further dehumanization, zombie horde fantasies.

DM

The jokes fell flat because no one but Matt had read the book.

S.L.

Most of what I heard in this episode is consistent with complaints I've seen from the academic Appalachian Studies folks, who are highly irked and concerned that Vance is unraveling their modest hard-earned gains in changing public perceptions of Appalachian communities. There was even a one-day workshop session specifically addressing Vance's book - east Tennessee-born Elizabeth Catte <a href="https://twitter.com/elizabethcatte/status/840932215047479296" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">live-tweeted it</a>. She has also posted elsewhere on the more general problem of <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/03/21/liberal-shaming-of-appalachia-inside-the-media-elites-obsession-with-the-hillbilly-problem/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">biased perceptions of Appalachia</a>. That last link points out a problem Appalachian leftist activists share with leftists elsewhere: while opposition from conservatives is a serious problem, that is expected. It's the prejudice and presumptions from liberals that is most vexing. One of the latest mini-eruptions apparently comes compliments of Amanda "Bernie-Bro" Marcotte, whose offending words I haven't seen, but I did see some blow-back in the form of <a href="https://twitter.com/civilwarbore/status/847474971404247040" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">a tweet storm</a> - a glorious rant - from a rural Virginia sheep farmer (17 sheep!).

Jack B

What is "the Hollar" (?) that Amber mentions at 45:20 (she says Jim Goad bemoans that it's becoming globalist)? Googling turned up a restaurant by that name, but it doesn't seem to be a chain.

S.L.

Here are a couple general links, as long as I have the browser tabs open. <a href="http://www.100daysinappalachia.com/hello-world/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">100 Days in Appalachia</a> was started after the election for knowledgeable authors to post pieces in an effort to correct misconceptions about Appalachia. If you do a lot of reading of leftie folks online, you probably already know about Sarah Jones (<a href="https://twitter.com/onesarahjones" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">twitter</a>, <i>New Republic</i> <a href="https://newrepublic.com/authors/sarah-jones" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">author page</a>. Her family is of the hills, and she has maintained an interest in Appalachia. An opinion which seems to be shared by all of Vance's critics is that he'll go into politics at some point. If he is trying to be sly about such intentions, it ain't working.

Charles Campbell

"holler" definition #13 in this forum thread is not bad: <a href="http://www.topix.com/forum/city/pikeville-ky/T8QQGR2S57BHNUPUH" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.topix.com/forum/city/pikeville-ky/T8QQGR2S57BHNUPUH</a>

S.L.

I remember Amber saying that, but didn't know the reference. Using the spelling "holler" and a bit of searching came up with the book title <i>"The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks, and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats"</i> by Jim Goad (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Redneck-Manifesto-Hillbillies-Americas-Scapegoats/dp/0684838648/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490967572&sr=1-1&keywords=the+redneck+manifesto" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">amazon-dot-com link</a>). That book title and description seems consistent with the tone and content of what Amber was saying.

peepos

Wow. Midway down the thread you even see a goddamn lanyard dick who worked in the Obama whitehouse spouting off with the typical brush-off excuse of "Well you weren't going to win anyway so why should we bother?

Zach Patterson

much love to the Chapo Boys and Girl, from West Virginia

Kindrid Parker

As a boy from the Deep South, thanks for this.

S.L.

<a href="https://twitter.com/civilwarbore/status/847871214785875970" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Looks like something positive</a> is growing from that initially testy exchange. Fingers crossed! ...{reply to Greg Scheidler}

Sosialisten_

Amber's right, cousin-fucking used to be a mark of literal royalty until quite recently.

S.L.

<a href="https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/847911923475730433" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">This tweet by Stoller</a> is pretty funny<blockquote>Hillbilly Elegy grifter JD Vance is moving to Ohio to do venture capital. And by Ohio he meant DC.</blockquote>But <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2017/03/22/steve-case-recruits-best-selling-author-for.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">the linked piece</a> actually says something else:<blockquote>D.C.-based Revolution LLC has hired J.D. Vance, the best-selling author of "Hillbilly Elegy," to be the latest partner at the venture firm. But don’t expect Vance to set up shop full time in Revolution’s District offices, since he will be splitting his time between Revolution HQ, Ohio and traveling the country to speak about his memoir.</blockquote>

Ian Baranek

Vance's Tales of the Dying Oaf.

DM

Where' they're poor but they have love, that's the one thing daddies make sure of, they shovel coal to make a poor man's dollar.

Weoooo

Conservatives think black people are orcs. Libs think it's hillbillies.

no

amber we pronounce it appa-LATCH-uh not appa-LAY-cha. wish this one was public so everyone could use it to send to their relatives who gift this.

S.L.

I mostly like Chris Arnade, but <a href="https://twitter.com/Chris_arnade/status/848597141803192321" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">occasionally he gives me reason to rethink that</a>:<blockquote>Look who I ran into in the Portsmouth McDonald's. @JDVance1!</blockquote>Sure enough, the accompanying photo shows Arnade with J.D. Vance himself. I wish Sitman or Elizabeth Catte or some other non-rightie Appalachian was also there at the table with them, if for no other reason than to give Arnade an alternative viewpoint, especially since Arnade seems to be gaining increasing media influence.

John Williams

The Adolph Reed piece is exactly the right comparison, It is short readable and an essential read for understanding how we use individuals as stand-ins or interpreters for a whole, diverse culture. <a href="https://libcom.org/files/ReedWhatAreTheDrumsSayingBooker.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://libcom.org/files/ReedWhatAreTheDrumsSayingBooker.pdf</a>

phxmotoboi

Make this eps public

Stank Aaron

Will, your voice sounds like hell. You sick, boy? Or have you been geekin on some cigs? ;)

Charles Pfrommer

This one is to good to keep behind bars

chris e

Would push back slightly on the 'he's a pretty good writer' meme. It's an easy read - but anyone who has read those Elizabeth/John Sherrell ghost written autobiographies that were popular in the evangelical world would be familiar with the particular house style he adopts. It's also kind of interesting to me that nowhere is it mentioned that his gf is originally from the subcontinent - the only tell is a the slightly unusual name - and yet magically there's no related conversation about race with any of his relatives when it comes to his marriage.

James FitzGibbon

had to listen in preparation for the midterms