Desperate people from poverty stricken areas voted for Trump, but they aren't the ones who put him in office. That was the mainstream Republicans, who stood by him for the sake of tax cuts, an anti-abortion supreme court, and a simplistic economic/racist nationalism. The real Trump country is the towns and suburbs, not the trailer parks and dirt roads.
But, setting Trump aside, it's an important point that the most plausible way forward for desperate people, rural or urban, is still New Deal and Great Society programs. They really work, and giving money to billionaires doesn't.
266
To J. D. Vance: Maybe welfare doesn't help those poor kids "achieve their dreams." But without it, they would be dead. Starved to death or dead from measles. Think about that. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
137
Not the least of America’s tragedy is its proud embrace of the ignorance, anti-intellectualism, and sheer hostility to learning which have made it so very difficult to help tens of millions of whites and blacks who have created a terminal dead end for themselves by failing so miserably in school. It’s nonsense that the failure of our schools to lift poor whites and blacks out of poverty is simply the schools’ fault. Plenty of immigrants starting with no English, but brains and a determination to lift themselves out if poverty by getting educated have made it in America despite attending poor schools. But immigrant kids who succeed are typically driven to work hard in school by parents determined to force them to do so. With bad parents who themselves never studied in school and didn’t want to, its no wonder poor white and black kids are doomed to stay as haplessly poor as their parents and grandparents.
86
nice read - something different ...
10
One quotation by Donald Trump from a Playboy interview in 1990 never got the attention I thought it deserved.
"If I had been the son of a coal miner," our future president said, "I would have left the damn mines. But most people don't have the imagination--or whatever--to leave their mine. They don't have 'it.'"
There, in a nutshell, is Trump's philosophy of human nature. Imagination--or whatever--will pull a person out of poverty and hardship.
Or, as in Trump's case, so will the several hundred thou he received from his father on a regular basis from childhood on.
54
Suppose the cultural problems affecting former manufacturing communities like Vance's hometown are alleviated, and residents pursue bachelors degrees in droves -- will that do anything to reverse the long-term economic trends that have led to the grim job prospects in these areas? Education may be a way forward (and out) for exceptional people like the two authors discussed in the article, but doesn't make sense as a solution in the aggregate. College doesn't "work for enough" of the people in Trump Country as the article posits when there simply aren't enough jobs in these communities for a workforce -- college educated or otherwise -- to flourish. These areas voted for Trump because he ran on an expressly protectionist platform, making repeated overtures to union members and other blue-collar workers. To center the discussion around subjective appraisals of culture is to fail to acknowledge the root cause of economic despair in these towns. Was toxic hillbilly culture up for discussion several generations ago when these places could provide a solid, middle-class existence for their residents?
27
My wife and I read "Hillbilly Elegy" We did not know about Tara Westover's book until now. But just reading your review and commentary caused me to think that the time has come for policy wonks to run some experiments.
A lot of the issues raised by Vance can be solved by institutions. I know from my own life, I have been to a lot of schools, lived a decent and comfortable life courtesy of the U.S. Navy and as a policy person in the U.S. Senate. I haven't made a lot of money but so far I have not become homeless through two deep recessions -- oil price hikes followed by Reagan's back-to-back recessions and the financial blow-out in 2008. We are healthy, I still work at near 82 and drive the "LeMans" course from my home to work.
Books, Journals and newspapers are my means of communications and being made aware of emerging problems.
A problem that I believe can cause social and economic disruption is the shift from fossil fuels as an energy source to sustainable sources of energy that will be economically competitive and also improve the quality of living for families not only in the US but all humankind.
Now the experiments: free preK-through 16 education, fund education with Federal, not local or State taxes, Include in the curriculum "human physiology" so that by high school graduation students would have the equivalent of a med school graduate in physiology -- reading, writing, arithmetic and physiology.
Mobilize for cheap electricity. I like beamed space solar.
34
Another book to consider in this discussion: THE OTHER WES MOORE. It's a mesmerizing, sobering read--albeit not about Trump's base. Its author, Wes Moore, understands and is willing to call out the structural roots of class inequality that it sounds like Vance and Westover remain reluctant to acknowledge.
18
Why are people comparing these two books? Yes they are both about young people who overcame severe hardship and went on to become highly educated. There the similarity ends.
Westover's writing is insightful, skillful and of decidedly higher calibre than Vance's. She is so rigorous in chronicling her memories, able to reflect on deeper meanings behind critical moments. Her moment on the roof is stunning and unforgettable.
Unlike Vance, who seems to think that sharing his own story gives him authority for expounding on his ideas for policies on payday lending and the like, Westover focuses with laser sharp insight on her life, bringing out deep and intricate meanings of stunning and unforgettable moments such as a specific day in art class or the walk on the roof of the university building. Westover leaves us with so much to think about and desiring to hear more of her voice. Vance left me thinking that he wrote a brave memoir but had not quite grown up enough to reflect.
55
Our schools are underfunded. Teachers are not respected as professionals. We need to really focus on schools as the engine of self improvement for everyone.
Plus we need life skills education in junior high school: family economics and how to figure compound interest; life planning with family planning and birth control for every woman who wants it; clear behavioral expectations in schools plus lots of physical education: not competitive sports but fun physical activity and teaching on anatomy and physiology.
We really do need to do more in education for our kids.
60
"... But as much as these folks were all-in for the oft-bankrupt developer, Trump’s presidency has been a kick in the teeth for them …"
McConnell and his Republicans used Trump to get their cruel, pro-rich, wildly unpopular policies: sabotaging health care; the tax-cut-for-for-the-rich; giant deficits that put Social Security and Medicare in jeopardy. Trump was no better. For example he had no real intention of providing "better and cheaper health care for everybody."
Folks showed Vance and Westover love and an escape route. And institutions--our institutions--like college and the military saved them. Why in the world is Vance so eager to pull up the ladder after him? Why in the world does Vance bear such animosity toward the institutions that saved him? Why is Vance genuflecting before Trump and the Trump McConnell Republicans who have "been a kick in the teeth for them?"
47
Much of Trumpland is educated but cannot get past the classic GOP trap of pro-life. It makes people in my world vote against their economic interests every time.
44
JD Vance is a poser and an opportunist. His early life story of family dysfunction, addiction and lack of direction can be found in every community in the US. He falls back on his distant connection to Central Appalachia and pulls out all the trifling stereotypes of Appalachian culture ( like all the ignorant “experts on Appalachia before him”) and implies that is to blame for his rough start in life. In “Hillbilly Elegy”, he references his connection to the Hatfield McCoy Feud as if that will legitimize his cultural heritage and expertise on being Appalachian.
Vance’s life story has happened for generations and continues to happen today. It knows no boundaries or specific cultural subsets. People overcome when basic needs are met and their worth as human beings are acknowledged. People overcome when they are shown other ways to cope and are encouraged to step forward. People overcome when they have mentors (family, neighbors, teachers, someone who believes in them) to encourage them. People overcome when they have access to tools in a non threatening learning environment. People overcome when they have the opportunity to express and hear ideas and views of others. People overcome when they can have experience first hand and feel the rush of success.
Societies live and thrive when members succeed. Societies fail and die when members get beat down by neglect and patronizing attitudes.
64
While the two stories are at once inspiring and reassuring (the American dream is still alive!) the fact remains the stories were enabled by great American institutions and to some extent race. The very states that are home to these struggling poor and destroyed economies appear to hate government, national institutions and wallow in racist politics. Their saving grace is so antithetical to everything they are and stand for. What made America great and the white thinking that contributed to the greatness is unlike anything these states represent. We need to reset our thinking and realize the values that make us American and truly different. It is being fearless, generous, being truthful, willing to learn, seeking knowledge, open-minded and hard working.
13
It’s not hard to understand beliefs like Vance’s:
Step 1: imagine that you’re a multimillionaire and need to justify holding on to your money while millions suffer.
Step 2: claim that somehow, against all evidence, everyone could do what you did (even though they aren’t you).
Step 3: tell the people in your social circle.
Step 4: receive praise for confirming what everyone wants to believe.
54
Before there was "Hillbilly Elegy" there was "Night Comes to the Cumberlands," the book that launched Kennedy's original "War on Poverty." It was a short. non-anecdotal (unlike Hillybilly) account of how the coal industry ruthlessly stripped the land and people of their lives.
The late Senator Robert Byrd managed to get huge amounts of government spending into West Virginia. How is it that this has been forgotten?
54
Yeah, ok, but what do we do about the fact the people who live in these communities and voted for Trump still support him?
24
JDVance is the Clarence Thomas of memoirists, turning his back on the institutions that gave him a leg up and a chance to overcome his upbringing. That doesn’t mean that he didn’t have a significant role in helping him to become the person he is today, but if thinks he pulled himself up by his bootstraps without any help, then he’s not as smart as he thinks he is.
79
Reagan lives:
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help. Ronald Reagan
What a terrifying ghosts haunts our American scene.
19
I am so beyond tired of being asked to understand these people. When have they ever been asked to understand the rest of us? The college-educated, city-dwelling, well-read "liberal elite"? More to the point, WHY are our liberal, metropolitan newspapers filled with thousands of column inches explaining this phenomenon of the rural, white, evangelical Christian blue-collar worker, asking for our sympathy and understanding, as if they are some lost Amazonian tribe, week after week? I lived in rural Kentucky and rural Pennsylvania. I promise you with all my heart, not ONE of their community papers every bothered to explain the rest of the country to them. Instead it was all canned columns from Focus On The Family and the Heritage Foundation. Serously, enough already. I'm tired of this one-way door. I know these people. How about explaining the rest of the world to them for a change?
131
I really would like The Times to talk with people in these areas -- Trumpland, as you say -- and see if they know what Trump has done to programs they should favor.
If they're still hanging on to "learned helplessness," if they're still angry about the "libs" for helping "others," and if they still think Trump has stood up for them and people like them, then God help the United States of America!
I know Trump's support is declining, but I do fear the permanence of his "base," whatever that may be. If the people in the "base" simply refuse to see what Trump is doing, if they believe his every Tweet, then we're going to have a heckuva time getting this country united.
Is Trump building some permanent divisions in our nation by governing through ignorance as if he's the nation's "drunk uncle"? How can we help his base see that facts matter, that outcomes matter -- and that slogans don't?
25
I enjoyed your excellent article, Timothy. I grew up in an ultra-conservative, racist and white-supremacist, liberal-hating and government-hating (very close cousins), Jim Crow environment. When I went to college several wonderful professors blew fresh air through my mind that caused me to rethink my life and previous programming. A higher liberal education can certainly benefit people who want to grow and thus are receptive to a range of ideas. Otherwise it can only justify entrenched beliefs.
317
I had two grandpas. My mom's dad was an Iowa farm boy, my dad's dad was a Chicago hood kinda guy. Think White Sox and Cubs. One Grandpa was a decorated war hero, the other was a 'made' guy in Chicago.
I never heard any of my family claim anything like American virtue. We were, I guess, simple.
We were, and are, just trying to make our way in a dangerous world.
I work overseas, still simple, still my grandpa's kid. BOTH grandpa's.
3
In my experience, the "hillbilly" Trump supporters don't support the existence of government handouts (even though they receive them) as they see first hand in themselves and their communities how these benefits don't improve their lives. Generation after generation they are stuck in poverty and lack of self worth. It's no wonder they support any politician, Trump or otherwise, who focuses on bringing them economic opportunity and a chance to change, be this real or just perceived. They are not represented by someone who prioritizes maintaining the benefits that keep them at their status quo. The sooner the democrats understand this, the sooner they have a chance of winning these voters.
Commentators here mirror the national dialogue by dismissing as irrational (and even stupid) anyone who receives benefits yet theoretically opposes them. I wish there were more commentators who expressed a desire to understand the apparent contradiction, rather than dismiss a whole swath of our population as incompetent and of cluelessly voting against their own best interests.
It's never that simple.
Oh, and to compare the Marine Corps to a government handout by calling it a "hand up," is insulting in my opinion. Joining the Marine Corps is the opposite of a handout; this comment makes the author appear out of touch.
13
Most people who r impoverished need outstanding counselors and teachers that are relentless in having a constant ongoing relationship with them. Smart =time on task They must understand this concept. When they see someone getting straight A's They can do it too. You need someone who is dogged around u everyday saying U CAN DO IT. You must have someone in your orbit who helps u believe in yourself and gives u advice and understanding.
12
Serving in the Armed Forces is not for everyone, and neither is college.
8
Nancy Isenberg in her book "White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America" describes the "more of the same" story of economical, physical and mental poverty in America. This class of poor whites' concern is not with people at the upper rungs of society's ladder. As long as they are not at the lowest rung of the ladder, they are OK. This lower rung previously was populated by the enslaved and later by their descendants. The civil-right revolution began the process of liberation, leaving the learned-helpless poor whites with fewer and fewer people below them. Trump promised to reverse the trend by the demonization and marginalization of hispanics, muslims and others. Trump's promise of renewed American greatness allowed them to feel they are no longer at the bottom.
Isenberg also contemplates potential ways out, but my overall take-home was pretty bleak. Our policies and institutions may help the few, but we "will always have the poor".
16
I think it depends on what considers being 'saved' from 'Trump Country'. Mr. Vance's route out of his self-described 'hillbilly life' was indeed through the military, and he's clearly living a much different life. However, after reading his 'Elegy', I concluded that Mr. Vance is a right-wing, conservative, reflecting his upbringing. The difference now is that he has had more formal education, has wealth, and now a national platform.
28
J.D. Vance’s argument was alive and well in my birthplace of Harlan, Kentucky, long before he was born. The “bootstraps” hypothesis assumes you have boots. If all you needed to be successful was work hard, they would have been millionaires--not living in coal-mining camps and buying overpriced goods with script from the company store. They also never took government handouts. And so food was homegrown and sometimes scare and shoes never had solid soles. Each generation sunk further into poverty and hopelessness. Handouts became a necessity and drugs an escape.
They were not blameless; some made bad choices--or no choices. But it’s difficult to pull oneself out of the pit if there are no handholds such as a quality (or even mediocre) education or a good paying job or a roof over your head that doesn’t leak.
Hillbilly Elegy is an apropos title--an elegy being a lament for the dead. My Appalachian culture and kinfolk died not from lack of will or desire but from lack of opportunity and an abundance of apathy from people who could have made a difference.
35
I have read both books. I admired Hillbilly until the middle of the book , then I came to look at him as hypocritical and elitist. He looked down at the the people who didn’t make it out. He viewed social support programs THAT HE HIMSELF benefited from as welfare of the greedy week.
Educated was a completely different take on society. She understood that education was her ticket out She eventually understood lack of education was what held her siblings back from understanding and escaping the extremism of her parents religious beliefs and limits of their narrow views She appreciates the social programs that allowed her to attend college and did not deny them. She was likable, Hillbilly was not
Allison U Caulfield
34
I enjoyed this article, as I do most of Egan's writing, but he allows for some uncharacteristically poor causality.
---As Vance writes, “poverty is in the family tradition,” as is “learned helplessness.” In other words, the hillbillies of his book have no one but themselves to blame for being hillbillies.---
His conclusion is clearly not implicit in the quote.
3
Having read Hillybilly, I think it's one of the follies of the electoral college system that these uneducated,uninformed, resentful, hypocritally "religious" people have the clout to foist their choice on the rest of us and destroy our standing around the world as the well as the importance of truth from the White House.They are the real villains of the Trump debacle, along with the Russian and American oligarchs who have created an imperial presidency with no consequences for wrongdoing.
22
I haven't read Westover's book, but I will. For what seems to me a much more authentic take on growing up poor in America than Vance provided, read Heartland (Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Nation on Earth) by Sarah Smarsh.
12
Thank you for the article. One clarification worth noting is that Franklin County, Idaho is not in any sense an "evangelical" area. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 88.2% of residents in Franklin County are affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They are Mormon, not evangelical.
14
The poor people of Appalachia and rural Idaho seem intent on bringing our country down to their level. They resent our education and success, and instead of emulating it, want to destroy us. It is stubborn pride, and shame. Shame at the fact that they have to take out handouts from the hated blue states, and a pride driven by a belief system that tells them that they are morally superior to the secular people who inhabit big cities.
They rule us due to a system which gives their votes more weight than ours. They are also being used by the real rich, who use poor rural voters to vote in policies which redistribute tax money to the ultra-rich. I've had enough of their sanctimony, their hypocrisy and their President.
38
I, like others who have commented, grew up in hillbilly elegy country. my experience was different because a lot of my neighbors were from immigrant families who worked in coal mines and steel mills. Those immigrant families, mostly, had a dream for their kids - at least college and maybe more. I look at some of them now - Phds, doctors, lawyers and such.
There isn't much back there today, mines are closed and the mills hardly open. I don't know what to say to those still there, but it is true...they are conservative and hate the liberals while it is the liberals who still give them the ways to get out...
28
There are similarities to pockets of Appalachia and pockets in some large Urban centers, poverty poor job prospects on government aid.
Only difference is hillbillies vote Trump and urbanites don't...hence the great lengths to characterize their shortcomings in such disparaging fashion here.
5
I'm curious about people who are just poor and don't have anything wrong with them (no drug addictions, family violence, crazy religions, etc.).
How do their kids do?
12
The social conspiracy against Vance and Westover is as potent as any familial anarchy. Look at this day's revelations about the Governor of Virginia having fun in Klan attire and blackface in the 1980s. That is full bore middle class compulsion to conform to denial. Paradoxically, it is probably easier for the isolated impoverished victim of the Secessionist scourge to evacuate that setting than the boy or girl with keys to an extra family car. Still.
3
I have not read Vance's book, but it sounds disingenuous.
For instance, why is the term “Hillbilly” used in the title and why is a rundown shack plastered on the book cover? My understanding is that Vance grew up in the Midwest (Ohio) raised by guardians who themselves had relocated from near Appalachia. How does Vance's proxy exposure to the Hills via others’ values qualify him as an expert on Appalachia?
Note: this NY Times article portrays a school bus covered in weeds in Kentucky. Why? Also in response to the article, institutions do not save—they only a means. And if fortune wills it, any catastrophe will yield survivors and it is folly to give advice based on such rare births.
7
An education is like furniture for the mind.
4
Tara Westover's family is and was not poor. Her parents have a successful business. In addition, two of her siblings also got a PhD! .. these are not disenfranchised "hillbillies" : https://www.wsj.com/articles/review-alone-at-the-summit-1518813948
8
You can’t choose where you’re born but you can choose where you live.
4
Vance’s crowd are the type who hate “Obamacare” but like Affordable Health Care (the same, I know) but only for themselves and their ‘tribe’. Everybody else is undeserving.
15
Here’s a link to all of the New Deal projects the Federal government forced upon West Virginia during the Great Depression.
https://livingnewdeal.org/us/wv/
3
J.D. Vance had nothing good to say about the US Military but he used it to his advantage. That is hardly pulling yourself up my your conservative boot straps. We should all be thankful for all the US institutions that we can take advantage of for a lift up.
10
Trump, himself, benefited tremendously from tax breaks (see NY Times investigative story), that elevated his father, who in turn gave Donnie $418 MILLION at age 8, hardly the boostrapper the conservatives think he is. The bankrupt cheater in chief has tremendous disdain for people in poor places, yet they keep buying his schtick. It's one of the most baffling things I've seen in my lifetime. The Hillbilly Elegy author is the worst hypocrite out there, and there's little doubt he will be taking advantage of tremendous GOVERNMENT tax breaks for his new ventures. Good job, Mr. Egan, in calling him out on his hypocrisy.
19
We'll know we have arrived as a decent culture when it's a felony to lie and deceive our most lame and vulnerable citizens for political power and greed.
What vile felon on death row has done more deliberate torturous damage to more people than trump?
And the majority of his enablers in the GOP!
And the vast majority of the ever engorging plutocrats!
8
It is amazing to me that everything comes down to politics vs human beings. As usual it’s a story about poor white people who made it.
They should attend the State of the Union Trump who hates everyone would be proud.
As long as your white even the limited doors are open for you and your dreams become reality. Oh so heartwarming.
1
“You have been taken over by Lucifer” What the typical trump base, "poor, white, undereducated, violent, and evangelical in the extreme" believe.
Irony that this opinion piece is next to another opinion piece entitled "What Science Can Learn From Religion -
Hostility toward spiritual traditions may be hampering empirical inquiry." https://nyti.ms/2UyXjpH
I wonder why.
2
This is a superficial analysis of what these two books showed. And the idea that one can conclude that the hillbilies have no one but themselves to blame is simplistic.
I previously had a lot of respect for Timothy Egan's writing, but this looks like he just wanted to get a column finished.
2
It’s all a matter of perspective and cultural roots. One of the most interesting observations that I had while reading “Hillbilly Elegy” was that it was almost the exact same life story as Dr. Carl Hart’s “High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery” and to a somewhat less extent Charles Blow’s “Shut Up in my Bones”. In fact... I found Hart and Blow’s childhoods to be more “hillbilly-rednecky” than Vance’s...except the they don’t fit the stereotype from the standpoint of skin color.
I will say this though...although all 3 had their wild moments as teenagers and in their early 20s...none had ever been arrested, truly a blessed “dodged bullet”...especially in the case of Hart and Blow.
3
The New York Times needs to do poor Mr. Vance a favor and stop featuring his "Hillbilly Elegy" book in its editorial session. Every time this happens, he is savaged in the comments. It seems that Vance is simply the New York Times's idea of what a Trump voter looks like. Come down to Louisiana and meet some of the ones without Yale Law School degrees. It ain't a pretty sight!
5
I suspect that what really enabled these individuals to escape their poor dysfunctional origins was high IQs.
16
Wow. This reeks of elitism.
1
Like Westover and Vance, a fancy education was my ticket out of a hardscrabble upbringing, as I wrote about in my book KooKooLand. But whether you grow up in Idaho, Ohio, or in my case, the Live-Free-or-Die state of New Hampshire, the obstacles, for disadvantaged kids in America, to obtaining and maximizing that type of life-changing education have become so monumental that they are nearly insurmountable. After reading my book, many kind and supportive people say to me, “If you could make it, anybody can.” But the sad truth is that one person triumphing over extreme deprivation is not proof that anyone can triumph. We Americans want to believe that. We need to believe it. It’s the Kool-Aid we’ve been drinking from birth. But for every billionaire like Howard Schultz, who, like me, began life in a housing project, there are billions who never move up even one rung of the ladder and, even more so these days, who fall backwards. Trickle down has created a trickle of winners and a Biblical-sized flood of losers. Upward mobility like Vance, Westover and I experienced is becoming as rare as winning the lottery. But, hell, millions keep buying those tickets, imagining the day they too will join the elites and live The American Dream, getting poorer by the day. We all need to wake up and start playing a game with better odds of success.
18
I remember being at a Caribbean resort with a number of couples who were all ex-military. We were discussing Obamacare. To them it was a handout. The had no concept that their early retirement and generous benefits, were also sponsored by government. Here there were sitting on a Caribbean island, in their mid-fifties, with generous pensions and money in the bank and yet someone who got a hundred dollars worth of groceries from a food bank was a welfare queen.
36
I was not that impressed with the Vance book. He gives no insight or strategy for helping similar people move forward.
He does not seem to care, and believes everyone is on their own. Like many, Vance refuses to acknowledge the invisible hand of the public institutions which propelled him forward: local public school, the military, stated sponsored higher education (Ohio State), paid for by the GI Bill and scholarship to Yale Law School.
He has a contempt for both for his roots and his present status. I find this baffling.
On the other hand, Arlie Hochschul's book "Strangers in Their Own Land" shows much more compassion for her subjects, sometimes more than they deserve given that they consistently vote against their own interests, often knowingly.
18
My father had an 8th grade education, was a B-17 mechanic in WW2, returned to rural Vt, drove freight truck and and became a State Police officer when I was born. We lived in a backwater, mom worked all her life, and my dad got his first break; hired on to sell ads for the yellow pages. From there, we had a "middle class" life: no tv til 1961, no air conditioning, 2 cars with 2 working parents and we were latch key kids all through school. I expended my meager savings after freshman year in college. I worked for 3 years in meager jobs, but saved money for school. I returned to school full-time (no less than 20 semester hrs and 4-labs per week), and worked 20hrs/week. I worked hard. I made Deans List my last 2 years and graduated with honors. I worked for 37 yrs and retired in 2013. I'm not rich, I live comfortably, and I collected unemployment a few times between jobs when I was working. I was grateful it was there. We need to help each other and that is why the Federal programs are there. They aren't meant to derive a living from; no matter how meager. I moved to stay employed when I needed to. Staying flexible and believing in yourself are important to keep going.
20
School increased my distrust of the government- it didn't lessen it. But it also helped me to enjoy books and music. And I grew to understand and celebrate the struggles of the working class to gain a foothold of political power for themselves without owning a fortune. So the door swings both ways- the point is that the human brain needs to be fed. Our bodies need calories, but the mind also needs information, not just entertainment. I don't like math because I'm not that smart. But it came to me- slowly perhaps! but I struggled to understand it and the equations finally started to make sense. But you must never give up on Education and the Planet. The jobs will come; security and healthcare will materialize. But not without the 1st two.
5
Mr. Egan, are you seriously holding up the example of a rags-to-riches venture capitalist as a story of success? Do you know what a venture capitalist does for a living? He accrues unto himself wealth that is created by other people who work for a living. He then uses that wealth to invest, in the hopes of taking even more money from yet other people who work. He would have been a far greater success if he drove a bus for a living. At least he would then be helping people get to and from work or school or doctor's appointments, thereby adding value to society.
10
Not everyone who turns out this way comes from the described circumstances. My brother, raised in our educated, socially and religiously liberal household, became just what is discussed here - "white, undereducated, violent, and evangelical in the extreme." Beating children is directed by God. In a southern state, try to get someone to intervene when parents are essentially torturing their children, even the youngest. Whipping a two year old - even younger - is seen as doing God's bidding. The authorities often share this belief system based in their own religion and personal experiences. And children are brainwashed into thinking they deserve it and will defend their parents. Wives are made to be subservient. Education leads to critical thinking, which a threat to these abusers. They want to control everyone's mind, body and soul. My brother and his family (children now grown) love Trump. Is it any surprise? Trump speaks to them and lifts them up.
9
I am still baffled that people consider the Trump/GOP 'No Deal' to be on par with FDR's 'New Deal'.
There is no deal on North Korea, there is no deal on a better healthcare for all, there is no deal for common sense gun reform, there is no deal for the opioid crisis, there is no deal for judicial reform, there is no deal for immigration reform, there is no deal on the table for the things that matter, yet people will continue to accept 'No Deal' over the risk of a 'New Deal' that raises taxes on the 1% and major corporations earning more than $10 million a year (those mythical 'job creators').
Education, critical thinking, and perspective are the only way out of Trump Country. The lights are on, but everyone has their eyes closed bumbling around in the self-inflicted darkness of religious fundamentalism, fear, racism, and celebrated ignorance. Two managed to get out, but how many are willing and wanting to get out? This is a classic case of the whole horse, water, drink thing for most in Trump Country.
11
"But it was a government hand up — the great meritocracy of the Marine Corps and federal aid to get through college"
Now we know what Egan considers acceptable in terms of "hand up" assistance. Looks like another round of welfare reform is on the horizon and line forms at the local recruiting office.
2
J.D. Vance made a deal with the devil and threw an entire community under the bus for his own success. His story allows his fellow venture capitalist friends to minimize the harm that many of the companies they invest in have wrought on communities like J.D. Vance's across the country. He allows them to chalk up high unemployment rates and poor health outcomes to "earned helplessness," rather their own conduct. I can't help but wonder whether J.D. Vance actually believes what he says, or simply feels that identifying as a conservative is better career choice. From a grifter like him, it's hard to tell.
21
"They also show us the best way out of the basement of American despair."
This seems to suggest that success, and the ultimate solution for our country is that everyone should move to SF Bay or NYC (as these two authors have).
I don't think that is what the Trump base (or most people that live in the areas that have been eroded by the shifts in our economy) see as a goal.
Is it possible that success could mean staying in, contributing to, and elevating the community where one is born? Does family have to be geographically abandoned?
These two stories don't tell us the story of how to foster cohesive communities in all parts of our country. I think the answer to that problem is one of the main things the populist movement seeks.
7
One of the threads through both of these stories, and a huge influence in many poor areas, is religion. Particularly evangelical religion. Between the Catholic Church and every evangelical variant of Christianity, the basic message Jesus preached has long been lost. (Love thy neighbor, welcome the stranger, material riches are not the way to heaven, and so forth.) As a society we need to consider if we should continue to promote and support an institution that is used to justify the hate and vitriol we see in so many people who claim to be “true” Christians. We need a new, updated moral code that can help bring people together. That can speak to the need for economic equity, tolerance, fairness and love for all people.
16
Union jobs union jobs union jobs.
For those who didn’t climb out of the chum bucket via military or college, this was always the third - and maybe the most achievable and sustainable - way. Fight for good union jobs and resurrect the middle class backbone of America. Fight for careers for workers, not just jobs.
22
As I recall, conservatives Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell benefited from government programs which paid for Ryan's college after his father died and for McConnell's childhood polio treatment, but having received an assist up the ladder both were quite happy to pull it up after themselves. No institution is 100% effective is producing positive change-- but I agree with the author's conclusion. Nobody is self-made and it's easy to forget that in a culture where individualism is highly valued.
49
I too grew up in a small rural, resource-dependent community, was the first on either side of my family to go to college, worked from the time I was 13, waited tables and studied like my life depended on it (because it did) and “made it”. I’m not resentful. I am grateful for everything from Planned Parenthood (free healthcare, no babies until I could afford them) to public schools, the local library (long live the Bookmobile!), student loans, hardworking parents who insisted I study AND work, and much more. I know full well I didn’t do it all on my own and I thank God on the regular for the people, programs and opportunities that provided a platform for success. I try hard to pay it forward. Why can’t we acknowledge that nobody does it alone? Why can’t we be grateful instead of hateful? Whatever happened to the Golden Rule? Enquiring minds want to know. This one has just about given up.
83
Maybe a better view comes from Sarah Smarsh in her memoir "Heartland: a Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth."
The forces arrayed against moving from poor to less poor in this country are huge. We had a window in history (the early 1900's) when labor held power and later when the robber barons of Wall Street were curbed. In this small window, the middle class bloomed in America. But then we had a steady erosion of the protections that let the middle class grow from the poor. Corporate farms swallowed the family farm. Monsanto patented seeds so that farmers became dependent upon them. Pushed off their land people encountered systemic racism, sexism, and classism that created endless roadblocks to success. The contract between lifetime factory worker and owner was broken and pensions evaporated. And on, and on the system unraveled. The ideal of "the self made man" is now only obtainable by a rare lucky few. There are many who work and work and work and can never get ahead. Their children watch and learn how futile...thus the despair sets in and for some the spiral down. We all know it's true...That it's easier for the rich to get richer than for the poor to get less poor in America today.
It doesn't have to be this way. After all, it is to protect the rights of citizens that "governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
39
"Demography is not destiny in Forgotten America." For a handful of extraordinarily resilient people, it may not be. But among the poor and the dispossessed, figures like J. D. Vance and Tara Westover are as rare as hen's teeth.
For the vast majority of Americans demography is destiny. For this to change, the nation needs a massive public-private coalition to address the inequities of demography under the visionary leadership of figured who are nowhere yet to be seen.
J. D. and Tara, how about you?
16
An exceptional country would have an exceptionally good public school system to address generational poverty and put all of our kids to work, creating a strong tax base and lower costs for social ills. Students with top tier educations typically do not end up in jail or addicted. Why not the best school system in the world - especially as future conflicts will be driven by technology, not boots on the ground. The US military budget is sacred; many of our children are disposable to DC.
42
I notice many of your Times Picks relate how they were able to escape similar poverty via working and going to college etc., and one thing I notice time and again is that these tales are from early boomers and before. Before college grew unattainably expensive, before jobs started paying less, and less, and less. Vance is younger than that, when he was growing up there were no more "good jobs".
I read of the distain for those who both collect government handouts and deplore those same handouts. It doesn't seem counterintuitive to me. What if we paid ag workers the same as oil field or coal workers? America needs some changes, and I'm not sure today's elites are ready for it.
18
An enlistment in the Armed Services will get a person generous GI Bill benefits. There are many ways to fund higher education. Is tuition at many universities ludicrously expensive: absolutely. Should folks have to potentially risk their lives in conflicts they don’t necessarily agree with/ consider legitimate: probably not. However, the fact is that there are still ways to access higher education in a reasonably affordable manner. What I’ve witnessed in my own work in education: a rapidly declining commitment to making a consistent and strong effort; a sense that “only the best” (read private and outlandishly expensive) will suffice; and a generalized consumerist approach to education.
7
re Vance: the wealthy are different. They really like money. Hence for him to now recognize the value of the government in his "rise" would require him to acknowledge that debt by paying taxes. But he loves his money & power. He'll fight taxes to the death but donate money that remains under his control.
30
My father left West Liberty, Morgan County, Kentucky- Eastern Kentucky-Appalachia for the U.S. Army from 1959-1966. Then after the Army, he settled in Southern Ohio, where many transplanted Kentuckians lived. He did not feel sorry for himself and worked hard.
Not everybody from the place Vance vilifies is drug addicts and lazy. My uncle, 3 aunts, and cousins live in the region and they are NOT Hillbillies! They live productive lives and J.D. Vance is patronizing.
157
@MA Ramsay
Vance is talking about his own upbringing. I'm glad yours was different. I have many relatives who live along the Yadkin in North Carolina. They're a mix--some work hard, while others succombed to drugs and drink. Two uncles served in Vietnam--one was broken by it, one was not. Almost to a one, they think Trump has the answers to their daily problems, which saddens me. I know he cares nothing about them.
124
I read and enjoyed Vance's book. My issue with him as a poster-boy for conservative values is that everything good in his life was produced by liberals. The open-minded person who accepted a kid from the wrong background into Yale. The union jobs that allowed his grandparents enough stability to raise him. Who defended those jobs? Who fought for them? And who protects wife beaters and child molesters? Who taught his mother that she was nothing without a man?
His hard work got him where he is -- no doubt about it. People have choices -- we can always choose better over worse. But hard work is more effective in the context of decent housing, good schools, and jobs that support a family. Exceptional people can rise above the worst circumstances, but most people are average -- not exceptional.
America will be a great country again when average people have a fighting chance at decent lives. Let's fight for good laws and good policies -- so that we have hundreds of stories like these instead of two.
82
Several commenters have picked up on this theme and it's worth some consideration. The supposed villians here are not necessarily die-hard racists without dental care. Rather, it's those in possession of the intelligence to comprehend the world beyond their back yard who prefer not to know, not to understand, not to be curious about why things are the way they are. The spirit to do this requires some risk taking and it's clear that Westover has done much more of that than Vance.
I grew up in the Alabama part of Pennsylvania, and though my childhood was a 5-star cruise compared to these two, I know how it feels to get out of your comfort zone with respect to your roots.
21
Vance & Westover are to be admired for their perseverance and gumption. I think the sad truth in Vance's & Westover's story is you can only help people who are open to help and want to help themselves.
Also, in some of the comments people have implied that somehow joining the Marines is equivalent to being on the government dole - nothing could be further from the truth.
14
For the most part, peacetime military service IS a form of welfare. That’s not to say that military service isn’t an obligation of every eighteen year old male. The issue is the cost of recruitment, testing, screening, transporting, training, feeding, clothing, housing and caring to the taxpayer coupled with the cost of pay and dependent services, and any educational benefit taken later. I understand the appropriateness of a GI Bill for those who’ve had multiple deployments to hostile areas in jobs that regularly take them outside the wire. But for the vast majority of past, present and future enlisteds, and especially in the case of Cold War enlistments like mine, the DoD has become the nations largest benefit provider. I got a job the day I returned from the Army and the boss I worked for put it well: It’s a form of welfare that differs only in the fact that you have to get out of bed to get paid.
10
@Bob in Pennsyltucky
As did the author of this piece.
Contrary to our national myth, there are no entirely self-made Americans. Every success story is created out of personal talent and ambition created by genetic inheritance and is enabled in uncountable ways by role models in family, clan and social networks.
The world may be unaware of who these rescuing mentors are, but the successful who rise above their station certainly are even when they fail to publically recognize their benefactors.
Because environment and socialization are critical to personal values, it seems counterintuitive that one raised in poverty , social alienation, and even economic oppression of family and clan and region would not see the power of politics and government as an effective anodyne instrument to improve their fate in life.
Why, in otherwords, do some beneficiaries of government programs become politico-economic conservatives opposed to government? Perhaps their genetic temperament and personality explain the minority that see government as the problem rather than the solution.
It is seems to me more likely that it is a combination of deep personal psychology of self relience that falsely claims singular personal responsibility for their success. They are blind to the enablers that supported their rise. By induction, if environment is constant and others fail to overcome, they alone are responsible for their failure and government intervention is counterproductive and fruitless.
8
I have read Mr. Vance's book referenced here. As I recall, the military was Mr. Vance's first lifeline. The second was his fast track into Yale law school from Ohio State, which seemed to me, to be a bit glossed over. Mr. Vance actually received two boosts out of the dead end his origins indicated.
I do admire Mr. Vance for his military service and for investing the hard work necessary to take advantage of the opportunities that opened up.
14
Westover's world growing up sounds sufficiently toxic and downright dangerous on a daily basis that most kids would feel extremely motivated to find any way at all out. Those with enough brains, and any kind of outside support or encouragement, are likely to be continually scanning their horizon for a way out. Learning that there are ways of living dramatically different than what they've grown up with is the first and most important step.
13
Westovers book is a fascinating story of how family culture works against “finding a way out”. She loves her family, including her father and abusive brother, they are all she knows, her whole world.
She is loved by her family as well.
For me the most interesting thing about the book is how perspective impacts decisions we make for our lives and how our stories and memories change depending on our experiences.
6
I am sick and tired of subsidizing these states with an electorate that rails against social services and yet takes my federal tax dollars. When we talk about redistributing wealth, no words are ever spoken of these red states that collect a federal share of tax revenue from predominantly blue states.
49
Ironically, 75% of the population represented in these ‘memoirs’ haven’t read them. But, I’m sure they’ll be very happy for J.D when they see his name in lights.
5
The photograph is riveting: a school bus being overgrown by kudzu.
14
Mr. Egan:
Saying that the Marine Corps is a gov't hand up is insulting.
7
Who pays for the Marine Corps? The government. Who runs the Marine Corps? The government. Who pays for the educational and housing assistance that Marines receive after discharge? The government.
Yes Marines work hard while enlisted. But it's not like a regular job, where the pay and benefits stop when the job is over. The government keeps taking care of Marines after they leave.
That government support for education, housing and medical care is important and valuable.
37
@James
Is the Marine Corps supported by some off shore corporation? No. It is supported by the DOD which has a budget supported by tax dollars. The Marine Corps is tough to get into; it values discipline and education. Those who join are able to take that discipline into civilian life and do well.
22
And who pays for the government? We, the people. You and me. The military is in fact a way up and out of poverty for many, many people, especially those of color, and has been for a very long time. I applaud and thank those who serve. I don’t think calling it a “hand up” is an insult at all. It is what it is, and that is a way forward.
36
This opinion is preposterous. The people who suffer in these books can’t pull themsleves up becasue the don’t want to. As much as they complain about their plight, they won’t change their behavior or move to where the opportunities are. They’d rather stay in the same place, vote for Trump and complain about the rest of us not doing enough for them. My father left this kind of place and culture 70 years ago and created a new life for his family. He saw there was no future in one of these mill towns and today the town he left is a disaster area. These hillbillys need to wake up and pull themselves out of their misery. I have no sympathy for them, because they refuse to change.
18
Yep -- so tired of rich people thinking they got their on their own. No one does. Shame on Vance.
21
I grew up in a housing project. We were located with a railroad running about 20 steps from our front door and a brass factory right across the street, spewing toxic smoke and flames into the air. I learned to sleep with trains running by several times in the night, in a double bed with 3 of my brothers. I didn’t sleep in a bed alone until I was 16. To this very day I still sleep on the edge of a bed.
My mother was a housewife with 7 children, no modern appliances other than a radio and icebox. Dad worked in a factory 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for $1.90 an hour. I never met anyone who had gone to college other than my teachers. But thanks to encouragement from my teachers, and later a state job that allowed me to take college courses, I was able to realize what my dad had always preached: Education will improve your life. After years of work I was able to get a PhD and for someone who had no plans or hope of going to college, I ended up having a 30+ career as a college administrator and dean.
I can never turn my back on anyone else who seeks to have a better life. I therefore continue to mentor young people who are in dire need of assistance and a role model. I know that some people in poverty choose to remain ignorant or feel helpless, but there are many who just need a hand to hold onto and guide them out of their situations. That hand more than likely will come directly or indirectly from the government.
57
I read Hillbilly Elegy, and while I found it an interesting read, it also delivered mixed messages.
The thing that was clear in the book was, that the people of Appalachia were attracted to Trump, because he was at least talking about their plight. These people felt they were being ignored and looked down upon. Both true. Unfortunately for them they were and continue to be lied to by Trump.
Promises made, promises not kept.
It’s understandable that they have a distrust of institutions.
They have been had again, and Vance should hold those guilty accountable. He has the platform to do so.
20
When lost and the center breaks our spiritual self comes to a fork in the road. Realize the resources at hand and nature one’s individuality. The other choice is to submit and belong to the group at the expense of abandoning one’s pursuit of self. Fromm called it "Escape from Freedom." The group du jour are the red hats. The river runs through it, not so easy to change.
4
I am from there. I got educated and went back. There are are a lot of great people still who navigated all the contortions in the economy to stay there. I have several sisters and brothers and they are working with the opportunities that are offered. I think the reason I was not able to dig in to stay was as the employment office noted too educated for the area. My family roots go back to the time of Daniel Boone opening Kentucky.
Appalachia is a great place to be from. There is a lot of freedom to roam the woods, hunting and fishing. The U.S. government in the early days made sure we could not organize to get better pay by bringing in troops and siding with the companies. They still mostly sides with the companies so the companies can get away with utter destruction of the environment.
People work in all kinds of fields beside coal mining, gas drilling and timbering, including doctor, lawyer, business owner, home builder, farmer, merchant, newspaper man. The people from Appalachia love it there. The mountains are part of us. The hardest thing is to leave a place you love. It is a place I long to be after 30 years.
We are not caged so we do not have to escape. All we have to do is turn the key and go wherever we want to go. When we leave, we can become successful wherever we end up.
The key to success in Appalachia is just like any where else. You have to work at it.
Really it could be a viable place to live for more people with jobs.
10
@Robert Horn
When I lived in D.C. West VA was one many places visited; it was beautiful, and the people were neither rude, or really friendly. I believe that if I had car trouble they would have helped me. I worked in a law firm with a young woman who came from there; her sister lived there and worked as a nurse. The woman I worked with was a star employee; she was also going to school after work to get her CPA. Incredible discipline, and very funny to work with.
5
I grew up in coal country, but privledged, dad had a white collar job and mom (then) could stay home. Fast forward a few years, dad was unemployed, and we had to sell our ponies.
I somehow found a buyer, and we took the ponies out to the Ohio river bottomlands, where a religious community lived with kerosene lights and needed the ponies for plowing.
1968.
12
I'm another one of those poor boonies-to-Ivy League people, and I second what many others have said here: I grew up surrounded by people who lived off unemployment and also still found a way to hate both the government and other people who rely on benefits.
This was in Northern Michigan, and everyone there had nothing but nasty, racist things to say about the welfare cases in "Detroit"--and all that that implies. Then they'd turn around and take their benefits checks to the casino.
Maybe I'm just not a generous soul, but I can't summon any sympathy for such people. If it were just a case of hating the helping hand, I'd see things differently. But this is cognitive dissonance with a hard racist edge.
857
@Jeremy I wish that I could disagree with you, but from where I grew up (rural Maine - Appalachia) to now, I can relate both to the miseries of the poor as well as their pathologies. After spending most of my successful career in "global cities" like Paris, Beijing, Boston, DC and Seattle, I moved to a college town in Oregon to get back to my roots (but on the warmer side of the US) and reconnect with my West Coast family. What an adventure....
25
@Jeremy
You should write a book, too--I'd much rather read yours than Vance's.
I listened to the audiobook, and his smugness is even worse when he reads it out loud.
41
During a career in public service I often pondered the question: Why do some thrive and some wallow? Not being very smart I could only observe. I saw some common links among those who depend most heavily on gov't support programs. 1.Drama. They absolutely love drama. With themselves in the leading role. Any day that you get to tell your pitiful story to a complete stranger is a good day. 2.Gaming. They game the system and each other constantly. Everything must be gamed. They picture themselves as successful con artists even though they live at the ragged edge of civilization.
21
I recently saw this lifestyle firsthand. It was the first time I've had the opportunity to witness this "learned helplessness" up close. And it was breathtaking. I speak, here, not of people who are disabled or old or incapacitated, I speak of people who are capable of working, of maintaining clean, healthy environments (however humble) for themselves and their children -- and yet who don't.
There is a skill to being permanently down and out; it requires stubborn and persistent anger, self-pity and and an unflagging ability to milk the welfare system. It also requires an unshakable belief that "libs" are the enemy.
It is not Trump they're angry with, never mind that he has not come through on his promises; it is the "libs". Libs will take away their guns, will turn loose gays on their children, don't love Jesus, give jobs to illegals, scorn fast-food and soda, only hire people who've been to college, and voted for a Black man to be President.
The libs are, horror of horrors, socialists. Yes, socialists. This from the very same people who have learned to milk welfare programs since early adulthood.
It's tragic. And it's dragging down this county.
806
@M J Earl. Vance does briefly applaud the public school teachers who did their best and more but whose efforts were everywhere else undercut by the power of all the disfunction.
28
@M J Earl
Sounds like my family in the south.
15
@M J Earl
That's why what the J.D Vance's of the world do is so intellectually dishonest and despicable.
They offer up this ostensibly true confession narrative about "learned helplessness" but then turn right around and blame "liberals' for it.
All they have left is a kind of broken, quasi-dignity and they use that as a prop to blame minorities who receive the same government benefits, but ironically those same minorities have a much better excuse to bemoan their circumstances.
I'm tired of phonies like Vance trying to hijack the moral high ground from Democrats. He's as legitimate as a three dollar bill.
82
Interesting that virulently racist words like "redneck" and "hillbilly" are acceptable to the Times. And that they seem unwilling to talk about it.
6
@TLibby
I must have missed the words "redneck" & "hillbilly" in the piece. Can you point out where that was?
2
@TLibby, I searched the article for the word "redneck," and got zero hits. The word "hillbilly" is in the title of the book being reviewed.
At least try to make a plausible argument about why you hate the NYT.
4
Here is a nice little cartoon strip that illustrates quite nicely how circumstances, not virtue, can determine a person's life.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/the-wireless/373065/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate
4
Westover was lucky to be quite intelligent, which gave her to ability to overcome the obstacles she faced. She was also lucky that the larger community to which her family nominally belonged, the Mormon community, is one that values education for the most part. Her participation in theater while growing up, and the teaching in the humanities and classics that she found at BYU made all the difference.
10
These people are the same as those who boast they are self-made millionaires or billionaires. No one makes anything of themselves without help, be it roads for transportation needs or community institutions that shape our lives. It’s time to start treating these “extraordinary creatures” living among us as those who succeeded because others paid part of their way.
14
@tecknick Reminds me of Paul Ryan.Paul had no problem using SS benefits.due to dad dying,to pay his way through college. His family was/is quite wealthy and could have easily paid yet Paul used SS benefits.When in office he preached that govt. hand outs such as school lunches,SNAP.etc., all combined to kill the work etic in people.There's some kind of great dis-connect in people like this.
2
I am also distraught about the ongoing bashing of our institutions, especially by our president (intelligence agencies, judicial system, etc.). I highly recommend Michael Lewis’ book, The Fifth Risk is learn more about the important work that is done by government agencies and the danger they are currently in as people get appointed to run them whose mandate is to destroy them.
15
Lewis's "Boomerang" shows just the opposite - case studies that show how greedy, financial institutions abetted by corrupt or complicit governments can destroy countries' economies. The most troubling part is that it's a laugh a minute to read.
Approaching a 30 yr career in the steel industry, notice came down, the plant, worlds second largest may be closing. Short time later final decision made plant will close. Three children in college, what next? Take them out of school, not a chance. Renegotiated their loan structure, discovered a government agency that would assist me to get into school and start a new career. Graduated with government assistance that provided another 30 yr career and all three children are successful in their own careers. I started one career and was a tax payer, needed assistance, for myself and the children then returned to becoming an employed citizen and resumed a tax payer again. Does Mr.Vance have a problem when the government can assist does in need and use it? Worked for me.
46
@Bob81+3
Congratulations on your success. Your story is perfect--it's the safety net at work, and how we build a better America. Thank you.
14
To wax philosophical, there appears to be an ongoing struggle between paradoxical forces in all realms and on all levels - personal, family, community, institutional, national, global - and yes, cosmic. We're looking at perennial issues here - personal choice versus unchosen environmental and hereditary factors, institutions originally created for good becoming crystallized and unresponsive to present realities, the evolution of individuals, societies, and civilizations over time based on human insight, choices, and will. Never a clear issue of perfection achieved, but usually the possibility of making better choices and improving one's life. And I ask, why? And where is humanity as a species headed? How much is predestined, how much is random, how much is within our control?
1
I grew up in the household of a self-made man, a product of the depression and the military, who was suspicious and skeptical of those with college degrees. He rose through the civil service denigrating the "book learners" whom he had to re-train once he employed them. Never once did he encourage his five children to go to college.
Yet years later, when at 40 I earned a bachelors degree as a re-entry student, no one was more proud than my dad.
It wasn't anything but pride and ignorance that kept him from embracing higher education. His lack of a formal degree was ultimately a source of shame and so he constantly had to prove himself worthy, and sadly, put college grads down to raise his own ego up. We have many Americans still doing the same thing.
If my dad can change, though, I have hope that other folks can too. I think dad, with more encouragement, could have been a phenomenal student--the kind who could have challenged his professors. Too bad we'll never know.
32
I’d like to embrace this perspective, but from where I’m writing, in rural Mississippi, I believe it to be overly optimistic. First, the two writers portrayed here obviously have exceptional talent and drive; one simply cannot posit that their outcomes are a path out of perdition for the 95% who lack those attributes. Second, most Trump country inhabitants have basically normal upbringings, which unlike these authors’ personal hellholes, do not provide an mighty incentive to “escape.” Third, one cannot underestimate their social group’s cultural attachment to “god and guns” and all that goes with it, notably abortion issues. Many of my neighbors view the NY Times and its adherents in much the same light as the citizens of Stalingrad must have viewed the German army - high-handed invaders to be beaten at all costs. This ingrained cultural aspect will, I believe, be maintained despite almost any downturn in the economy, or even unchallengeable proof of greed and treason in the Trump/GOP organization.
32
There seems to be a great myth held by many liberals and highly educated that makes them believe that all they need is enough logic and patience to make the people portrayed in these biographies understand and "see the light". But these people, born and raised in ignorance as their bedrock defense against a world that terrifies them will never open their eyes or their minds for fear that the world they know and are comfortable in will be destroyed. There is no compromising with them, nor reasoning, if they are to be taught or reformed it will be against their will. They would rather live in hovels, rooting for scraps from their "manor lord" so they can feel safe, than to throw off the chains of ignorance and helplessness. They are best left behind until they might finally wake up and realize the rest of the world has passed them by.
5
I can understand what they went through, because I went through similar childhood in my small town in Tennessee. One thing that discourages many from leaving is the knowledge that once you leave you can never go home again. I and my cousin broke out over 40 years ago and we now both realize we no longer belong. In fact we have been effectively disowned by our own town. Our crimes? I am a retired attorney, CPA with a PhD in Finance. My cousin is a retired executive in a large drug company. I believe this pull of forsaking your culture discourages many from taking the step we took. If this is not addressed the culture of poverty will forever be with us.
36
@Lazarus
I witnessed the export of this culture when I lived in SE Asia during the Johnson/Nixon years. First came the oil companies, then came their highly educated geologists, then came the Mormon and Evangelical missionaries, and then came the oil workers who had been displaced from Venezuela and Libya for political reasons. The geologists offspring were thrilled to check out everything in their new country of residence while the offspring of the riggers and others in the oil fields insisted the American school (tuition now in excess of USD 35,000/year) field an American football team and fly this team across continents for games as no locals had any knowledge of the game. They further insisted that any association with locals or any European expats was good cause to exclude classmates from being picked on sides for P.E. games or teams in bowling league. Others proselytized in school restrooms. All insisted that social life revolve around the American Club and local delicacies such as satay and chili crab were un-American. Few of the oil worker offspring I went to school with ever entered non-blue collar occupations and many love the Tea Party and Trump and have all settled in or a stones throw from their parent's place of birth. Those whose parents were engineers, geologists, hydrologists and management have often gone on for advanced degrees and are spread across the globe. The majority are not fans of the present administration.
5
@Lazarus Everyone I know who came from these kinds of places and backgrounds feels that they had to make a conscious decision to escape from the self-defeating behaviors of their extended family and community, and that they were then forever viewed by their family as uppity traitors. I noticed in "Hillbilly Elegy" that there was a direct correlation between J.D. Vance's family members' success and the distance they put between themselves and the rest of the clan in Kentucky. He also writes of his generalized inchoate rage as he struggled to fit in with the larger society (like not knowing what fork to use) and his tendency to turn down, ungraciously, offers of assistance. His wife is a saint, and her comment to him at one point was, in substance, "Why are you so hard to help?" Leaving these dysfunctional communities/families/religions really is a repudiation of them, and the people left behind aren't going to cheer the ones who make it out. Ostracism often is an unavoidable price of getting out, and people need to include in their escape plan not just education and career components, but how they're going to construct new friendships and family relationships and learn to ask for and accept help once they've broken out of their old world.
9
Anecdotal evidence is not scientific, but it will help to get some things off my chest. Namely, as regards all my Trump-supporting friends and relatives who love to complain about the "takers" on welfare, all those low-lifes who "sponge off the government."
If I thought these people would listen, I'd mention to them the irony of the jobs they have held down all their lives: almost to a person, these friends and relatives have worked for some form of government--one for the Post Office, others a career in the Army, and others for state government or as schoolteachers. And of course, these folks have the helpful cushion of Social Security at retirement.
I agree with them that "takers" are pretty worthless citizens, but these Trump supporters seem to me to fail to see how fortunate they have been to have secure "government" employment. A path to such jobs is not possible for everyone.
It's very easy to criticize other people, but it's harder to see or admit all the places where we got a hand up in or lives.
20
Part of the problem is that the recent cache of memoirs coming out of rural America all depict extended families that most people would consider "broken", which certainly exist in rural regions but exist everywhere. There are also rural families that are low-income but whose structure is healthy, loving, and nurturing of an environment where "escape" is not the first thought of the child(ren). We should see these current memoirs as powerful accounts of individual American families that happened to take place in rural America, not as memoirs of rural America. I really enjoyed "Hillbilly Elegy", but it was culturally a million miles from my experience on a farm in central Kansas.
10
What most people miss is that social programs have been set up to give those less fortunate a hand up , not a hand out . Pride has its place but too often misplaced , perhaps because they see how others misuse and make those self same programs a way of life and make no effort to improve their lives . That gave rise to the term welfare Queens who drive Cadillacs and engendered resentment to the poor . We will always have the poor , but a facet of Christianity is charity , to give aid and succor those not able to help themselves and in the process break out of this cycle . Mr. Vance and Ms Westover are prime examples of this . Ignorance is the greatest foe to a human being's evolvement out of poverty and unfortunately Donald Trump's America has devolved into keeping them there . Let's make America great again and practice what we preach .
10
I found the book "Heartland - A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth", by Sarah Smarsh, a more compelling book than "Hillbilly Elegy". Unlike Vance, Smarsh (who was very bright and became the first in her family to attend college), really understood her family, their failings, and society's failings for not letting them get ahead despite their trying. Her book was written with love.
19
Instead of answering the issues that plague the institutions of government Egan attempts to distract by making a case for college. Yet, it is government policy which is in fact making colleges less not more accessible. The government transfers direct tax payments of upwards of $150B in state aid to state colleges. It underwrites another $150B in new student loans each year. It promotes government sponsored colleges by providing underwriting though the completion rates at community colleges (which serves ~9M or ~ 1/2 do domestic higher ed enrollment) is a dismal (~15%). We’ve created not a system of access but a system that inflates costs at 2x inflation for the last 40 years and is now the largest part of our national debt (not counting the direct yearly tax payer transfers). Is higher ed a good thing. Yes, but Egan is simply an apologist failures of the government instead of demanding more
3
The "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality is a complete snooze to me. Of course we must try as hard as we can, but to think that we can do it all on our own, is an irresponsible message at best.
I was deeply saddened by Vance's book. He had a chance to say, I worked really hard and with the help of institutions and many people, I made it out. Instead, he went along with the tired American story of "I worked my way up from nothing because of Who. I. Am." He threw "his" county (one which he wasn't even from) under the bus, calling them lazy etc. so that he could sell a book that was politically relevant. Obnoxious, bratty and exploitative.
That book was almost as bad as college graduates pretending their life was hard because they had to work a job cleaning houses. We all have tough experiences. We all need help. Let's move on.
19
Her story is solid. His third act needs work.
15
I guess it shouldn't but still always surprises/amazes me that Americans of the elite/top of the economic ladder are always "shocked, shocked, shocked" by books like "Hillbilly Elegy" and Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickled and Dimed." You mean you don't know that a majority of Americans have serious economic struggles part or all of their lives? Sixty-percent of Americans don't even have enough savings to cover a $500 emergency, and it's primarily because a majority of jobs don't pay a living wage.
22
The key idea to take away from these narratives is the importance of opportunity—of equal opportunity. Equal opportunity, however, does not ensure equal outcomes. Outcomes are shaped by a confluence of factors, including intelligence, character, inherited and learned values, family and communal dynamics. Income, of course, and access to intelligent mentors, are potentiating elements of opportunity.
Institutions can enable individual achievement, but they can also break individuals. For every decorated soldier become successful entrepreneur, there is a maimed soldier struggling with post-traumatic stress syndrome. For every daughter who liberates herself from the shackles of survivalist xenophobia, there is a young woman, abused and drug-addicted, who just disappears.
Some define themselves by understanding that others are meant to be kept down, while others strive to uplift others.
Our institutions—especially governments—need to be re-tuned to give children the opportunity to succeed, especially when families do not suffice. Better outcomes will follow.
Westover’s and Vance’s narratives are uncanny. Booker T. Washington’s “Up From Slavery” and W.E.B. Dubois’s “The Souls of Black Folk” engage African Americans’ struggle to emancipate themselves from the institution of slavery; Westover and Vance dramatize their emancipation from the barrenness of Appalachia and survivalist Idaho, locales that epitomize the impoverishments of the white imagination.
6
Good insightful, concise article with a stunning indictment of our poor rural educational system and the malaise affecting much of the rural population.
The insular beliefs of these extreme people are crafted in viral emails flowing like a river of hate and lies from political operatives shaping a base of malcontents who can be called to vote in robotic fashion for whatever purveyor of nonsense the 1% runs.
Millions of people seem to only hear voices spreading idiocy about "The Illuminati" or "The Bilderberg Group" or "fiat money" or "government gun grabs" or "ripping babies from a mother's womb moments before a live birth of a healthy baby" or "race wars" and other memes that are the stock in trade of the far right.
Why are there no voices defending the benefits of our nation?
Why not a "Radio Free America" broadcasting to Flyover Country.
14
Besides himself, were Vance’s grandparents the recipients of any federal or state “institutions “, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food assistance programs, etc., which also helped to “save him”?
7
I read Vance's book and his story is not unique to Appalachia. I grew up in central NJ and was raised by alcoholic parents. My saving grace were grandparents and a few great teachers who encouraged my dreams. I attended my 50th high school reunion and I have a deep appreciation for the
public school system that nurtured me. Anyone that tells their amazing bootstrapped success story without any help ,is often leaving out details like a scholarship, financial aid , a mentor or teacher that impacted their life. We need to invest in education, health care, and mental health resources to truly provide opportunity for all Americans to reach their potential. I thank my ancestors that invested in their citizens to improve our country. We need leaders that understand that experience.
34
Well said. Wish I could ‘recommend’ this repeatedly.
I read both books and, yes, the authors have done admirable things with their lives. I can't say I liked either one very much. You can put all the businesses and investments into these areas that will fit, but unless people start respecting education and stop believing republican conmen, nothing will change.
11
We've allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked into silence. Maybe this is why the real 'Mother Jones' is a footnote rather than an inspiration.
7
I am not against entitlement or social support programs but it’s interesting to see the comments here equating benefits earned from military service to food stamps or unemployment. In my view, working for the government (whether in the military, national health services, etc) and receiving benefits from this work is a wholly different concept than government benefit programs whose criteria for eligibility rests on income levels. These are two entirely different levels of “government benefit” and “institutions”.
It may not be right but I can at least see how someone who went into the Marines, spent his time there and used the experience and benefits earned to better himself in life can then look back on his experiences with people he personally knows back home who chronically collect disability and food stamps and use that to view most government support programs negatively.
5
@Matthew I don’t think anyone here is equating the two. But do you think Mr Vance, living with his mother and grandparents, never received those “entitlements ?”- I doubt it very much.
4
My rule of thumb is that you don’t blame people for things they can’t help. A blind person can’t be blamed for being blind, in other words, or a having darker skin is not a fault.
But culture is not inborn. It is, to a degree, a choice we make.
Granted, culture is imposed on us by those who raise us, and to that degree it is not purely a choice. The difference, however, is that if your skin is darker or if you are blind, there is no remedy. If you were raised in a poisonous culture, you at least have some choice in how you respond.
That difference is one we need to keep at the forefront. Many cultures have developed mores that are at conflict with human nature. The cultural belief that sex is bad, for example, even though we are driven by our biology to crave sex. Obviously, cultures have legitimate reasons to control conception, since it is necessary to provide means for women to raise babies. But those reasons often become irrational. In cases like this, cultures ought to be modified so that people don’t suffer.
Culture is not permanent. They change constantly as human needs change.
3
To Peter --
Also read Stoll's Ramp Hollow: the ordeal of Appalchia.
The OTHER big missing point is that the poor residents of that region did not get that way all or even mostly due to their own bad habits and attitudes.
Stoll's brialliant economic hostory of the region makes clear that the earlier agrarian/subsistence economy that worked very well there at one time was destroyed through land aggrandizement by outide capitalists, extractive economies like coal, tiber and now shale oil, all of which reduced once proud smallholders and their cooperative communities into wage earners... before the jobs went away and left them with basically nothing.
In other words, economic and industrial policies and practices that care little for the residents and workers can do that to a region.
PJ
11
The book The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis goes deeper into the massive loss of quality of life we all would suffer, especially the poor, if government programs and systems were shut down.
10
I just wish that the JD Vances of the world would stop cutting us up into city slickers and honest hillbillies, develop some sense of what they really should be angry about, and maybe even take a minute to listen to the folks they seem to demonize a lot.
11
I think Vance does a decent job of analyzing the problems, including the ways that his “hillbillies,” enslave themselves—and like many of us, I wonder why those selfsame hillbillies spend so much time yelling at the poor people in cities whose problems they largely share.
9
I suggest one also read Joe Bageant, “Deer Hunting with Jesus.”
2
JD Vance rewrote Ayn Rand. All you have to do is boot strap and deny overarching issues. Fro example in Vance’s screed he speaks of his mom as a drug addict. Yet never once did he address the serious mental health issues that he described leading his very intelligent mother into addiction. Vance is no more a hillbilly than Trump is, just because he grew up poor and occasionally would visit Eastern Kentucky doesn’t make him a “redneck”. Vance, represents the worst of conservative ideology: deny humans interconnection and to become successful all you gotta do is worn hard to make it—bootstrap, you all—ayn rand said so.... and if the boot-strappin’ ain’t workin’ then it’s cause you ain’t prayin’ enough, god is just testing you....... I didn’t address the book Educated as I grew up in that self-same cultish religion with a paranoid prepper conspiracy believing patriarch. the contents of her book brought back a lot of PTSD moments.
16
Missing in this article is the fact that 9 of the 11 states of the treasonous confederacy (and roughly 85% of all other red states) are insolvent.
These proud anti-socialist southern red states rely on SOCIALISM, in the form of our SOCIALIST federal tax system that punishes blue state success by stealing our citizens tax revenues then funneling those stolen socialist funds to those proud, anti-socialism hypocrite red states.
21
When Westover’s father visited her at Harvard, he told her, “You have been taken over by Lucifer.”
...no, I reserve that statement for the election of Donald Trump.
4
Vance has no credibility as a “hillbilly.” As a Republican, he has no credibility at all for representing “the common person.” I am an Appalachian, and I detest his book and his political positions. You could find other experts for this column.
12
Vance is a fraud laughing his way to the bank.
11
I you are poor in this country it’s likely because you have a rich person’s heel on your neck or someone is getting rich off your misery.
7
@Tom Baroli Thank you!
"...an escape route from places where “family dysfunction” is too kind a euphemism."
"Their cultures are toxic and intransigent."
"....There’s plenty of fighting, fornicating and fact-denying."
Imagine if author Tim Egan wrote this about one of the protected groups instead of poor white people !
5
The fact that some Tim Egan may be cowed by political correctness regarding “protected groups”. does not make his comments about white Appalachians invalid.
Also might point out that right wingers are not often deterred from making similar remarks (sometimes thinly veiled) about “protected groups” —and you know who I mean.
It wasn't "institutions" that saved them, rather it was their innate ambition, intelligence, and determination. That the institutions were there to help them along, perhaps, sorta like the Mississippi for Twain or Stalin's gulags for Solzhenitsyn, but it was the fire in their spirits that lighted their way.
6
Dr. Westover's book was one of the best I have ever read. Her story is amazing, and she tells it well. I was on the edge of my seat for most of it.
10
Thank God for Lucifer!
1
My parents were (are, they’re still with us) children of immigrants. Both sets of grandparents came as economic migrants to the US, worked hard, raised families, had not much money.
My dad was the only one in his family to go to University, working his way to an engineering degree through a work study program. My mother didn’t get to go, nor did any of her siblings.
They were absolutely ferocious about education for their children, insisting we all go to uni, scrimping and saving to help us do so.
Quite a different attitude from that of the families described in the books, eh? Maybe immigrants are the salvation of this country, rather than a threat.
14
I'm a W. Va. native and deeply resent the assertion that the families depicted in the books are at all typical of West Virginia or Appalachia. The people I knew growing up were nothing like them.
9
I grew up in Brooklyn in the 1960's. Both my parents were the first in their generation to go to college - both CUNY graduates.
When it was my time to go to college, I too went to Hunter College, part of CUNY.
AND it was free to residents of New York. I graduated, having been taught by full professors, and went on to graduate school. Because of this support, I become part of the upper middle class and earned enough income to pay far more in taxes than I was ever given.
When I hear that we can not afford free college tuition, why does no one remember that we used to offer free tuition? Why then and not now?
20
If we define Conservatism as a political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization [Wikipedia], why would anyone in extreme poverty want to preserve that "social institution"?
3
I recently wrote my memoir and much of it parallels Vance's Elegy. I lived in the poor Blue Ridge area of Va.where tenant farmers were basically replacements for slave labor.
My story, unlike Vance, did not have the addiction problem or many of the turmoils of his family but we had the typical problems of the poor white working class.I did not go the military route because I got a partial college scholarship so the education route was my out.
I believe, as some other commentators (Rebecca and Peter), that Vance is off base when he attributes what happens to poor working class individuals,black and white, is their fault. It is rarely self inflicted. They are simply worn down from a stacked society that neither accepts or substantially help this class of people. He was lucky and so was I to break that cycle but don't kick the ones who did not because it is a long hard dog fight to escape.
20
Right in the middle of Mr. Vance's Appalachia there is a college that serves the poorest of the region's so-called hillbillies and a limited number of needy foreign students. As one of those foreign students I am forever grateful to Berea College in Kentucky, which charges no tuition and has a vigorous student labor program, for the opportunity that it has given me, and that led to a Ph.D. from an ivy league university. I am constantly amazed, when I read my alumnae magazine, at the successful lives and meaningful careers these mountain people have forged. They may have started out in a remote "holler", but they don't fit the "backward" hillbilly stereotype -- all because of an education that was transformative.
37
I believe that all people are basically the same and if one group is statistically suffering more than another then it is their environment to blame. We have the responsibility to try to alleviate that suffering. So, I don't buy the "have no one but themselves to blame."
9
I am so glad this glaring contradiction was pointed out in a national newspaper. Government institutions need to work (and be respected) for Americans to thrive. Too bad most of the NYT readers are already (mostly) of the same mind. I am often speechless at the contradictions of "conservatives". One who listens to Mark Levin as bible has a fully functioning wife (a volunteer basketball coach) who has been on social security disability for over 15 years. Another has 2 overweight, diabetic parents who would not have an income or medical care but for the government welfare they live off of. Yet another Trump believer just had a heart attack with no medical insurance and now is on Medicaid (Obamacare?!) to pay for her care. These people join in the ranks of followers railing against the government and rally at Trump's shutdown in favor of a wall. If only we could point out blankly, if the government was not working, your life would not be working as you know it. Perhaps the 35 day shut-down gave some of us a little taste of that. Hopefully, it was enough moving into 2020.
9
"The policies he (Trump) has promoted — taking health care from the poor, trying to slash aid for people unable to afford college, gutting regulations that save lives in mills and scrapyards — have made life more hazardous in Trump-won ZIP codes."
Absolutely no sympathy. These people got what they voted for. And, no, ignorance, most especially willful ignorance, is not a excuse...
4
Anyone who has escaped from flyover country, knows very well why it is okay to occasionally visit, but more often than not it is best to stay away forever--to ensure you never die there. No wonder so many of these sorry citizens are slowly committing mass suicide via opioids and the Hackler family just laughs and profits from their pain.
3
I admit I've not read either work, as my old college reading lists are now almost fodder for antiquarians. But, what was the point here, Mr. Egan? That people vote against their economic interest, and that Trump could care less about these people, are facts we know. That the Donald exploits their fears and resentments? We already knew that.
What was missing from you, because the two authors apparently don't make the point, is the boiling resentment that underlies their votes. You think dear readers of the Gray Lady these poor whites are insensitive to the condescension, the sneers, the lecturing superiority all too often sent their way? You've been to the Great Wall, while they've been to Walmart. You've patronized the busy starched tablecloth places with the "in" cuisine, while their big night out is at a "fast casual" chain.
I believe they know Trump is a phony and they don't care because to them he is the proverbial middle finger to the bi-coastal empire which looks upon them as "privileged" by sole reason of skin tone. Some in the Democratic party say we're all in this as one, and not as atomized tribes with narrow competing agendas. I salute those who write off none and seek to reach as many as possible in every region and part of our country. Yes, including poor whites and rural and exurban America.
3
This newspaper often has articles about how much Kentuckians rely on government handouts. Vance's book is about how those government hand outs don't help. Don't compare the Marine Corps with welfare. As an institution, you get out of the Marine Corps what you put into it. Not so with welfare, where solving the problem is never the mission. Vance's book also illustrates that pulling oneself up by the bootstraps takes a guiding hand, in his case it was his grandmother. Many people never get that mentoring guiding hand to show them a different way to live. Poverty begets poverty because the poor never learn how not to be poor. Vance's book is about that, and about how government handouts don't teach people how not to be poor, they teach people how to be poor and dependent on the government handouts. The Marine Corps, at its best, teaches people how to solve problems under extreme pressure, and to act to complete a mission. This article is a dishonest spin on a very good and insightful book by Vance.
3
The Corps is a great institution, financed by taxpayers, that offers willing candidates a home, a social structure, training, education, and a ton of retirement benefits.
In fact, that offer has been one of their great selling points since at least WW2.
So as much as we’d all like to see little kids, the elderly, and the disabled working or toting a gun for their bennies....
4
Most red-state republicans choose their torment willingly. And as long as they tether themselves to Fox 'news' and hate radio propaganda, they have little hope of making their way out of the darkness.
7
Thank you for voicing this opinion, the very first reaction I had reading Hillbilly Elegy was that, in addition to his Grandmother, the military saved Vance. He learned how to write a check, manage money, and much more. His public HS education also helped. What does he think will help young people with his background survive and become productive citizens if not these institutions?
4
I have read the hb elegy and found myself unable to relate to these left behind people. What poor person could possibly think that The Donald was the answer to their problems? Answer - the uneducated of Westover's world.
We have devolved into two nations - not just red vs blue but educated vs ignorant.
A Nation that does not take educating their kids as priority #1 is not long for sovereigntcy.
7
Replying to Kim R, who quoted Vance's opinion that hillbillies distrusted Obama not because of his race, but because he was a member of "the elite": Obama was the child of a single parent, abandoned by his father, brought up in a small apartment by his grandparents, who went to school and college on scholarship. That's upper crust? How is he different from Vance himself?
11
Mr. Egan, I encourage you to read Sarah Smarsh's brilliant "Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth," which the Times reviewed in September. A truly gifted writer, Smarsh considers her family's story in the context of the social policies that worked to keep them poor, and their conservative disdain for policies that would have helped them. I can't say enough good things about Smarsh's book. I appreciated Vance's work and I loved Westover's. Vance considers some contemporary social context, but Smarsh's work goes much deeper. Heartland is outstanding.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/books/review/sarah-smarsh-heartland.html
2
Even though my parents were educated, much of my childhood was spent in housing projects. Not many employers were willing to hire black men like my father. What I saw there was that poor people don't aspire to education or a better life mostly because they don't even know how life can be better.
Isolated from rich and middle class people, our only exposure to that world was via TV. It's not easy to motivate kids to get an education when they have no vision of what that education will lead to.
I also have to admit that having educated parents gave me a huge advantage over the others. I learned to speak properly, to read, and I had help with math and science. I was expected to learn. Those things make huge differences to kids.
I suspect that in these respects rural poor and urban poor are similar. We've been taught to distrust one another, but we really have a lot in common.
Kids need not only opportunities to learn, but motivation. Motivation must be founded in hope.
15
The psychological impacts of poverty are magnified today by the overwhelming presence of old and new media which telegraphs the relative deprivation, and resultant shame into every corner of society. No wonder the resentment, addiction, and blame game takes root in this fertile ground. Both political parties feed this narrative with ready made villains and scapegoats. The only hope is for grass roots leadership from local governments and civic organizations. Perhaps the time has come for a constitutional convention to rethink the relative roles of a far too distant Federal government vis a vis State and local leaders much closer to the needs of an increasingly diverse and complex populace.
3
Yes, they have nothing but contempt for the institutions of government. But I bet they enjoy the ability to fly anywhere in our country, drive on any roads, plan for weather issues and eat non tainted food, all courtesy of the government they despise so much.
10
“One common thread of both memoirs is distrust of institutions.”
When he took office, the IMLS Institute of Museum and Library Services was on the chopping block. I was grateful that IMLS funding stayed intact in the end.
My library is in a very rural area. The county seat has less than 5K population. Many of my patrons support him. They have no idea that this library would eventually not exist without IMLS.
The mistrust stems from lack of education and an addiction to being a victim. They have no idea about how government works. When you don’t understand something, you are usually fearful of it. The sad part is that they do not want to learn. You can’t reason with that.
The remedy is education. I currently have a reading program at our county jail. I am using Hamilton, the music and the book. We are learning about how our country and government began. It was messy, crazy, sometimes drunk, and beautiful. My students are open to learning history and civics. They discuss what they have learned and write essays. They amaze me.
They won’t be in jail forever. I hope that our classes will inspire them to change the direction of their lives and move forward knowing that they may have stumbled in the past but this does not make them victims.
I may not be able to reach everyone, but I feel honored to serve some of the most vulnerable in our society.
15
@Marian Librarian, thank you for your work and commitment. You are truly saving lives.
3
I grew up in Trump country, but fortunately we were just passing through. Despite living there for eight years, I still heard "ain't from around here 'areya?" up to the day I left. Never looked back.
I do remember them as people who despised the government that provided them with food stamps and disability checks and grandma with Social Security and Medicare. At the same time they also despised the urban poor who received the same benefits, but voted for the Democrats who made it possible.
I have grown weary of the whining about being forgotten. Trump flies into town and tells them fairy tales at their rallies while delivering tax cuts to the guys that own the coal mines they no longer work in. Future presidents may well make an earnest effort to really help, and they will no doubt despise them for it.
17
@Dave
As someone who also pulled themselves up from a abusive childhood, traumatized by a violent brother and unconcerned parents, put myself through college and has paid taxes since the age of 16 - with no check ever floating in my direction, I'm fed up with the waste and sloth and whining from the right wing rural poor and the left wing urban poor, one violent, misogynist bible banging generation after another.
2
Great to hear about these well-to-do hillbillies and end-of-timers. I was born of the coastal elite, dumped into an orphanage at age 5, worked my way through schools to see my engineering career decimated by transfer of industry to the lowest labor sites in the world, and when I went to medical school at 60, was sure I was participating in a career venture that was in high need. What I find is the need is there, the resources to pay my modest fees are gone because they are all usurped by insurance companies which for the entire time I was in my first five years of practice, people were required to subscribe to. Now hundreds of thousands in debt from education loans, suicide becomes not a means to end depression or illness, but a financial planning tool to save my family from financial destitution. What is wrong with this picture? Trump is a symptom, not a cause, of this country's troubles that have been foisted upon us by institutional Democrats and Republicans alike.
3
Not sure why the rapturous response to J D Vance's poorly written, dime a dozen story. I feel for Mr. Vance in that he had/has a mentally ill parent. But his whole "culture" argument is undercut by the fact there are many successful members of his extended family. And given how he achieved his success, it is ironic how he claims there are no policy solutions. When we took pride in our institutions, particularly public education, it's funny how they worked so much better.
As they say, I hope Mr. Vance did not break his arm patting himself on the back.
10
Like authors Vance and Westover, I grew up with few resources. Like Vance and Westover, my way out was via the education system. Public education for me. In my opinion there is a big missing piece of this puzzle. What has motivated my friends, family, and neighbors to support politicians that see them (us) as willful pawns? To answer, one must understand the sociology/psychology that drives this subculture. In rural East Tennessee, we were taught from birth that the world was "us against them". We were told that city folk, nonwhites, Jews, Catholics, the educated, Northerners, etc. were not to be trusted. They were our enemies. They were not like us. They were to be both feared and hated. It is easy to push these hot buttons. In fact, if you do not pander to these prejudices you have NO chance for election! This is not a new phenomenon. It goes back to before the Civil War. And jobs or economic success will not change this view of the world.
7
I think the common factor in both stories is simply leaving the backwater they came from. That sort of motivation can never be effected by the government or a program. It’s a personal choice.
2
I haven't read Westover's book yet (I'll put it on my must-read list), but I read Vance's, and my takeaway was different. To me it was his grandparents who saved him by providing a refuge when his mother's life became too chaotic or dangerous, and gave him structure and guidance when he needed it most. If not for that positive adult influence, he would never have made it to the military.
While the military and college played key roles in transforming J.D. Vance's and Tara Westover's lives, for many, 18 years old is too late. Many have fallen to drugs, violence, early pregnancy, and general hopelessness by then. Perhaps rather than stressing large institutions that can help adults get a leg up, we should promote mentoring, domestic violence prevention, parenting skills, and a strengths-based approach to helping kids when they are little.
Government institutions would certainly play a role in that, particularly in addressing domestic violence, but community organizations such as churches can play a large role too. Mentoring need not be expensive. Children in chaotic circumstances, whether in the holler or the ghetto, need someplace safe to go, and a caring adult to listen, guide, and encourage. Early intervention is key to reaching as many as possible.
5
Equating service in the Marine Corp as an 'institution' with proposed broad spending entitlements (such as 'free college') ignores service provided by each program.
Show me a federally-funded higher education program where students arise at 6:00 am for day of being shouted at, challenged with menial tasks, and taught to serve a good greater than themselves and I'll be much more supportive of the expenditure.
The military teaches lessons in discipline that are not found in broad entitlement programs.
6
@Local
The military industry since the 1950s has been the employer of last resort and welfare for poor males, as well as corporate welfare for rich males.
3
The "liberal" and "conservative" labels don't help clarify politics. I don't think they ever did. (What was Teddy Roosevelt? What was Bill Clinton? What was Nixon?)
Given that folks love binary choices, an easier-to-understand way to identity our citizens might be "government believers" and "government disbelievers." Most reasonable, coherent republicans and democrats (whether they call themselves "liberal" or "conservative"), believe in forms of federal, state, and municipal governments. Even "libertarians" who claim all levels of government can and should be drastically reduced believe in some forms of government.
The debate has been, and, as long as the United States wants to try to be the best society on the plant, always will be about what those levels of governments should do to maintain and improve society.
Reasonable republicans, democrats, and even libertarians, can have reasoned debates and see common ground (consensus, what a concept!) on many things, come to compromise on others. The disbelievers and their incoherence are in a small minority, and they have taken up way too much of the political band width.
It's time for Congress and all the presidential candidates to be far more critical of the "disbelievers." even while listening to them and trying to get their votes. That is what, among other things, real leaders do.
2
For the past 8 years I worked in one of the two poorest counties in Ohio. I compare it to my home in East Tennessee, which is demographically similar yet has continued to thrive. I have decided that a major factor in a regions success is government money, but not in the form we think of as welfare. It was the investments in TVA, the Manhattan project, two major interstates, a land grant university, the establishment of a national park all of which have continued to pay dividends and provide jobs up and down the payscale. The one major investment by the federal government in Pike County Ohio was a uranium enrichment plant which is being dismantled. Over an hour to any interstate, no airport for almost 2 hours, and no upper tier state U. The one thing they could have going for them is adequate school funding but because of the state funding protocols, that won't happen either. So only those on the far right of the bell curve such as the authors discussed really stand a fighting chance.
8
However, we have to move beyond only college and the military as the primary options and/or pathway out, as was the case for Vance and Westover, because they are not the right options--or choices--for everybody. And there is also the great intangible of individual personality. Not everyone is a J.D. Vance or Tara Westover.
Arne Duncan speaks about expanding schools into community centers where feasible and also adding pre-school as well as two years of community college classes and/or technical training as part of the educational equation, because there is more education and training needed to prepare young people for the present day working world. I would add a national service option as a parallel track to military service. Young people would acquire a skill set, an education and life experience that they wouldn't normally get. --And they would have a personal stake in their own success. "You have to succeed in spite of less than favorable circumstances instead of letting yourself fail because of them," is a great mantra, but it has to be more than mere rhetoric and hyperbole. It's not going to work for every kid trying to survive dysfunctional chaos. Realistic options have to be readily available. I'm not talking about a free ride or something that enables anything less than focus, discipline and hard work. We can work our way out of the current mess. We are better than that.
4
@Surreptitious Bass
Serious community service ought to be an alternative to military service; mentoring in poor schools, tutoring in math, science, English, history and geography, exposing kids to the cultural venues around them. This would open minds and doors to young people who haven't stepped outside the closed doors of their communities. Vocational training ought to return to the H.S. curriculum: auto mechanics, shop, computer skills, accounting and banking. We have been shortchanging kids for a long time.
I was the only one in my immediate family to graduate from college. It took me almost ten years to get an undergraduate degree in English, working part-time jobs to save up tuition for another one or two courses. When I brought home my framed degree to show my mother, she put it on the mantelpiece proudly. My eldest brother, seeing it, sniped, "What are you going to do with it? Paper the walls?" Eventually I continued and completed a master's program, got a good job from which I retired comfortably. I may have grown up in a poor family, but I was never abused. I had a fair elementary and secondary education. Still, stepping away from your family's culture is a lonely thing to do, especially for the young. I'm convinced it saved my life. I'm also convinced the difference between me and my mother who never finished high school (my father never even attended) was the socially-conscious 1950-70s that provided government programs and low-cost college to kids like me. Republicans have deflated the lifeboats initially set out for kids like I was, in favor of padding their own portfolios. Time to make them pay for the destruction they wrought and rebuild.
16
College is great but if you have to pay for it, it's can be a financially crippling . The author did not point out that Westover's education was completely on scholarship and she graduated with no debt.
I majored in the humanities and now I'm over $150,000 in debt in student loans and I am over 40 years old. I'm not so sure about these institutions myself. These institutions described by the author took me from upper-middle-class and put me into the lower middle class.
1
@Paul
Stop deflecting Paul. You did this to yourself.
3
I read Vance’s memoir and now thanks to this article plan to read Westover’s. Elevating oneself out of the circumstance one finds oneself in has been a fascination of mine, I think because I grew up in a poor rural part of Quebec surrounded by people who seemed stuck and destined for little.
My family was hard working and educated and it was my mother who drilled into her five children the need for an education and to set our sights on something higher than what we saw around us. All of us have left the area and settled in different areas of Canada. All have done well except one sibling who has stumbled through life. Although a hard worker, it is now clear he struggled with undiagnosed learning disabilities that have made life more challenging for him.
Building resiliency in children is key. This requires that children have a healthy role model or two, a good education system, and the knowledge that there is more to life than what they are immersed in.
3
I enjoyed reading this Opinion piece until I got to paragraph seven, where Mr. Eagan describes both families under discussion as "evangelical in the extreme." I take issue with the use of that word, since I have read "Educated." Tara Westover's family was not "evangelical." Her father was a Mormon extremist who had a deep fear of normal society. He did not even agree with, or socialize with, fellow Mormons in his church or community. No where in the article does the word Mormon appear, yet an extreme version of that religion was what Ms. Westover's family was following.
The word "evangelical" is bandied about loosely in the press, but Mr. Egan should research the word and its meaning more seriously. It may have come to mean a bunch of Trump supporting right-wing, conservative Christians but this is an unfair use of the word. My own denomination has the word evangelical in it, but we are politically moderate to liberal. It is easy for the press to lump all these people together with one word, but it is lazy. There is a substantial difference between extreme Mormonism and conservative Christians. And liberal Christians disagree widely with many conservative Christians. Please be more careful with your use of words fraught with meaning.
4
I haven't scanned all 467 (at the time I read this) comments, so perhaps I'm talking through my hat. Why is "Deer Hunting With Jesus" never mentioned when reviewing/talking about books of this ilk? My parents moved our family to SoCal in 1967 when I was seven. Everyone who stayed behind is illustrated in that book. And I feel the same frustrations expressed by others regarding Mr. Vance's tale. Although the terms conservative and liberal are almost meaningless to me today. I'm old. I'll stop by a store today/tomorrow to pick up Ms. Westover's story. I have a feeling that reading it, as have the two mentioned above, will inflict a disparate range of emotions in me.
One other facet of Vance's book is to discuss how degraded education is in Appalachia, how at times the state of Kentucky had to take over public schools. I found myself asking, "If education is the way out, then why does the region do so little to support it?" Then I realized I answered my own question.
And yes, it is maddening that he remains loyal to the right. In his book he literally says "without government assistance they (Appalachians) lack treatment for the most basic problems." It speaks volumes that Vance would remain a conservative even while identifying them as what continually holds people like him back, and bemoaning the caustic influence their rhetoric has had on his society.
11
@Zack
Kind of amazing that these remain such anti-family planning, anti-female and anti-reproductive rights parts of the nation, isn't it?
We know what works to lift all boats in the 3rd world - apart from letting them all into the U.S. Europe and can apply this to any poor populations: educating females so that half of the population are empowered to realize a better life, to change the things that don't work and which harm their ability to earn a living - often the only financial means of lifting the family, and to no longer be just breeding livestock, child brides and a repository for male abuse and violence.
3
@Zack
When JD Vance announced he was moving to Columbus, Ohio, he made a lot of noise about how he was "moving back to his roots." Yeah, right. Those of us who actually live in Columbus found that hilarious and disingenuous, because he was looking for a house in German Village, where the average house goes for anywhere between $500,000.00 and $1 million. Typical conservative bootstraps blowhard.
(Please add this to my recently 2 min. ago submitted comment) I have an advanced degree like Mr. Vance. I also have high school classmates (from a small public school in Eastern Kentucky) who served as an Associate Dean at Yale Law School, retired from USAF as a Lt. Gen., and many others who have been quite successful in life. By the way, none of the above were the Valedictorian of my class.
1
Can anyone tell me why "hillbilly" continues to be the only politically correct derogatory term?
3
@John Whitt
It's because Democrats don't consider themselves hillbillies so that's not a derogatory for them.
@John Whitt,
Derogatory?
But they themselves named them that.
@John Whitt
Since JD Vance referred to himself as a "hillbilly" proudly, I see nothing wrong with calling him that. Apparently many people who the term refers to don't find it insulting. Personally, I found the stars of "Jersey Shore" referring to themselves as "guidos" rather bizarre, since I'm an Italian-American who was raised to consider the term an insult, but if that's how they refer to themselves, then apparently they feel differently and others should feel free to call them that.
2
The "toxic culture" that's destroying the lives of millions of Americans is the culture of capitalism, the ideology of individual uplift and "bootstrapping" that obscures the intentional structures of ruling class power that create whole regions of economic deprivation and social dysfunction alongside other geographic hotspots where capital concentrates at the expense of society as a whole. The military and college are not institutions that exist in isolation from this dystopic world or that ameliorate it but function within it to maintain the systemic inequalities that help it to reproduce itself. No matter how inspiring to some the narratives of Mr. Vance and Ms. Westover may be, there are no individual solutions to the destructive effects of class exploitation and the ideologies that disguise it. When working class Americans understand what common class interests bind them together and pit them against their class exploiters they will also understand what they need to do for themselves to transform their world to one in which they will be capable of building the institutions through which they can collectively and democratically exercise some control over their future, and the futures of the children.
8
The belief that an education, particularly college, is a panacea for the poor is so fallible. There are not enough jobs to help graduates with a degree even pay back their loans. Many would be better served by a trade school. The real sadness is in institutions catering to the students of the wealthy and making false promises of job placement afterwards to poor students as in the case of Trump University.
2
"Her father believed that doctors were “minions of Satan,” and public school was a plot of the Illuminati." I was not reared in Appalachia, but I was born in a rural area of Kansas. I have heard some pretty crazy stuff in my lifetime, but I don't recall ever hearing something as "interesting" as what daddy shared with his daughter. It would worthwhile to attempt to trace from whence where these irrational conclusions about the reality we all must share stem so that the source could be eradicated.
2
@jwljpm
It's found at the bottom of a liquor bottle.
1
It may well be the case that, as Mr Egan writes, “The policies he [Trump] has promoted — taking health care from the poor, trying to slash aid for people unable to afford college, gutting regulations that save lives in mills and scrapyards — have made life more hazardous in Trump-won ZIP codes . . .”
But why should we assume, as Mr Egan clearly does, that these people are bamboozled into voting against their own interests, or worse, do so out of simple ignorance? How patronizing!
Could it be that these folks vote as they do knowingly, for what they see as a larger, just cause? No one speaks patronizingly of liberals who vote in ways that may harm their own interests, say for candidates that will raise their taxes to fund social programs. Yet when “hillbillies” vote for candidates running on platforms will cut aid to education and social services, they must do so unwittingly or because they are conned.
I'd like to believe that that voters in rust belt and poorer rural areas vote for right-wing candidates because they truly believe in something, like less government. They know they will suffer, but are willing to endure it for what they perceive as a noble end result.
It is patronizing the extreme to view poorer, less educated right-leaning voters as ignorant or duped.
1
They vote against abortion and gun control mostly.
3
@Gp Capt Mandrake:
I fail to see how, "taking health care from the poor, trying to slash aid for people unable to afford college, gutting regulations that save lives in mills and scrapyards ...” is in anyone's best interest, let alone the very people those things are set up to help.
As a well educated, middle class liberal, voting for higher taxes for things like better schools, healthcare for the poor and better regulations to prevent death or permanent disability IS in my interest. We all benefit from a well educated populace and lower insurance premiums because my healthcare dollars are not propping up the sick poor who use the expensive ER as primary healthcare.
What is the "noble end result" of tainted food that sickens or kills, an uneducated, unemployable populace or disabled people who need to be supported rather than being able to contribute to society through work and tax dollars?
You make no sense whatsoever.
4
You can get a better idea about America's exurban ghettos by reading the comments here instead of the books.
Two out of millions managed to 'escape' in the conventional sense -- fame and fortune -- and they did so without becoming boxers. Good for them, but institutions had nothing to do with their outcome any more than it does for lottery winners. Instead, institutions tend to hold back people in these areas by design.
The common thread in ghetto life is the need to hover at the edge of criminality in order to cope. There are far more than these two heros cooking meth or selling Oxycontin on the street; Appalachia has been 'coal mine, moon shine or down the line': there are the pain killers gained by way of Medicare and Social Security Disability; exploitation by manufacturers and pharmacies. The large controlling institution is the prison system and all that goes with it: cops, judges, sheriffs, 'revenuers' and distrust. The outcome is the Horatio Alger story in reverse with only a handful of survivors managing to do so by dumb luck.
3
@steve from virginia
I was perplexed by Vances book, but you are absolutely right Steve, the comments here are noteworthy.
I would like to hear a conversation between Wes Moore, and J.D. Vance, on this topic.
2
I guess it makes sense that if you’re the type of person to beat your children senseless and deny them adequate medical care, you will likely be a Trump supporter. These people need help, but that doesn’t mean that we should succumb to their bad judgment or take their illformed opinions too seriously.
4
@Larry Figdill
Don't be precious. Males of all income ranges to that to their sisters, daughters, wives, girlfriends, mothers, neighbors...
Yesterday as I was watching American media someone mentioned building new facilities to manufacture the latest in solar panels in flyover country. I allowed myself a little bit of outrage as I knew 40 years ago there were solar panels on the White House.
Nobody mentioned the worst president in the history of the USA who turned the country that embraced the future into the country that wanted to turn back the clock. Ronald Wilson Reagan tore the solar panels off the White House and from here in Canada I know that our future no longer lies in any alliance with a country which belongs Russia, China and Saudi Arabia and their allies who threaten liberal democracy everywhere.
At the ideas conference in Aspen in 2013 Chrystia Freeland told us that the US and UK were in danger of losing their liberal democracy to the simplicity of the kind of populism that time and time again arrested the evolution of liberal democracy and produced the kind of autocracy and cult of personality that now has captured Russia, China and looks ready to overcome America.
I understand the Bible my ancestors wrote it. The Book of Jonah contains the greatest miracle of the Bible; the King of Nineveh actually listened to Jonah and avoided destruction. I don't hold out much hope for America it is not the economy that needs fixing, in fact the economy is working as designed. America needs a 21st century architect to create a society that can be sustained.
8
I live in WV, and the typical Trump supporter I see is doing OK, but has forever hated the larger and dependent underclass. When they vote for cutting services and aid for the poor, who are a large part of the WV population, they have that underclass in mind, which they view as lazy, crazy, and corrupt.
Trump supporters here, in this low voter turn-out state, make up the important voting block. The underclass doesn’t show up for many games, so to speak.
Trump supporters welcome federal $$ for roads, schools, etc, but think that if there weren’t so many unnecessary dependents, the federal budget would be smaller and more effective.
The attitude toward the poor here is tradtional Southern: the devil take the hindmost.
4
This is an important distinction that many who don't have any experience with rural America don't understand. I actually think Egan needed a fact-check on his statement that the "16 million whites living in poverty" are "among Trump's strongest backers." My memory is that even among the white vote, Clinton won the poorest 20%. The people who love Trump most are the people just barely struggling to stay OUT of poverty.
6
@gmg22:
That group just above the bottom, but also those comfortably above it tend to be Trump people here.
Over the 30 years I’ve been here all have taken economic hits, but also cultural, symbolic ones that hurt. Eg, Dixie Chics, NASCAR no longer dominated by good old boy drivers, hunting decried, country life in general no longer admired, and the larger world’s fascination with minorities, foreigners and foreign places, and put down of hillbillys.
As far as they see their status isn’t threatened; they lost it a long time ago. Fox News has pounded on that since the 90s.
A suspicion of outsiders always has been a part of the local personality. When I arrived in the mid 80s, for people in the most rural parts that could include even folks over in the next valley.
The bigger world, which they never cared for much anyway, seems to have turned against them once again. Along comes Trump telling things that sound a lot like their own resentments. He’s been irresistible.
3
I've read Westover's book but not Vance's. What strikes me is that Westover's family didn't vote. So they're not Trump voters and perhaps shouldn't be taken as examples of these.
4
trump has undermined anything and everything that doesn't praise him constantly.
2
Egan deserves a prize for the most paternalistic and patronizing article in the NYT I've seen recently, and being the NYT, that's saying something.
The fact that these two got advanced degrees at prestigious schools is the reason they are writing books, the reason the books got published, and the reason we know about them. As they both make perfectly clear in their books, "Let's send them all to Harvard" is not a solution to working class poverty in America. Why doesn't Egan just come out and say "Let them eat cake"? The fact that Vance became a venture capitalist does not invalidate his critique of how we spend out welfare dollars. 99% of the people he wrote about in Middletown are still in Middletown, and their feelings are well documented by Vance. To sit in Manhattan and conclude that they're wrong and there's nothing at all wrong with federal poverty programs is arrogant beyond belief. First of all because they clearly haven't worked very well, and second because the people they are supposed to serve are telling us, through Vance and Westover, that they do nothing to end poverty but instead cement it in place while engendering anger at their unfairness amongst the working poor. Yes, rich liberals get to decide whether we are spending money on poverty programs. Can we please find the humility to ask the indigent poor and the working poor how best to spend it? Even if they're Republicans? Or do we just continue to tell them the equivalent of "Let them eat cake?"
2
Sara Smarsh's autobiographical "Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth" records her life journey that is similar to that of Vance and Westover, but with empathy for her family members who didn't escape, and recognition of the luck of opportunity that allowed her a way out (also through education, similar to Westover).
Heartland is a NY Times Bestseller.
I wish the NY Times would promote Smarsh's empathetic view of the place she came from at least as much as Vance's harsh judgement.
3
My husband is such a person. #3 of 5 children . Should he have dared to sit in a chair and read a book (from the school library), his mother would yank the book out of his hands, hit him over the head with it, and say "You have work to do. Stop wasting your time!"
Husband has strong independent streak; decides early on family was "not helpful." Realizes he has to make it on his own. Turned down football scholarship to a big football college (family said that was a really "stupid thing to do").
He went in the army, told he was smart (for 1st time in life), became a medic, stationed in Germany (an eye-opener to what is possible). Got out, took advantage of GI Bill. Struggled in college, worked as a waiter. By junior year did well; offered an assistantship for grad school (family said that was a "stupid thing to do; get out and make money"). He earned masters and doctorate and excelled, Had a fabulous life, children, teaching, research, publishing, international travel.
He is estranged from his family who live in the South, watch Fox, love Palin & Trump, and gripe, though they never took advantage of any opportunity to get educated; they hate liberals, professionals, government, "the blacks" who do well.
I taught a lot of upward mobile people (mixed ages) in college to get degrees in health care. They did it on their own (loans, GI Bill); some against all odds
It takes independent, resilient spirit, hard work, luck, & gov. help (public library & schools, GI Bill, etc)
11
Trump-type supporters have always been with us in the U.S. But few paid much attention to them, and certainly did not give them any power--until along came Mr. Trump, the master snake-oil salesman and scam artist.
Trump knows these people well. He has scammed them many times as contractors who went unpaid in his building projects and as the customers in his fraudulent schemes such as Trump U.
Trump knows just how to play "his" people and audience, like any carnival barker and ringmaster. He gives them what they never had--acknowledgment and power (to support and do what he tells them).
The pathetic thing is Trump has no intention of doing anything constructive for "his base." Quite the reverse. They are dupes, ripe for the picking, like his Trump University casualties and struggling contractors not rich enough to take him to court.
It takes a certain amount of critical thinking, independence, and will to size up situations as being helpful or harmful, and it often much easier to live a life of habit than to have the guts to walk out and away, work hard, and basically lead a new life with people who know exactly what they are doing, especially when you do not and are groping your way through a new terrain.
But these independent, self-actualizing types are everywhere, and they are what has made America great. Oh yeah, and lot them are in our families and neighborhoods and are or were immigrants.
Meanwhile, Trump's base makes policy--or he lets them think so
1
Let's be careful. Brigham Young University is a very particular type of college institution. BYU is the official institution of Mormon higher education. They don't charge tuition based on whether you are in-state or out-of-state. You are charged based on whether you are LDS or not.
A very fine academic institution but most decidedly atypical.
3
It would be illegal for a college that took Federal funds to discriminate like that.
1
Westover's father was right. She WAS taken over by Lucifer- literally the light bearer - when she found her way into higher education.
3
Franklin County, Idaho is not evangelical, it is Mormon. We should carefully consider the wedges that can be driven between evangelicals and Mormons.
1
So wheres the plan of action against Trump? If education cant fix stupid, except for a few, then what?
I see potential escape plans here. But to escape one must see the need, see themselves as hostage. I'm afraid most of those poor, misunderstood (not!) Trumplodites don't view their predicament as bad, as being "hostages" in need of escape. Rather they see themselves under siege, surrounded by evil, bad hombres - Liberals and elites - who wish to undermine, if not wholly destroy their down-homey, 18th century, good clean Christian lives.
We need a plan on how to counter that mind-set. Or fund a wall being built around them, that seals them off from ruining the lives of the rest of us living in the 21st cent.
Frankly, we need to figure a means to present their grievances as nearly all illegitimate. That we cant help preserve their "life-styles" - demanding high paying, low skilled, dead-end jobs - simply to feed their victimhood status. Especially since its become a political stranglehold, and election day shiv in the nations spine!
Yes, their poverty needs to be addressed. The apparent targeted opioid crisis in their communities are crimes that need to be prosecuted, and the parties persecuted! Yes, these communities need better education opportunities. Yes on their general health needs.
But no more on their backwards/water, leave us alone, let us live off the grid, ignore sanitation and hygiene laws, etc attitudes - while taking my NYS tax money to sustain them.
1
The angriest , pro Trump person I have ever known did not grow up poor. She did, however, take drugs and live as selfish a life as it is possible to imagine. The drugs she favored are those that cartels (like Escobar's) killed ruthlessly to maintain. Thus, she helped sustain the hideous death rates and conflict in Columbia 30 years ago, in central America today.
And what does she loathe and rail about? Her role in cocaine distribution & cartels? No, she bubbles with rage about the Clintons.
The attraction of Trump like beliefs is the very hate itself. To this person I've known, and to others who adore Trump, the chance to hate others is the window to feel superior themselves. I won't say they are elitists. I do maintain that the success of Trump is the easy path he makes for some to hate and resent and feel better while doing so.
Mr. Egan's story is worthwhile, but by no means the whole picture.
1
J. D. Vance is 34 years old and Ms. Westover is 32. They began their climb out of impossible circumstances during the Obama administration. The penury conditions of the living poor across this nation found absolutely no relief under the Obama administration as they still exist. Trump is no better. Mr. Egan's mendacity and ill attempt to politicize this issue is a testament that fake news is alive and well at the NYT.
4
@Kurt Pickard
Do you recall that Obama barely got the ACA passed, and ruled constitutional after 44 attempts by the GOP to overturn it: 22M Americans got access after big insurers were guaranteed their piece of pie. Do you recall that Obama's infrastructure funding request was reduced by awarding money to the States to spend as they saw fit. Do you recall that Obama's nomination of a qualified moderate Judge to the SC was stalled by McConnell for one year? Then a Catholic ideologue, Kavanaugh, was shoved onto the Court. Do you recall that the tax giveaway to corporations was passed by the GOP in the middle of the night? That is now projected to reduce revenue by trillions, bill to be paid by working Americans small homeowners and small businesses. You haven't seen real penury yet.
How do you talk to a father who thinks the Devil lurks in institutions of higher learning?
2
I grew up relatively poor and white with one or two saving graces of my own. My parents were old school smart. Depression era blue collar Dems. My dad, a 3 war vet. That's right, 3 wars. They weren't racist. They stayed together. They were faithful Catholics. And they read. Mostly it was mysteries, news and Readers Digest. But they read. I'm no longer poor.
However, I'm pretty darn sure there are more than 16 million whites living in poverty in this country. I live close to many myself.
I would bet that many whites are ashamed of their lot in life and do not fill in accurate info if and when they need to, to let others know of their lack of wealth. Even if it were to help them by doing so.
I don't have proof but I bet if you pushed that number up to 25 or 30 million you'd be closer to the mark.
4
"A con man in business turned out to be an even greater con man in office. "
One day they will woke up from their self imposed coma and realize who precipitated their life misery. It was FIX News, Rev Limbaugh, and Commander Hannity- who enrich themselves with millions peddling falsehoods and conspiracy theories- not the " evil elite Liberals" of the coasts.
2
Your essay makes me wonder if you read Vance's book or just the reviews. If you did, then you would know that his view of federal programs and "institutions" is far more nuanced than what you describe.
1
In American democracy the fate of the whole is determined by a few of the ignoramus voters, led by Donald Trump. It wasted 11 billions for a pointless government shutdown. How is such democracy a model for countries with even more “learned helplessness” than the hillbillies written by Vance?
"Big government" is an easy scapegoat for the "blame them nation", again led by Donald Trump. Frankly, Americans do not deserve to have single-payer health insurance. They don't want it in the first place. They do deserve their precious guns and "freedom" to shoot each other.
USA seems to suffer from a case of "national bipolar disorder". To the rest of the world they boast their democratic government, but between themselves they blame government for all their ills. Is there a cure for this schizophrenic mentality?
3
Timothy Egan's every-other-weekly column is worth the price of a subscription.
4
I read 'Hillbilly Elegy' but couldn't relate to the people in it in any way. Their thinking is alien to me, as is the thinking of wealthy Republicans. I no longer care about trying to understand them or work with them, I only want to see them out-voted and removed from power. This country has to be moved forward and away from the far-right direction set by Reagan and his fellow fascists.
3
Mr. Egan, your essay is exquisitely written as it comments on the destructive power of ignorance and the even more powerful force of education. Ironically we now have an ignorant President who owes his position to the ignorant who believed him.
2
Tara Westover and J.D. Vance were clearly above average intellectually so I imagine that, given any lifeline, they would have escaped their circumstances. For others who may be considered "average," the support of society--government programs--offers not only a lifeline but a buttress to continuing growth and options. People who say they are against these should also remember "there but for the grace of G-d go I."
4
I think Vance had it better than many of his neighbors. Hillbilly Elegy told me that his grandfather had given up drinking by the time Vance moved in, and that his grandmother managed to afford a graphing calculator for him. On another note, it also told me they defended his pride with their guns. I am not impressed.
Another case is the story in "The Other Wes Moore".
To education and the military, I would add other government-sponsored programs, such as Job Corps and Vista. The element of dignity and service through training and a decent wage is a factor in overcoming the "learned helplessness" he cites. These are some of the best and most cost-effective programs we can support, if they are well administered. Thanks for more thoughtful insights, Mr. Egan!
1
My father experienced a boyhood in a cabin with a thatched roof, dirt floors, no running water and not enough food. He fought in WW2 and joined the lower middle-class. I grew up without air-conditioning, color TV, or parent-paid-for college {poor me}; went to Vietnam and painstakingly made my own way into the middle-class. Things like Social Security, Medicare, GI Bill, unemployment insurance on at least two occasions, have come in handy over the course of my life. When I hear of hard-luck people in other regions who are down and out but insist they are "conservatives" who don't want handouts I think to myself "stooopid!" Part of me reckons, ok, if that's what you believe then enjoy your economic and social dysfunction. But, unlike such folks I realize that 1) spiritually I am my brother's keeper and 2) in practicality, our nation is as strong as its weakest link.
1146
@Lar thank you for an eloquent and personal explanation of how public assistance facilitates strong people to lift themselves into a better life. Without these supports, worthy and motivated people often find themselves excluded from higher education and better opportunities.
102
@Lar Wisdom and Truth. Thank you for sharing.
47
@Lar
Do you have siblings and what became of them?
19
Reading Hillbilly Elegy I found myself sputtering with rage at its author, who has not a good word to say about the federal government, which in fact, in the form of the military, provided him with the things most American families ought to and do provide: food, shelter, training and community. His moment of triumph was taking his "family" out to Chili's for a meal he paid for himself--from his Marine Corps salary. It's the "keep your government hands off my Medicare," thing.
Trumpland is a place where the dog bites the hand that feeds and tries to make a virtue of it.
1123
@Claudia
It reminds me of Howard Schultz objecting to college or Medicare for all or higher taxes on billionaires yet HE was the recipient of that aid! He BRAGS about growing up in "The Projects" in Brooklyn. Who does that nimrod think paid for his food and shelter???
140
@Claudia - Maybe you should reread the book . . . .
15
@Claudia I had exactly the same reaction to Vance's "elegy." That, and his total stereotyping of his community. Drives me crazy that this book is being used as an "insight" into the "Trump voter." Recommend Catt's book "What You're Getting Wrong About Appalachia" as an antidote.
62
All that was needed was a chance, an opportunity to make one's own good luck. It is undeniable that many American institutions provide that chance. That is what America is "about".
3
As a retired educator who tires of hearing about failing schools, so I tire of hearing about how bad government programs are and how they “create” dependency. Some people actually work and need the programs because employers take advantage of the government programs to pad their bottom lines.
The problem is not with failing schools or failing programs. It is with the people who don’t take advantage of what is available, in the case of schools, or abuse the government programs. Even our wonderful president’s father abused government programs to attain his wealth and then didn’t want to pay taxes. That is not a fault of the program, unless it could be monitored and policed more carefully. That is a problem with human nature.
We had a student come into our school in second grade. Her mother was so mentally challenged that the girl, who was bright, filled out her own registration papers. Through hard work and encouragement she went on to teach in the very district she was educated.
Conversely, according to a son in law administrator at a city school in NEPA, the latest is that people from NY move to NEPA but don’t notify NY of the change of address so they can get benefits both places. Is that the program’s fault?
i knew a young guy whose job was to catch people cheating disability. Had fancy cameras to observe and document they really weren’t disabled. Is that the fault of the program?
Maybe we need more money to police the programs instead of getting rid of them.
5
Most of those Trump GOP voters were Democrat voters prior to 1980. The Democratic Party needs to finally have a good sit-down discussion with itself to figure out why. (Tip: most of us centrists have known the answer to this even as it was roiling in the 1970s; not rocket science.)
5
Janisse Ray, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, and her Drifting into Darien. about the Altmaha River. She left, but she didn't. Beautiful nature writer.
2
I loved both of these books and was sick to death of reviews praising one at the expense of the other. Thank you for this lovely essay.
http://www.thecriticalmom.blogspot.com
1
I have lived in both very urban and very rural communities (Manhattan and Beaver WVA for example) and currently live in rural Maine.
There will always be a special few who see a path and have the fortitude to take it no matter what the odds. However for most poor children in rural or urban environments, do not get to see alternatives. There families, their schools and their peers are surrounding them with a very limited vision as to what is possible.
For example, if you live on an island off the coast of maine and everyone you see, does what I call the rural hustle to get by, the idea of becoming say, an industrial designer, an accountant, a doctor, etc is beyond comprehension. Add to that the immediate pressures of poverty and the escape opioids are providing to their friends, family and neighbors and you get a very limit vision of what is possible.
The key to turning this around is a large investment in education.
In my island example above, they added telecommunication technology to the schools. These kids got to see tours of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, talks by anthropologists and such. it lifted their horizons.
4
I grew up in the city of Cleveland, Ohio. We were 5 miles from one of the most prestigious art museums in the world. If my 5th grade teacher had not taken some of us on a Saturday trip, I would never have known it. Education, connection, luck ... I loved to go to school. So that is the institution that saved me.
774
@deborah wilson: I grew up there too and I spent a good deal of my childhood at that wonderful FREE (!!!) museum, at that time even free parking and my parents -- working class, and not educated past high school -- knew about it and took us there, plus the other wonderful museums like the Natural History Museum, Crawford Auto Museum, Historical Society, Botanical Gardens, etc. We also have a fantastic zoo and world famous Cleveland Orchestra.
These things are very readily available for FREE or very low cost to school children....for most families....even the "for pay" places all have "free days". Yet, yes -- many families do not go.
You can lead a horse to water, but ...yadda yadda yadda.
BTW: I feel privileged to have had that growing up, but all that culture, education and knowledge did not make one lick of difference when it came time for me to get a job -- didn't get me a secure job, or high pay, or even health insurance, as company after company I worked for went out of business, or off-shored, downsized, rightsized, laid off workers or hired H1Bs.
41
@deborah wilson
I also had the benefit of spending some childhood years in the Cleveland area and I remember very well the school trips to the art museum, the symphony, the skating rink, and the many other cultural offerings there. It was wonderful.
32
Cleveland -- free museums!! Free is the only price that many people can or will pay for items that are not strictly necessary. We need more public institutions not fewer.
29
I grew up in poverty on West Seventh street in St. Paul, Minnesota and was saved by a free community college program in my neighborhood called Oneida Community College. While I was in high school I completed a two year degree for free, and then Developed the confidence to believe I could go to college, and become a professional public school teacher. Thanks to community outreach programs that provide a window or door of hope through life’s difficult challenges.
5
I'm struck by the comment equating education to "Lucifer." This is the community that lives by its Evangelical lifestyle, a way to find a way forward in life, absent the interest, ability or confidence to do so on one's own two feet.
We're in an epidemic of addiction in this country; and like the chemical version of opioids, too many are caught in an addiction to "the opioid of the people," as someone once noted.
And the dealers - those religious leaders - seem all too willing to support Trump's administration in a mutually enabling relationship - they ignore how he has systemically hurt the interests of their congregations, and he backs fundamentalist efforts to turn the US into a form of White Christian Caliphate.
3
@MassBear
Hers is a Mormon community, his is evangelical.
1
I purchased “Hillbilly Elegy” for our library in 2016. I promptly read it. While it doesn’t exactly represent the poverty seen in rural America, it did give me insight to the effects of poverty in a different segment of society.
At first, I felt an empathy with his childhood. Then it morphed into anger and disgust at the end. In his “Conclusion” he writes about standing in a Walmart with a list written by a child and given to him by the Salvation Army. He was supposed to purchase the items on the list. Apparently pajamas was on the list.
“Pajamas? Poor people don’t wear pajamas. We fall asleep in our underwear or blue jeans. To this day, I find the very notion of pajamas an unnecessary elite indulgence.”
If it hadn’t been a library book, I would have THROWN it across the room.
To top it off, did he purchase pajamas for a poor child that put that on their list??
NO.
“I passed on learning aids for fear of appearing condescending. Eventually I settled on some clothes, a fake cell phone, and fire trucks.”
NO. I will not see this in theater or purchase the DVD.
I was not aware of Tara Westover’s book. This has been remedied by this article and it is on order for our library.
8
I noticed a Howard Schultz tweet celebrating his rise from growing up in public housing to running a massive global company. So ... does Howard Schultz, the potential presidential candidate, currently support an increase in investment in our public housing infrastructure? Because it's a shadow of what it once was, and in its former more robust form, public housing was one of the things that allowed Schultz's family to live the stable existence that launched him on a path to business and financial success. Do these things ever occur to the "self-made" or do we need constant reminders? Seems like the latter. (Or worse, seems like the former denizens of public housing such as Schultz might not care because they don't see so many people who look like themselves living in public housing these days.)
7
And end to the REPUBLICANISM we have been wallowing in?
Can there be light at the end of this long tunnel?
Been reading the Nordic Theory of Everything which contrast their lifestyle with ours - and it just make you want to cry.
But the billionaires say we can't afford that Scandinavian dream. The richest country in the world can't do it for its people.
8
@Tracy Rupp
It's easier to live the dream when your national population is homogenous, well-educated and well-employed 8 to 15 million for generations, versus the U.S. teeming bloated mess of 330 million undereducated or illiterate, underemployed, often with zero English speaking skills (despite here for generations) from all over the world.
1
Frequently survival of dreadful circumstances is as much a matter of luck as it is of personal effort. I am the adult survivor of child orphaned at 9 months of age, raised in a household where there was no doubt that I was nothing but a burden. When I won a scholarship to a good High School I was treated like I had committed a sin ("education is wasted on a girl"). Thrown out on my own at age 16, I made many life mistakes...but... I never lost the internal certainty that I could do better. I learned from every mistake; I educated myself through the gift of undeniable curiosity. While people should all have equal opportunity, all people are not created equal, and some need more help than others. That which doesn't kill you makes you strong. Adversity developed my curiosity, and curiosity developed a high IQ. Everyone cannot do that; I was lucky;
4
Trump got votes in the far-removed rural areas because he sold himself like Pepsi. There are only so many radio and TV networks and newspapers available. Republicans own most of the newspapers in Idaho and clearly have a zealous anti-Democratic bent. It just takes more monetary investment- hard dollars- for Democratic candidates in these areas. Idaho gave our nation Frank Church and Cecil Andrus.
3
I read both these books and was especially moved by Westover's book. Perhaps because I am an academic, I was thrilled by her account of creating her selfhood by studying the deepest thinkers about the human condition. I now cite this to my students as a prime example of the power of education. Vance's book is great for its time and place. Westover's book is great for all time.
5
Thank you for an excellent article, Mr. Egan. You have a way of getting right to the heart of any matter you take on.
You say, "The people we meet in both places are poor, white, undereducated, violent and evangelical in the extreme."
You go on to say, "The policies he (The Con Don) has promoted — taking health care from the poor, trying to slash aid for people unable to afford college, gutting regulations that save lives in mills and scrapyards — have made life more hazardous in Trump-won ZIP codes."
The question is, "Will these people have the ability to understand how their lives are being destroyed and vote for better ones or will they be conned again by him and/or Mr. Coffee Man Scam Schultz?"
Hopefully people like Mr. Vance and Ms. Westover are returning to roots to help others understand the importance of having an education and getting rid of the damaging cult ideas of organized religion.
A perfect world will be one in which educated, socially conscious people from OUR United States and other countries will put greed aside and spread ideas for true growth and prosperity for all rather than constant war.
Teach a person to fish...
1
Americans luuuuuuv these tales about people who grew up poor, yet somehow managed to scramble up the ladder, attend an Ivy League school--better yet, Cambridge, in Tara Westover's case--and become successful. I confess that I like these tales, too, and I am glad that America does offer some opportunity and upward mobility. The fallacy lies in thinking that, if one person can go from rags-to-riches, every poor kid can succeed if he or she simply applies himself. I admire both Vance and Westover, but they are the exceptions, not the rule. Personally, I believe that the U.S. squanders a lot of human talent, and that their are lots of potential Vances and Westovers out there, but most of them are stymied by the many impediments they confront: Poor kids get fewer resources from the day they are conceived. Their parents cannot offer them the myriad advantages and the "social capital" that middle-class and wealthy parents bestow on their kids. I wish that we could do something to reduce poverty and create better public schools so that more of poor kids could realize their potential. But that would be an enormous and expensive task, and so we content ourselves by reading about the rare success stories, which tell us that the American Dream is still attainable.
9
While wonderfully inspiring the two stories highlight a problem in America. We seem to think that education, health care, safety from violence are privileges rather than rights. Education should be for everyone , health care should be for everyone, safety should be for everyone . Dispel this myth that people achieve things without help. We should judge ourselves on how we treat the least fortunate not on how rich some people get .
10
@Peter
The point is - and has been since 1965 - that a country can't just fix people by throwing money at them.
Thanks, Mr. Egan... But I think that the FULL STORY is that you DO need those "institutions," but you also need things that - sadly - boil down to a smallish number of amazing individuals.
You are right - and too many are WRONG - to point out what a difference ... the armed forces make ... and sometimes in ways that are obviously less visible than some of its other purposes.
And, I'm sure we agree that when - as has been reported - Mitch McConnell and others took a break from, "Let's have a government do the very least possible - and maybe, even less than that" to recognize that the people they represent can no way handle a change remotely like that ... YET
we see that their party platform is a kind of soap bubble.
For some real insight into these regions and their cultures read "How Corporate America invented Religious America" by Kevin Kruze.
He points out that in the 30's the Schultz's and Koch's of the day promoted the tent revivalist preachers to spread the word among rural communities that getting help from the government, or their neighbors, was ungodly. So a form of religion was spread whose central tenet was hatred of others.
It is amazing how many farmers whose family farms were rescued and communities given electricity by the New Deal forgot all about that help so as to refuse it to others.
9
@Bob Laughlin. Some things American simply defy all logic.
We routinely over-estimate boot-strap stories. Most people do not function like Vance and Westover (having read both books). Reading uplifting stories is fine and we are not about to stop, but they are not in themselves ways out of adversity.
What Egan fails to emphasize is the role of luck. It is hard to quantify, but not everyone makes their own. I am glad Westover and Vance found a way out of their circumstances.
No doubt college--not simply an Ivy League education--is an important institution in many lives. No doubt the military can provide similar benefits for some.
6
What is wrong with admitting that we, as a species, all need to help each other? I tried to read Vance's book and his cognitive dissonance made it impossible. It doesn't matter what form the help takes, but some need more than others.
And when all of us are fed, healthy and educated, then all of us do better--crime goes down, health outcomes go up and life can become enjoyable. Why would we want to live in a world where, instead of helping the poorest among us, we ignore their plight and hide behind gates worried that they might rise up and come after the more fortunate among us. I think that's where we heading. Maybe we are already there.
8
@NemoToad
We are too many. Half of the 330 million humans in the U.S. is poor or close to it, half of the 7.6 billion humans on the planet are poor. The solution is birth control.
2
I often listen to elderly people talk about how they never had nuthin' from no one, so why do these young people want healthcare and education on a silver tray?
These same elderly people have been the beneficiaries of farming subsidies, the G.I. bill, Medicare, and Medicaid. The suspicion of government programs is a mystery to me.
21
Short and selective memories. A very human trait. Very convenient, too.
Having come out from this area myself I can say that change will be very difficult and, if ever, will take time. I triggered on the notion of "learned helplessness" mentioned in this article and it is strong and rampant in these areas. Most think that this is just how life is and there is no such thing as change. More pressing than the fears of daily life (Food, Shelter) are the daily frustrations; the loss of power, fear of outsiders (geographical and racial) and fear of obsolescence, drive to preserve the hetero-masculinity. Trump, for all his failings, is wildly successful at delivering on everyone of these fears. They don't look in disgust at all the illegal and/or underhanded things Trump has done while in office. They see a man, fighting like them to survive, against the left that's inciting those fears. Make no mistake, he will take these areas just as easily in 2020 as he did in 2016.
7
Isolation is not healthy for anyone. I've also noticed that countries that invest in great public transportation systems, including superfast bullet trains, not only have economically healthier rural areas, but increased interactions between rural and urban environments, which is healthy for all.
The solutions are out there, if we're just willing to pay for them.
7
@Hillary Rettig also, kudos to whoever took / chose that photo, which is both gorgeous and chilling.
Your characterization of JD Vance's views on institutions is incorrect. In both his book and in public appearances, Vance is eager to point out that he has benefited greatly from the institutions he criticizes. However, Vance is an uncommonly capable person (graduated from Ohio State University in 16 months) and Yale Law School. Vance's point is that while American institutions have worked for him, they do not work for everyone. America can and should do better.
5
Trump went to coal country and promised them that "clean beautiful coal" was coming back, along with all of their lost jobs. Hilary Clinton told them that coal was never coming back, so it was time to fund programs to retrain and reeducate the people to survive in the future. One guess who they chose to believe and who they chose to vilify? So much of the belief system in these small run down communities is fear based. Democrats aren't going to destroy their way of life, they want to help. Social safety nets have a purpose. Trump's ability to mine that vein of fear from his golden penthouse is quite amazing.
14
Mr. Egan says that the authors distrusted institutions that saved them. However, their institutions are quite different from the
so-called "government handouts". In both Mr. Vance's and Ms. Westover's institutions, nothing was a hand-out and much was demanded of them: Of Mr. Vance, service in the Marine Corps; of Ms. Westover, contributions to the field of intellectual history. Both would have lost everything had they not produced to the standards required of their institutions. Why isn't everyone required to contribute to the society that has given them those "government handouts"?
2
@Caroline Dr. Westover received financial aid that enabled her to attend college--did you think her parents--who wouldn't even let her attend grammar school--paid for her to go, or that she earned enough money working during college to pay the tuition at Brigham Young?
1
@nw2
She wouldn't have received financial aid had she not proven her worth as a student the entire time she was studying for her degrees.
2
Conservative propaganda has successfully promoted for decades the idea that government and institutions, public schools,e.g., are bad. Remember the sign carried by a man at a tea party rally that demanded the government stay out of his Medicare.
What Republicans have proven time and time again is that conservatives are bad at governing. Every election cycle they are able to point to the messes they make and say "Do you believe us now?
6
@Carol,
They t'ain't too good with the whole rational thinking thing either.
2
Veterans educational benefits is not aid. It is simply the balance of their pay for service.
5
Certainly for those who’ve seen several deployments to hostile areas AND saw regular duty outside the wire. But for the majority of vets, especially Cold War vets like myself, peacetime service doesn’t justify putting taxpayers on the hook for further education after spending a small fortune on testing, recruitment, screening, evaluating, training, transporting, feeding, clothing, housing and caring for us with no return on the outrageously expensive investment. My first civilian employer after being discharged put it best: “It’s just another welfare program, different only because you had to get out of bed to get paid.”
3
@Lee Zehrer
For the actual Pentagon Inc. employee but not all the taxpayer funded lifetime retirement bennies, and a basket more to their offspring and relatives.
2
Education, the greatest EQUALIZER! This is a truism that I have been taught all my life. These autobiographies add credence to this statement. I now pose the question to law makers at all levels of our government. Why do you set funding and policies counter to this reality? Over the past two decades or so, Republicans have systematically replaced investing in public education with investing in charter schools. This action has left public schools struggling to survive and many of them have closed with their old structures becoming the million dollar condos for the gentrification movement.
If we really want to improve the plight of the poor, EDUCATE them.
11
If you want to talk about the 1% let's talk about the real 1%, the percentage of people in the US who don't have a background that includes hardship, poverty, discrimination, drug or alcohol problems, domestic violence, crime, living paycheck to paycheck, bad working conditions, medical problems, lousy schools, debt, gambling problems, homelessness, divorce, abusive parenting, hunger, gang violence, mental illness, abandonment, displacement, and disability.
99% of us have one or more of these in our history. If we're going to live in an every man for himself society that adds "failure to escape" to the list, we can expect survivalist and hillbilly enclaves to appear, along with homeless encampments and opioid addiction. We can view institutional distrust as the disease, or we can see it as a symptom of institutional and societal failure.
Those of us in the 99% who have managed to climb or crawl our way out of those circumstances through sheer force of will, completely unassisted, make up yet another 1%; 99% of us had help in one form or another.
How is it that we fail to recognize that we all have something to overcome, and we are dependent on the society we choose to build to help us? How is it that we choose to deny that help to those who have yet to make it out, blaming them for their failure to make it, like we did?
16
Vance’s book emphasizes the deep loss of self esteem suffered by people who cannot control their lives but cannot find self respect without doing so. They feel further diminished by becoming dependent upon public support.
Vance worked his way out of because he was driven by his grandmother and taught how to live in a structured manner by the Marine Corps. He then learned the skills of organized civilized (i.e., city living) life in college.
He instinctively rejects the notion that just giving people a helping hand can help them achieve what they need and he’s probably right. But the rejection of help by public institutions fits into the intentions of others on the right who are just happy to avoid spending money to save others by any means, including the Marine Corps and public higher education.
8
@Casual Observer
Vance wouldn't have had the Marine Corps. without the taxpayer funds needed to create it and to fund it via the DOD. How would he have attended college without the G.I. Bill, also funded by taxpayers. That is how a civilized society works. The Commons derives little benefit from Hedge Funds, set up to give the financially well off someplace to park their money. Westover was able to obtain personal freedom via her scholarship; she has given back through teaching and writing history. She is not removed from ordinary people as Vance is, nor does she appear to have the ego issues as Vance has. I had a former Marine as a neighbor in an apt. complex; he socialized; he attended a police academy on his G.I. Bill. He was a generous young man much liked in the community. He saw active combat which he never discussed, except to mention the hard work in Iraq to establish relationships with village elders, destroyed by the Blackwater mercenaries who brutalized the locals, even going on random killing and looting sprees. He would have had more in common with Dr. Westover than with Vance.
"But as much as these folks were all-in for the oft-bankrupt developer, Trump’s presidency has been a kick in the teeth for them. A con man in business turned out to be an even greater con man in office. The policies he has promoted — taking health care from the poor, trying to slash aid for people unable to afford college, gutting regulations that save lives in mills and scrapyards — have made life more hazardous in Trump-won ZIP codes."
And they love him for it.
9
@Fincher: nah, we don't love him all that much.
We just hate YOU lefty liberals even MORE.
So Charlie Sykes was right, and all Trumoists have is their hatred.
1
I think you have conflated your own thinking on their story. I’m not really sure how one can say thr Marine Corp saved a person. They may have made him a Marine but he made himself. His concerns about some institutions is valid as are hers. Some are total failures and just go on and on with no accountability. Others do better. But in all cases it’s the individual, alone, who makes the effort to move upward in life. Somehow.
2
That’s the kind of magical thinking that keeps people, especially the many the Vince describes, from ‘getting out’.
Yes, people must be involved and hopefully drive the process, but your way of thinking ignores the lack of infrastructure—either familial or institutional/governmental—that often works against those same people.
Plainly: more folks could see and find a way out if the rest of us made sure our laws and institutions and money supported that path, not eliminated it.
12
There is a culture to poverty, but those who haven't dealt with it up close don't understand it. Viewing poverty from afar, they tend see the problem in simple economic terms. People who live in impoverished areas should move where the jobs are, like Vance says, and pull themselves up. That is how a few people like Vance do escape and leave the problem behind. But that does not solve the problem.
I dealt with poverty up close for a few years in the post industrial Midwest and in the poor neighborhoods and housing projects of Chicago. I saw a struggle between the dominant, self-defeating culture of poverty, and a couple of institutions that had pretty good success in getting children up and out. One was the military, as Vance says. The other was the Catholic schools. Both were strong on discipline and building personal character. Sending those poor kids to a middle class style school did not work. The teachers ended up cowering in the corner.
8
The simple fact is that the solution to poverty is having enough money to support oneself. It can be achieved in many ways but just wishing for it is a losing proposition. If one is poor and everyone knows is too, the lack of money is as hard as and impassable a barrier as is a crevasse. Your car breaks down or your child is sick and you lose your new job. The right wants people to think that social solutions are a matter of will not money because they want to avoid having to pay taxes that support others.
3
One of the curious thoughts expressed by JD Vance was that Obama was mistrusted by the people Vance writes about not because of his race, but because of his class affiliations - being educated and different from the Hillbillies.
It is hard to imagine how he'd have accounted for their support for Mitt Romney - was he any less of an "elitist" than Obama? He doesn't even mention Romney.
The fact that he identifies as a conservative, makes one wonder what he did learn from college.
20
@Kim R: Vance is a "conservative" because he is a very very rich "hedge fundie" who wants to keep his 15% tax rate instead of paying regular taxes on his income like WE ALL DO.
6
@Kim R
I wonder what Vance thought of Romney using "missionary" work in a beach location to avoid Vietnam. Bill Clinton and "W" at least joined forces to help in Haiti.
In Vance's case he had a very smart Grandma who saved her pennies so she could buy him the expensive calculator he needed to take an advanced math class. What if the school district had the resources so every student could have one for the class. The cost would be an investment in their community, but I guess only us elitists think about long term investments.
28
@Just paying attention What kind of an "advanced math class" would have any use for a calculator? None that I ever took.
2
Putting aside for a moment the specific stories of J.D. Vance and Tara Westover. Regarding Trump country hillbillies and survivalists, and every other genus found in Trump country: Give me a break.
Disclaimer. Yes, I realize I'm painting with a very broad brush.
I'm beyond tired of reading Trump country bumpkins and seeing diner-based interviews with the same.
People in Trump country distrusst government, until they need it. SNAP benefits and other social services. In-state tuition breaks. Military service (as noted here). Medicare and Medicaid (remember the sign, keep your government hands off my Medicare - small messaging problem, key?). Emergency services after natural and man-made disasters. Tax breaks for low income citizens. Farm bill benefits (that favor the corporate farmer over the family farmer, but still...).
So, no, not everyone is capable of achieving what is described in these two books. And, yes, it is more challenging for those in rural America. But it's long past time for these folks, and Americans generally, to shake off the Reaganism that government is the problem. Perhaps when Democrats regain the White House and Senate, we can reinforce the notion that government is often the solution.
17
Great article. Thank you.
But one point of contention. While someone like Vance may have enough celebrity status, but no investment experience, to get in with other venture capitalists, as he did with Dell, I disagree that what they are doing is worthy of the kind of "credit" you meant.
Raising $150 to encourage new businesses in overlooked communities sounds awesome, but in just about every case it does not help those overlooked communities one bit. Instead, funds like these come into communities and cherry pick companies (usually tech based), because they see the potential of many x returns. If you look underneath you will typically see those few tech companies being moved to Silicon Valley or another tech hub, employing very few people, and leaving behind the underserved community (there are exceptions, but very few).
That may deserve "credit" for being more opportune than the next new fund, but it certainly does not deserve credit for deploying funds to help those underserved communities to begin to stand on their own. Just more "winners take all" happening here.
6
Being so poor.. wouldn't a single opportunity be a step up and a way out? I suppose it's the way one looks at things..
2
The poor, minorities, women, and disabled individuals must work harder, fight constantly, and, from some mysterious place within themselves, find the courage and the vision to change their circumstances.
But even with hard work, the right attitude, the requisite energy and vision, a privileged person can wipe all that out and take a lesser advantaged person's place. It's the system. It's human nature.
Some people make it and some don't. Some simply haven't the health and energy to carry on or to care. Those things also come with privilege.
There is one political party in this country that promotes the privileged, i.e., the makers, and beats down the poor and minorities and names them the takers.
The GOP cares nothing for workers or any other groups of Americans, except corporations and their lobbyists.
The GOP loots the treasury for tax cuts for the wealthy and their beloved corporations while starving or destroying public education, health care and social programs that help the poor and unprivileged improve their lives.
12
@George Dietz
Both the GOP and Democrats looted the treasury (gratis of half the U.S. that actually pays federal taxes) the tune of $20 trillion during the Bush and Obama admins - for Pentagon Inc. warriors and Wall St./Bank of America grifters.
1
Interestingly, Tara Westhover had to rely on federal grant money in order to complete her education at BYU. Thank God she did! Both books were remarkable in their own right, and I sincerely hope their publication sheds some much needed light on a significant portion of America.
11
From what I read here, Vance and Westover were let down by their parents, and that since their immediate families could not help them, other families did so, through the medium of paying taxes to support the public institutions that ultimately acted on their behalf.
What should we expect in return, if anything? They have both told their stories, and if Vance’s political arguments are still seem somewhat immature, that tells us something too. Harm in childhood casts a long shadow.
11
What’s interesting about the conservative distrust of institutions is that it’s literally institutions that “made America great again” after WWII. The GI bill, the push for home ownership, the federal highway program—all of these were public programs funded by tax dollars and run by institutions, and they vaulted post-war Americans into a firm, middle-class security that lasted for a generation. If conservatives are serious about “making America great again,” they should take a lesson from their grandparents and lean in to institutions, instead of turning away.
39
@Amy
What made America great was a 100 year period spanning 50 years prior to 1776 and 50 years after.
Everything else is just playing catch up from a boatload of massive social problems related to unchecked immigration from 1840 till today.
1
This is why public education is so important because it is an equalizer. Teachers must get paid better, especially in red states. They need to be provided with adequate ancillary resources -- i.e. nurses, counselors, and librarians -- so they can focus on teaching. A great school is an oasis in a land of despair. Not every kid will succeed despite great teachers but every kid deserves a chance to learn how to better his/her life. Not all the teachers have to be saviors. It just takes just one teacher to connect with the kids and make them feel they matter. We need to vote for politicians who will support public education and not just lecture the poor about pulling up by their bootstraps.
26
I read both books – excellent reading. Another to recommend is Sarah Smarsh’s Heartland - A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth. At the end of her book, she thanks the Kansas Public School system.
Obviously, all three authors are very smart, hard working and talented people. That they bucked the odds against them is due in no small part to the educations they received.
There are a lot of kids out there, today, in our public schools, who, like these writers, can become success stories despite long odds. We MUST demand our elected representatives adequately fund and promote public education and pay teachers a professional wage.
And, however it’s accomplished, provide a safe learning environment where children don’t have to fear being slaughtered by an assault rifle.
20
Hillbilly Elegy was a wonderful book but it also underscored the fatal flaw in today's conservative moment. Vance's life was saved by government programs--social workers who let him stay with his grandmother, the Marine Corps, college programs dedicated to helping disadvantaged people. Then, when he gets to Yale Law School, it's the other way around. He can get whatever he wants. He readily admits grades don't matter: just the Yale name. Supreme Court clerkships are offered, even though he doesn't want it. How he can believe he accomplished what he did alone and without help is astoundingly blind.
49
@Michael Kanellos
Conservatives would have characterized Mr. Vance as "a taker," back when he was working hard to avoid a dismal future.
Now, I suppose, Vance is a member of the" elite."
4
@Michael Kanellos Vance also skims over the fact that he was a kind of "diversity" admit for Yale Law -- his application essay dealt with his background. A middle-class student with similar credentials may well not have been admitted, because she or he would have been too much like others in the class...
6
I read both memoirs and was struck in both cases about government and cultural failure. In Vance's case, his mother was a young teenager who was searching for unconditional love and care when she gave birth to him, and spent her life looking for a man to rescue her. Birth control would have made a difference for this girl, who was clearly smart and talented--she became a nurse anesthetist, making excellent wages. In Westover's case, the OSHA inspectors should have come around that junk yard where young children were working in conditions that would be unacceptable for adult employees.
14
"College is certainly no panacea for all 16 million whites living in poverty,"....I am not so sure. I grew up in a small rural farming community. While my personal circumstance was not the least disadvantaged, l think many of my high school classmates would have benefited from moving away from home and going off to college, if only for a year, to be exposed to a different environment, to new people, and other ideas. The college experience is more than just studying and going to class, it can be a time for personal growth.
34
It was inspiring to read the two life stories. How people can rise to those levels in spite of extreme adversity. It is interesting that that after reaching the higher stage one became more conservative then the other. I wonder why is it genetics, biology or environment.
Sushma Gupta.
5
I have read both books and what is clear from both journeys is they had to leave their toxic environments in order to succeed. It is tough psychologically to love the ones who harm you, even if you feel they have done so unintentionally or by lack of knowledge. Also, you have to acknowledge that families do not always have your best interest at heart.
9
Have not read Tara Westover's book, but I have read J.D. Vance's. My mother grew up in the Appalachian region of Southwest Virginia, in a town called Appalachia. I am very familiar with the region and the culture. As I child I visited the area at least once or twice a year before my grandfather's passing in the late 1960s. I have not been back since the 1980s, but I have checked out Main Street in Appalachia on Google maps street view. It is nothing like I remember. Gone is the hotel/boarding house where my grandfather lived; gone is Preston's Pharmacy where he'd buy me toys when I visited. Most, if not all, of the storefronts are boarded up, except for the Post Office. The region was poor then, but I was not cognizant of that as a child, although Robert Kennedy's visit to the region about that time opened his eyes to the poverty of the region. The people of the region may not be sophisticated and, yes, to a large extent, their condition is of their own making, just as the deplorable conditions of the inner city is much of its denizen's making. That is unfortunate. I remember articles in this very newspaper ridiculing the people of the Appalachian region for their support of Trump in 2016. The NYT does not write similarly derogatory articles about the inner city. I wonder why. Could it be because Appalachia is predominately white? Oh, well, such are the tines in which we live. Again, Vance's book is a good read, and I will definitely check out Westover's. Cheers!
4
@Southern Boy Perhaps the difference in the coverage has to do whether these groups are voting for politicians against their own best interest rather than racial differences.
2
One of the things I find fascinating is that these claims of being “ridiculed,” never seem to come with anything specific. There’re never details, never, “so and so wrote this, lemme quote it, and here’s why I am offended.”
It’s always just “You libs and city slickers sneer at us, and never say nothin’ about those black people.” Always.
Now of course, there are class biases at a joint like the Times. Duh. But beyond the fact that half the right-wing yelling comes from people like Vance who’ve been very, very well rewarded by the people they yell at, the other half aims at people who’re a lot like them, and simply see things differently.
Take me, for example. Grew up not very far from your mom, in small towns that were a lot like hers, family never had money, got by. Then eventually got off my duff, after a lot of screwups, worked my tail off, got through school, some very fancy indeed, worked more, goofed up often, now doing fine. So sure, blame me for Southern poverty.
Some of this is Sykes’ comments on nihilism: you just want payback, who cares what for. Some is, “I hang around the Times so I can attack it, but I can’t pay attention to the ideas, because if I did I might see what I really should be mad about.” Same old, “Marx is a pig, who happened to explain a lot of the mess we’re in. Better shout loud.”
So instead of figuring out who your real enemies are, you cheerlead for the shabby likes of Trump and Hannity. And you think they give a rat’s about you.
1
@Southern Boy
"The NYT does not write similarly derogatory articles about the inner city. I wonder why."
Probably because folks in the inner cities know a con man when they see one.
1
Having grown up as a poor student in a wealthy suburban school district, I can’t say enough about how we must invest more in education. I gained so much from my excellent public school. I now live in a wealthy city in a state that just barely funds its public schools to the point of adequacy. This city is rolling in money. Our public schools could have so much more than they do. We have a tremendous homelessness issue. But our zillionaires don’t want to pay taxes to reinvest in their communities. I’m looking at you, Bezos, although you’re far from the only one.
23
There was an FDR New Deal coalition that worked well. But not every scheme gets a free pass just by waving that banner.
A seminal event in the lives of many Detroit residents occurred when Judge Roth issued the following proclamation in the Detroit Public Schools desegregation case when attempting to order a multi-school district busing plan:
“Transportation of kindergarten children for upwards of 45 minutes, one way, does not appear unreasonable, harmful, or unsafe in any way. ...kindergarten children should be included in the final plan of desegregation.”
Talk about weaponized social justice, this was a gem. Fortunately the SCOTUS ruled out a Detroit metro-area wide plan. Unfortunately Detroit public schools were all but destroyed by the busing.
There are good reasons folks are apprehensive about Federal intervention especially when the label of "social justice" is thrown around.
From a personal perspective, I joined the US Army, served a tour in South Vietnam and used the GI Bill to pay for my undergrad tuition. My family has moved from the bottom 20% to the top 10% in wealth. In terms of ill-gotten real estate privileged inheritances, well I still own the land in Detroit where our house once stood. It's assessed value is $101. Such a privilege.
BTW, how are NYC's efforts towards desegregating your racially segregated school system going? Are the OP-ED writers marching arm-in-arm up Fifth Ave. in protest of racial segregation? Please do tell.
2
The bottom fell out of the auto industry, nobody did much to educate and modernize the workforce, and BUSING destroyed Detroit?
Seriously?
@Robert: Don't pay too much to Robert Reich and company.
The destruction of the DPS (which is what I mentioned in my post) was well underway prior to the bottom falling out of the auto industry, the mortgage meltdown and Betsy DeVos.
1
Good essay.
Escaping violence - for on subject - was more violence in the military.
Escaping violence ~ for the other ~ was education.
What is not written about are those mentors in school who helped the two escape their plights.
One could have easily become a gang member, and the other could have easily continued disfunctionally raising a family.
Relationship of headline to reality is nebulous.
2
These two books have a very strong common theme. Childhood trauma, unrelenting physical and emotional trauma. Trauma to children is not just in Appalachia and survivalist communities. It is everywhere and behind a lot of addiction and mental illness.
I read both books and while impressed with both authors’ resolve and courage, the books just screamed at me. Why do continue to traumatize children?
6
Much of the conservative thinking is pretty transparent. Corporate welfare and subsidies are fine. It is a club. They need the rest to be dependent and beholden. It isn’t really very complicated.
We are not the best of species by any stretch.
14
In case Vance doesn't understand, we all depend on the institution of government to make our way in life, through its infrastructure of law, education, tax policy.....to name but three. It's often invisible, but its benefits are those of a civilized society. Even the one percenters have their way greased by government; and in our era, it's especially the one percenters.
15
The word for this sort of writing is "smug".
You say the very most lucky and hard working Hillbillies get to join the ranks of the smart, educated, sensitive, consciousness-raised, and all-around beautiful people. "Me, for example."
I know both these worlds very well: y'all don't have a clue.
I was raised in an Okie (cf. Hillbilly) town in the Central Valley of California. I have three degrees from Berkeley.
The passion of my early years was to escape all the brutality and stupidity of my origins, which you describe accurately. A passion to find the upper-middle class, your paradise, reached by the hard-working.
Instead, I found the intelligent and sensitive cream of Blue America, your Salt of the Earth, to be conceited, snobbish, petty, social climbing, backstabbing, and hypocritical.
And, not as smart as they give out. Trust me; I spent a decade as a college prof in Blue country.
Retired, I finally got out, to love my simple home, the West Virginia boonies.
Hillbillies and Okies didn't ruin the earth. The cities did. Even the sensitive Blue ones.
You benefit from globalization, the bipartisan instrument of Red America's industrial devastation.
You get money; we get opioids.
The drugs aren't centered in Hillbilly country, but rather in the former industrial heart of the world, ie, Pennsylvania to Illinois.
Arsenal of Democracy. Rosie the Riveter. Flint Sit-down. CIO.
Ruins.
Real life. Not your self-satisfied illusion of achievement.
5
Lemme get this straight: you’re from an “Okie town” in central California, you retired after a big, big whole “decade,” you moved to a West Virginia you think is the same as where you grew up, and WE’RE smug as well as ignorant of hill folks.
FYI, I mostly grew up right on the edge of the Blue Ridge mountains. Went to church camp right above Harper’s Ferry; Scout troop hit Gettysburg regularly; fished the Potomac and Big and Little Antietam creeks with my dad’s folks when I was a kid; lived out in the boonies and in small towns.
Pardon me all to heck if I suspect I know “Applachia,” a tad bit myself. And just FYI, West Virginia has pretty much the worst opoid prob in the country.
2
@alyosha: I agree, plus I hope you will read the wonderful book "Dreamland" by Sam Quinones.
It explains in very great detail how the opioid crisis happened, and it was NOT as popularly believed by lefties here "that those awful lazy white people are just losers" -- the rural poor in West Virginia, Kentucky and Southern Ohio were TARGETED by a sophisticated cartel of drug smugglers out of one region of Mexico to "dump" large quantities of drugs, addict people to get constant customers. It was no accident.
At the SAME TIME, Purdue Pharmaceuticals was doing the same thing, only with "legal" oxycontin drugs -- targeting the rural poor. They were sending tens of millions of doses of oxycontin to counties that had 4000 residents -- come on! who on earth believes it was used by JUST those people? it was a sophisticated, high tech drug cartel.
And yes, it has since spread to the rest of the nation and nobody is immune.
1
so frightening!
Conservative wisdom is that you are not smarter because you went to college.
True. However, it seems evident that those who go to college are less gullible!
6
I have read Hillbilly Ellegy and I am not an admirer of Vance. I find it pathetic and incongruous that someone who has been helped by financial aid and this country’s institutions would deny aid to others. He is conservative now but he was helped up and out of poverty by liberal ideas and aid. Sad
that he has forgotten where he came from and how he escaped.
33
You guys badly need - oops, dare I say it? - a tiny bit of socialism. And a touch of atheism for good measure. Trust me, it works!
18
Vance's poltical views are no surprise. His memoir, otherwise a troubling and worthy account, was spoiled by being one long diatribe after another complaining about know-nothing elites. Not one or two, but all of them. Wonder how he managed to get that publishing contract.
12
Your mile high portrait of the people of flyover country is as realistic and true as the mile high perspective of a Predator drone pilot with an itchy trigger finger.
Taken over by Lucifer? There truly is a multiverse.
2
And if you do get out of the small blue collar town and do something different, they may brag about you in the abstract but they will resent you in person.
The comparison to the Beverly Hillbillies is spot on...the characters were the heroes and always came out on top precisely because they changed not one bit. So long as you wear the same clothes you always did and go for a dip in the cee-ment pond you’re OK. Mention a book or a food not found at the diner down the block and it’s “who do you think you are?”
7
I read J.D. Vance’s book. It reminds me of the hillbilly comedian “you can’t fix....” keep your government hands off my social security.
And proud of of it.
3
Read Sarah Smarsh's Heartland as an antidote.
1
Hillbilly informational intake, which constructs their thought processes, all come from listening to too much Hobbesian rightwing radio and TV.
Rightwing Radio and TV are specifically designed to protect the wealthy and powerful from the masses. This is why they were created, to make the rich richer which tends to make the poor poorer.
Man loves his chains
4
More than likely Trump will get the support of Hillbillies in 2020
It’s a trifecta of uneducated, evangelical and white.
A liar, conman and racist is exactly what appeals to that crowd.
8
@Blue, Elmer Gantry all the way. And you are right-- they will all vote for trump, any of them that vote. It is up to dems to get turn out in the areas that matter. These hillbillies numerically are a minority in the USA. Their views should be framed in that context, and their power needs to be minimized. No need to romanticize these people who are uneducated by absolute choice. Much less give them political power.
What is happening to these people is known as karma!
1
What’s wrong about the Illuminati, anyway?
1
No systematic generalizations can be drawn from Vance's narration. I read it a couple of times. I am glad Vance escaped; his voice is marvelous, honest, free of self-pity and manipulation. I could not empathize with the people he escaped from.
I am strongly disputing your notion that the path to a decent life for the hillbillies Vance describes (and others describe) is American institutions.
Vance's society is hard to differentiate from a person with a gun in both hands; one aimed at his foot, the other to your heart. This group is already costing the country major money (incarceration is expensive; the resources they suck up in terms of law enforcement, food stamps, medicare, social security). Now you want institutions to help them out while they are still threatening to kill both me and themselves?
Not a chance.
I would rather lecture them of "rugged individualism, choices, rah rah" and encourage them to cling tighter to their guns and bibles.
Tim Egan, you have not lived the life of an immigrant since Trump emerged. Each day, you catch someone saying something to you that is hostile, and reminding you that you are not legitimate. What would you know? Not hillbillies alone, ethnic suburbanites too.
Coming to the aid of people who want to kill you, and have a strong interest in killing themselves, is a fools errand. Recommending expensive 'institutional' solutions is even worse.
3
@Kalidan
Would you make the same comments about black generational poverty in New York, or Hispanic generational poverty in LA?
I am guessing you wouldn't because that would be considered racist. Poverty, lack of opportunity and ignorance exists in all kinds of places the rest of us tend to ignore. There are the fortunate few that escape east, west and in the middle. But that doesn't mean we have license to belittle those left behind.
That's the attitude that led to this Trump disaster in the first place.
1
Indeed, the contempt and willful stupidity of not understanding: "You didn't build that on your won."
2
Just the same ol' story: big city grifter cons backwoods rubes out of the presidency of the U.S.A.
2
I attended a question and answer session for J.D. Vance at the Ohio State University. I don't think he'll ever do that again. To well-reasoned questions/arguments about his book he offered shouted bromides, "At least I know not to give a baby Oxycontin!" when no one was talking about such a thing.
If the moderator was better suited to be one, he would have suggested to Mr. Vance to either debate the question or admit that he didn't know everything. It's okay to say one doesn't know the answers to all dilemmas.
The fact is that he was out of his element and, as a future Republican candidate for federal office, he couldn't admit that he didn't have all the simple answers to complex and highly nuanced problems.
9
Food stamps and other forms of government aid are helpful for those who are not earning enough on their own. It can take the edge off, and make life a bit easier. What I’ve noticed is also true is that those who are permanently on government assistance programs suffer the side effect of being in a state of dependence, not in control of their own life.
Regarding Vance’s book, I thought it was an eye opener regarding what life is like for some of the poor in America. Not easy. But he also described the positives - family love, being able to be a kid and go to school, there was food on the table. There seemed to be a pride in being independent, and strong in their own beliefs. Maybe Trump appealed to them because Trump is independent and strong in his own beliefs.
3
Vances and Westovers slip out of dysfunctioning communities every day, though most will never write illuminating nooks about their experiences.
Some like Westover move to the opposite ends of the world, others not as far away. Escaping the gravitational pull of their hometown and network of family and friends takes some combination of courage and desperation.
This same sorting process occurs all over the world, especially in agricultural communities abandoned by the younger generations.
In Costa Rica, where 75% of the population now lives in metro San Jose, abandoned small farms have been turned into national parks where the original ecology is restored with some assistance to remove irrigation, drainage and other structures.
Likewise in the US, there are places like Moab, UT, a uranium mining boomtown turned ghost town and then major recreational center.
The Olympic Peninsula of WA state has suffered from the downturn in logging but seems poised for a renaissance of fishing, recreation, employment and retirement in an area of spectacular natural beauty.
3
I know it was not his intent, but Mr. Egan plays into the "up by the bootstraps" attitude that has blinded many to systemic injustice and fortifies the myth of meritocracy. These stories are glamorous exceptions to the ugly reality for tens of millions who want for a hot meal and a warm bed.
I don't like Vance, his book or his politics. His experience taught him little, other than a highly personal delusion that "if I did it then . . ."
Most people, particularly folks of color, who are mired in poverty have neither the energy nor the capacity to crawl from despair to Harvard. They need a dramatic change in our economy, a dramatic shift from plutocrat control, a dramatic confrontation of racism and a dramatic commitment to well-funded early childhood education in their communities.
They don't need venture capitalism, charter schools and fairy tales about two remarkably resilient people who prove the rule by their exceptionalism.
7
It's a cult of personality. Nothing more, nothing less. Stop with the wounded rationalizations and accept the fact that 1/3 of us are literally in a cult.
9
On November 11, 2016 – three days after Trump's election – Timothy Egan wrote: "They (the white working class) will soon find out that Trump will treat them the same way he treated the suckers who signed up for his fraudulent university." I copied and pasted that sentence into a text document, enlarged it to 30-point type, printed it out and taped it to my office door. Twenty-seven months later, it's still there, and I'm still waiting for it to happen.
Not that Trump hasn't treated these people as suckers; he certainly has. I'm still waiting for them to realize it.
10
Restore Labor Unions and the problem vanishes in half a generation.
Or don't.
I no longer care what happens to these profoundly ignorant people.
4
I say we give these communities exactly what they want - teeny tiny government, no healthcare, no opportunities, and let them die while trying to live off the land. The next 20 years may be painful, but will enable a fresh start for the country.
6
These two children of Trump country are the revelation--but the sad reality is, most children of Trump country remain ignorant, self-loathing, violent, Bible-thumping conservatives who, if they vote at all, continually vote against their own best interests.
5
This story illustrates why mandatory voting is a bad idea. I'm well-educated and very aware of the issues of the day. Yet my vote can be swiftly cancelled by ignoramuses like Westover's father. Actually, I would rather that some sort of exam be given to prospective voters, like maybe proving one's ability to read, or create a sentence.
6
We have a home in rural Utah. The rancher near us has a confederate flag in his window. He has no internet, listens on the radio every day to Rush Limbaugh. He has no health insurance but is quick to use the clinic in town, that is government subsidized. Why do all these ignorant people not understand that Trump could care less about them.
12
@Pam
Pachyderm Spongiform Encephalopathy is a terrible thing.
2
I was really disappointed by Vance's book. He has the golden ticket; intellect, and that's how he got out of podunk Southwest OH. What did Elegy instruct about the millions of others similarly situated who aren't high IQ individuals? Not a thing.
6
@John S.: I agree, it's a mistake to confuse outliers with ordinary people. We can't all be Steve Jobs or Horatio Alger. The Marine Corps offers a way out, but it's a tough life, and you can get wounded or killed.
7
Mandatory military/community service for all. What a wake up call for everyone. The poor intelligent would realize how smart they are compared to the less intelligent privileged. The less intelligent privileged would maybe see how fortunate they were to be born into advantage. The older I get the more I realize how lucky I was to grow up in a family that gave me every opportunity to be educated. I am surely not as smart as many poor people. I just happened to be born into a different situation.
6
The blind leading the blind. And a couple of the sightless saw the light. But has anything really changed out there in the flyover hinterlands?
Poverty - the kind of structural, institutionalized poverty we see now in the US - is a form of violence. Hard-working Americans are working three minimum wage jobs just to pay the rent on their doublewide and put some cornbread and beans on the table. (Can't afford bacon - look at the price 0f bacon today.) But, hey: "We have the lowest unemployment in history," according to our flim-flam-man-in-chief.
The group of Americans - of all genders, races, educational backgrounds, financial means - who voted for Trump (the 70,000 votes that put him over the top) are the ones I hold responsible for the mess we are in now. They voted against their own interests and against the traditions of American democracy and our legacy of free and fair elections. But voting against your own interests seems quite fashionable these days.
And now that it seems possible that the president is a felon who has conspired with the Russians to illegitimately and criminally assume the mantle of the President of the United States - the leader of the free world - the sting is even more acute.
6
For all those who escape and succeed, there is the majority who do not. Although it is not a perfect same-case fit, see below the "Epitaph" at the end of Thomas Gray's (1716-1771) Elegy Written in a Country Chruchyard:
THE EPITAPH
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.
Trump Country is not unique to Trump. It just has different names.
3
Oh, how Mr. Egan hit the nail on the head.
I am often baffled by the sort of disconnect that my Republican friends have about the "government" and their perception of it's inability to do anything...anything except: protect their guns, fight wars, guard the border, and a several dozen other things they clearly will never give it credit for.
Most Republican's I know view the "government" much the same way as they see the bible - they just ignore the parts that don't jibe with their "world view". You know, they love the smite parts of the bible and ignore that pesky love your neighbor stuff.
I guess their views of history are also kind skewed too. The "government", just in the 20th century, fought and beat the Nazis and the USSR, cured polo, built the interstate highway system, made it possible for us all to use the same restrooms and vote... You get the point. The "government" also makes it possible for you to do business, not be cheated, and get restitution if someone steals your idea or stuff.
I recall the outrage from Republicans not long ago over this idea of "you didn't build this." As we all know they also hate subtlety and thinking about things, they took this sentiment poorly. But it's perfectly true - without the "government" we wouldn't have practically any of the fruits of life.
6
It seems that coal country is where these poor wretches reside may have had a huge influence in the legacy that Vance used to demonize his heredity. Did not these Coal Barons not own the house and stores where these poor wretches resided while the schools were less than what one might consider rudimentary. Shame on him.
2
Interesting isn't it that folks from these horrid areas are so ignorant and yet vote against their best interests. Difficult to understand. These two show how those who really want to get out actually can. Ignorance is so disabling.
1
The only thread ubiquitous in their rhetoric, is victimization.
2
Good article. Thanks!
As a fourth generation Californian, raised to be concerned about racial inequality, I read Vance’s book to try and understand the “white anger” that propelled Trump’s rise. I got his point. The difference is that once Vance “cleans up” he is physically indistinguishable from any hot tubbing, latte drinking elitist he so eschews. Contrast that with the black college professor arrested in his own home. White privilege is real....even for Vance.
10
Vance mistrusts institutions (although profits from them), but Westhover does not. Her dad did.
2
Only read the Vance book, but the stereotyping it has reenforced is disturbing. Vance “made it out.” It’s amazing what a stint at Yale Law does to someone’s interpretation of one’s own past, allowing one to ignore a lot of what used to be called facts. He even calls himself a “conservative,” thanks to New Haven.
I “made it out,” too, but my lack of a Yale education hasn’t led me to a view of us hillbillies as ignorant, drug-addled, neer-do-wells, nor was familial abuse that I saw any more rampant than the unreported abuse one might find in The Hamptons. Nor did all of us vote for Trump. And his largely cherry-picked sociological research is just what it is, supporting the view that we’re the ignorant supporting the ignoramus. Yeah, Trump turned out to be an ignoramus—and even worse—but it’s also more reasonable to blame McConnell and his kind, with their almost superhuman efforts to ensure that the Obama Presidency would be as ineffective as it was, for the election of Trump. The “ignorant hillbillies” who voted for Trump might better be seen as trying to “shake things up,” a reasonable response, rather than in thrall with Trump.
Some of us are, of course, like Vance, hillwilliams. But, unlike him, we don’t think our friends and neighbors are only degraded and decrepit “Beverly hillbillies.” We’re all struggling to make sense of how the rich have taken over this country. Vance thinks he knows how it was done and has joined up. We’re smarter than that.
10
I was delivered by the coal company’s (rumored) doctor, in the bedroom of a shack my coal-mining granddaddy rented from the coal company with special money coined by the coal company only usable at coal-company concerns! A soon as I was wiped dry my Grandmother had me up the hollow road showing me off!
This was Appalachian realty on the Black side of a coal camp! On the white side reality was different! In town, where the Company’s upper crusters lived, reality was radically different!
Ergo when I read these Hillbilly Elegies I wonder: was the writer a camp dweller, and if so which side? Did he or she live in town? For the reality is many town folks drove Cadillacs! And while the the white camp dwellers may have had holes in the bottom of their brogans the black camp dwellers were in many cases barefooted!
5
When President Clinton was being attacked, subjected to impeachment, and women were accusing him of sexual assault, I recall James Carville saying, “This is what happens when you drag a hundred dollar bill through a trailer park.” I sometimes imagine his opinion of Donald Trump being something like, “This is what happens when trailer trash comes into money.” While none of this is nice, and is akin to the “deplorables” remark that got Hillary Clinton into trouble, my point is that, intellectually, psychologically and behaviorally, Trump acts just as if he were still stuck among the survivalists and know-nothings-and-proud-of-it of Idaho and the Appalachians described by Vance and Westover in their books. From his incuriousness and insistence that he knows more than his generals and intelligence advisers, to his suspicion of institutions and science, he displays all of the traits of the people and life Vance and Westover successfully escaped. Unfortunately, for him and the country, he has never developed their ability to learn from those mistakes or, to paraphrase Mitch McConnell, “There is no education in the second kick of the mule.”
2
Two amazing people that have little or nothing to do with Trump except in the imagination of people like Egan. Authors like Egan play on the fantasy of the "untruth of us vs them" that has swept the university campuses and now taken over the mind of the political media. Real people who have a deeper understanding don't picture Trump supporters as hillbillies anymore than they believe that only members of the Black Panthers really supported Obama. It's just a bad article.
5
When I think of the people that Vance and Westover write about, I always think of a drowning man who slaps away the helping hand extended to him. If you can't admit you need help, you will never get any.
1
Thank you Tara Westover, for sharing your story. Education is the way up and out and it should be government funded as it is in Europe.
4
I just finished Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" and my name is on the waiting list at the library for "Educated", public libraries being one of the great American institutions. I grew up and lived in New England for most of my life until I moved to the South. I live in a liberal city, Asheville, in WNC that is surrounded by rural conservative towns. In my district they voted for the Freedom Caucus guy Mark Meadows by 59%. What exactly has Meadows done for them? Do they understand he is all in for taking away their medical insurance, that is if they have any. They may not as NC refused Medicaid expansion. The South was never exactly union country and they paid a price and are still paying. If you look at a map of educational attainment the least educated can hop on the Appalachian Trail and walk from Georgia to Maine.
Mr. Vance's portrait of his grandmother Mamaw was brilliant. Pistol packing' grandma with a heart full of love. When I read about poor children whether white or black so often they are raised by their grandparents. What happens when these amazing strong people die out? Who will raise the children and give them love and support that may become a road to success? Certainly Mr. Vance's mother would not be a grandmother any child should be raised by. Mr. Vance has a clear eye when it comes to Hillbilly culture and is honest about their faults. I just wish it hadn't turned him into a conservative.
Asheville was prior to WWll a place where rich older people had summer homes to escape the heat of Florida before air conditioning. My parents were two of the poor children from that area. After WWll, almost everyone in their high school class left the area for more opportunities elsewhere. These areas have been giving up their best and brightest for a long time. Asheville has always had a lot of outside “ retirement “ money pouring in and that is what makes it different from surrounding towns. Outside money and influence.
I grew up in a trailer with these Trump supporters and farmers who make no sense. My children have basically been raised as educated compassionate liberals.
This past week my 24 yr old RN daughter was selected for a jury where an East Indian woman had sustained a neck injury in a rear end injury with minimal damage to her car. She didn’t immediately go to the hospital then went to a Chiropractor, then within a couple of weeks went to a major orthopedic Group. She had been having nerve ablutions, which she will need on going and cost $20k twice a year. She was hit by a college student who grew up in rural Ga, driving a big truck who attends the big engineer college. He pleaded guilty.
My daughter said it was clear and the medical records were clear that this women was injured and it was permenant. These republicans on the jury wanted to live the woman $0. One man wanted to claim that “Hyperthyroidism “ in her medical records was fakerism. My daughter set him straight that it is your Thyroid disease. Then they went on and on that she went to a chripractor first and did not go buy ambulance to the hospital. My daughter explained that most people initially refuse the ambulance rides after car accidents, they feel okay. It is the next day that the neck and back pain sets in. She also tried to explain that chiropractic is fully accepted first step care in minor accidents. She also pointed out that many people of Eastern Cultures people don’t even do western medicine.
2
@MJS
Deplorables.
2
I live in a southern Oregon, generally rural county. Trump country. There's not a public place that I go to that doesn't have FOX news on. Apparently can't get enough of it.
And their policies coincide: anti-tax, anti-education, anti-Democrat. There hasn't been a school bond that's passed in ages. Refused to fund the county library system.
They see themselves as superior in their ideology and distrustful of government. It angers them that the thriving Willamette Valley and Portland gets all the governmental attention despite the fact that they pay a vast more of the state's taxes. Even the county's main forestry employer moved its headquarters to Willamette Valley.
How does this county survive. Federal dollars. If it wasn't the cash flow of federal funding, the county would dry up.
But don't tell them that. And it isn't even worth trying because they're not going to listen.
5
"violent and evangelical in the extreme."
I think the author has found the crux of the problem.
5
Welfare Brat by Mary Childers was the book I read and thought more important than Westover's, which I also read. There was less hype to Welfare Brat even tho she succeeded against impossible odds.
1
Thank you for shedding light on Vance's strangely odd belief that government institutions deserve scorn.
An insightful rebuke was written by Sara Jones in 2016 (https://newrepublic.com/article/138717/jd-vance-false-prophet-blue-america) who pointed out that government programs had been woefully inadequate to provide education and health care in those impoverished regions where the opioid epidemic flourished.
Vance has personality characteristics that make him a natural fit for the GOP and their assertion that if you just pull yourself up by your booystraps, you can "make it." A view that completely ignores the effect of a helping hand, whether from a person or from the government.
1
As an antidote to these two memoirs I would like to highly recommend Ramp Hollow by Steven Stoll.
I've read both. I can honestly care less about Vance, a stubborn man who still lectures to the rest of the world why Trump worked for his kin. And those government programs he so despised saved his hide. I don't care to understand his rural world. They need to start to understand decency and a greater world than their own.
5
"... demography is not destiny..." The take away from this article is that you can't blame hillbillies for being hillbillies or those that aren't educated for not being educated. There is nothing wrong or sinful about being uneducated or a hillbilly, however every one must have upward social and financial mobility available to them. That's an important role of government. That's what elections are for.
2
Opportunity is the way out of Trump country, but only for those few young people who recognize opportunity in primary and trade school education, trade apprenticeships, and university scholarships.
Taking out the best people leaves behind ignorant, old, and addled people in thinly-populated counties and towns. What's to be done for this blight on our society and nation?
The humane approach to poverty is to provide cash and services to those who do not or cannot earn a living free of want. This requires government programs for hassle-free income and food supplements, child support, and health services. Such programs enable the beneficiaries to participate as consumers, rather than victims, in the economy. Over time, they and successive generations will meld, like immigrants, into the mainstream of American society.
But humane support of the victims of Trumpish deprivation is not enough. A pro-active program to settle immigrants in afflicted areas of southern and middle America could provide the motivation and manpower to create functioning communities that attract professional services and commercial enterprises.
Think about it!
1
I recently read Vance's Hillbilly Elegy and was deeply disappointed by it. The book was poorly written and just another trope of the self-help, rags to riches story of individual effort to achieve success. Rather than truly getting to the bottom of the issues involved it obfuscated them.
Why are Americans so naive? Why do they continue to believe that only individual effort can save them when in reality they need to have effective government and policies?
This is a major part of the innate backwardness that leads to the support of a second rate charlatan like Donald Trump, or now the narrow minded views of the head of Starbucks. A lot of it has to do with greed and insecurity, that is for sure.
7
I've heard some of my fellow baby-boomers argue that today's youth are lazy ... that they just don't want to sacrifice and do the work needed to succeed. They forget the how much the society of the 1960's helped them.
I went to UC Berkeley in the late 1960’s. I had a minimum wage job. On those wages I was able to pay my tuition, buy my books, eat well, drive a car and small motorbike, pay my share of the rent and save up for a wedding ring for my future bride. Because I was a full-time student, I got free medical care.
Of course, my college education was subsidized by the generous taxpayers of the 1960’s. I like to think I’ve repaid that debt by being productive in my career, using my talents for the betterment of our community, and generally contributing to our society.
But could I do all this on today’s minimum wage? Not a chance. On today's minimum wage you can't even feed, clothe and shelter yourself ... let alone indulge in the costs of an education. I’m ready to pay my debt forward to the next generation … though it’s clear that I’ve been in the minority on this. I hope many will change their minds and join me in supporting the next generation the way our parents’ generation supported us.
8
My grandfather never got past 2nd grade and went to work at age 9. He had 6 children and all got college degrees and 4 had advanced degrees. The key was education that lifted them out of poverty.
From the depths of West Virginia to a place in the middle class was through education. Period.
3
The ones that are helped seem the less likely to help others. Look at the ex-house speaker, Paul Ryan. Used gov't programs (social security survivor's benefit for education - other note, Reagan cancelled college help in that program). But, no, wants to kill it for everyone else. Nice folks, those...
5
I devoured Vance's book. I found many similarities with growing up in many poor Hispanic communities in the southwest. It is a larger institution and the care and concern of someone taking the time with children to encourage them to seek education to help break these vicious cycles that confront their lives. I just ordered Educated and can't wait to read it. Thank you for this article.
1
I haven’t read Tara Westover’s book, but I did read J. D. Vance’s and could relate to much of it. Like him, I grew up in a white working-class town and in a family wrecked by drug addiction. And like him, I’ve succeeded academically and professionally. Like him, I also laugh when I hear well-intentioned people from the upper-middle class strive to explain the plight of poor people in this country without any reference to culture or personal choices. I’ve experienced too much in my life to agree with them entirely.
But I very much agree with Mr. Egan’s point about how mainstream institutions can and do lift people up in our country. Unlike Vance, I’m no conservative, although I’m no starry-eyed liberal either. I had the benefit of a great mother and good luck, and I also worked hard and sacrificed a lot. But to leave my story there is dishonest. Without affordable, high-quality public universities, Pell Grants, and strong public-sector unions, I wouldn’t be where I am today. That’s why I’m a liberal.
8
It is disappointing to read about Vance’s attitudes. There are extremely successful people who escaped extreme poverty and the life of the forgotten that didn’t turn their back on their past and those less fortunate. No everyone can escape regardless how hard they try. It is hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you don’t have boots.
My brother in law followed the same path through the Marines, returned from Korea to ask for his job back and was laughed at by his former boss. He went to college on the GI bill, worked hard (was exceptionally bright) and became very wealthy. He was inducted into the Horatio Alger Society. BUT, he never forgot where he came from and tried to help others until the day he died.
Perhaps Vance spent too much time with the Gilded Elite and adopted their Social Darwinism attitude.
7
I suggest a comparison not between these two stories but between Tara Westover's story and that of Derek Black, whose evolution is chronicled in Eli Saslow's "Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist." Both Tara and Derek were raised in intentionally separatist communities, trained to distrust in the extreme institutions and anything "other." It was college that began the transformation for each of them. Great reads!
3
The only way I can see us getting out of the trap we're in -- not just poor white communities, but *everyone* who needs meaning through connection to community and something positive that's bigger than themselves -- is through a massive American commitment to national service.
Americans, humans, still want to help each other if given the opportunity. Left to themselves, sociopathic individualism and free markets won't meet that desperate human need. Institutions -- as a practical matter, *public* institutions -- are now required.
682
@Bill Camarda
I totally agree. People need a sense that they are part of a bigger community. It would help define what it means to be a citizen of the United States. Something a person could feel proud about.
30
@Bill Camarda
Neither party has come up with real solutions to the plight of people in rural communities - nor have real solutions been implemented in other Western nations. There surely are some, but so far promises of "re-education" are about it. Education for what is a real question if you live in the "heartland" and would like to stay there.
12
@Bill Camarda Good thinkin'! This would also help repair a national culture somewhat, where we're all in this together, as much as you can nowadays with fragmented media.
We have yet to see the full impact of sense of community being destroyed by the internet and computers that keep us indoors and isolated all the time, choosing to watch only the segmented media that appeals to us.
15
Tim - another home run. A helping hand and affordable post high school education are essential for the few from this demographic who want to make something of themselves.
2
“I am a conservative,” he writes in a new afterword, “one who doubts that the 1960s approach to welfare has made it easier for our country’s poor children to achieve their dreams.”
says Mr. Vance, as the govt played a major role in lifting him out of his circumstances. What will it take to make the people from poor, rural America to think critically and not be sheep.
10
If we were to be truly honest with ourselves, we would realize that our successes (and failures),our hard work, intelligence, strength, speed, diligence, work ethic, etc, ... are not really our fault something to take credit for but gifts bestowed upon us we might understand our systems of rewards and punishments are way out of line.
Yes, people may need encouragement to be their better selves and not steal, kill, etc, ... but the concept that successful people merely work harder is fodder as is that most convicts deserve the harsh punishments they receive rather than a path toward rehabilitation.
Instead, confronting the amazing fortune we 'successful' people have been given through the luck of genetics, family wealth, and society being kind and cruel in the right mixtures is truly why we are employed. And of course the converse is true in equal measure.
Unfortunately such honesty robs individuals of that evil emotion: pride, and furthers the equally evil emotion: blame.
9
The government institutions or the government overall needs
a marketing department to highlight the good it does for people.
4
I grew up on a dirt road behind the town dump in a house that had no water until I was seven. My parents were kind and smart enough to help and allow me to do what I could to make my life successful. I had great teachers at a small school district. The wrestling coach took me to where he went to college with the implication that I could attend college. I worked two jobs while in college and finished with extra credits. Eventually I was given a full ride to complete my PhD. I now testify in court as an expert witness and have my own psychological practice.
I don't understand the backgrounds of the two authors described in the article. There are lots of basically poor families who have great potential and little in their environments hold them back. Good schools and non-profit postsecondary colleges and universities can make the difference.
The polarization in the current political discourse is part of what is holding us back. Solutions are often as simple as running elections by majority rule and a truly progressive tax system that will fund all the government, goods and services a society needs. This society does not need 1% of the population owning more than 50% of all wealth. That is the real issue here.
1792
@slowaneasy Neither of the authors had the support which you describe receiving from your family. Indeed, Ms. Westover's family was actively hostile to her doing anything to "improve" herself. In terms of family background, you are right that encouragement from the family can make all the difference. My mother grew up on a Texas farm 7 miles from the nearest small town - no running water, no electricity, and her parents had 6th and 8th grade educations. The small town was the county seat, and when my mother was 12, her father took her to the courthouse to watch the proceedings. It made a deep impression on her and she ended up becoming a lawyer in California. In 1955, when there was only one other woman in her law school class.
142
@slowaneaI
I agree with most of what you say but must point out that many children grow up in households with little or no support or guidance. Far too many suffer from neglect or abuse. What can we as a society do to prevent these children from continuing the culture of poverty? Also,
good schools are lacking in many communities and existing ones are being undermined.
117
@slowaneasy
It is the fruit of past political decisions that we confront now. Those decisions allow one individual to claim and hold $50 billion, and we collectively agree to protect that claim. If it was $100B or a trillion, same story, right?
How about a renegotiation? My opener, one, $1B, anything more goes back in the common pot.
105
Add Rising out of Hatred by Eli Saslow to the list. Like Educated, it shows the power of a college education to bring about profound changes.
2
Interestingly, just this week, President Trump met with Virginia Thomas about eliminating women from the military, a path from a life of misery as these two books describe. Only in Trump world would a millionaire discuss this with a billionaire - how to ruin the lives of the poor. Great article, thank you Timothy.
36
There is a tone in conservative thought that despises government programs that enable helplessness (in their eyes). It is not only white conservatives, but black conservatives who take this point of view.
But mine is an urban view from New Jersey. I was raised middle class but after college, was laid off a few times when our son was but a toddler. We went into debt collection for some bills and even received food stamps for a short time. But unlike the helplessness that conservatives worry about, we moved from where we were living (then Dayton Ohio - with few jobs) back to NJ and rebuilt a career. That was almost 40 years ago. Still working and married to the same woman, we do fine now.
When my son was 5 he entered kindergarten in NJ. We paid no property taxes and very little in other taxes (so were takers in the eyes of conservatives). Now I pay over 30k in income and property taxes. So be it.
Thank god for public schools, unemployment insurance and food stamps. We could not have gotten by without them. Oh - and our son is doing fine too.
There may be some communities that have an ingrained helplessness (that is a topic for another time) but for the rest of us, social programs can be a lifeline.
2295
@Terry McKenna - I can empathize, since I have a similar story, my father died when I was 12, my sister 10, back in 1972, left with a stay-at-home mother with little real-world skill. We received Social Security and VA benefits until we were 21 or so, eventually curtailed by Reagan, but they kept the family middle class - my mother still worked 50+ hours per week, first as a clerk and then later as a manager of a local store - both my sister and I graduating from college and attending grad school. Both of us have six-figure incomes, are property owners, and presumably pay fairly high taxes.
Without that support, who knows where we would be now? When I hear about someone giving back, I can only think of the government, along with a few supportive elders. Rather than the state being a creator of dependency, it freed us to develop into educated, employed individuals. But maybe that's the problem. Republicans, with their love of authority and fear of change, need the poor to be poor, to justify their moralism...
555
@James Igoe I did not add that my father also died in 1972 and I was 20, but we had 2 younger kids, 14 and 17 and social security helped there too. We all went to college (I was on scholarship).
109
@Terry McKenna
And social security helped out Paul Ryan’s family when his father died and Ryan tried to destroy social security. He is still trying.
499
That surreal moment when Timothy Egan compares the Marine Corps to a no-strings-attached government welfare program. Egads. (Or should I say Egans?)
3
You must not have ever applied for welfare if you believe there are no strings attached. There are lots of strings attached..
1
Why is Vance a conservative ? Have conservatives ever done anything to to help the poor ? Liberals may be inept in their attempts to help the poor, but conservatives seem to think that the poor haven’t suffered enough and an added dose of suffering is what they need.
13
@Ronald Efron,
Lets ask the parents of kids fed by SNAP if Liberals attempts are inept.
Or the parents of sick kids if COBRA is inept.
How about Farm Aid to help farmers which was spearheaded by Liberals if it was inept.
Or the Peace Corps or the 40 hour work week or weekends of, or child labor laws or our attempts to save Labor Unions etc.
I really can't stand it when ignorant people trash Democrats.
We are the only ones who care about the poor.
4
In the late 1980's I spent two years working at a Mental Health clinic in a small town 20 miles west of Atlanta. The difference those twenty miles made was enormous. Everything Westover describes was overwhelmingly present in that county: incest, physical abuse, addictions, crime, ignorance, and an underlying attitude of, "Well that's just the way things are."
In a therapy group of 12 clients, a client once stated matter of factly that, "...of course my daddy beat my momma, but only when she deserved it; and I plan to raise Scooter (her 10 year old son) the same way." The clients who were born and raised in that area all gave nods and voices of approval as if it were the most common thing in the world.
The sheriff's stock response to domestic violence against a woman, by the way, was to tell her to just go home and fix her husband a nice pie and he'd forget all about it. Which may in part explain why this woman attempted suicide after a particularly violent episode and was in therapy in the first place; and others, having succeeded, never made it to therapy.
So to anyone who wonders if Westover's description of the area in which she was raised might be a bit farfetched, I can state from experience that there are areas all over the country like this one in which ignorance is preferred; education is considered demonic; and "It's always been that way." is the standard by which everything bizarre is normalized.
16
Pluck, sure.
But luck also.
You certainly didn't make the latter; nobody is personally entirely responsible even for the former.
And really beware those who discount the latter.
2
Among the poor, I've seen that there is often a suspicion of, even a hatred of organisations--after all, those "in charge" are often snobs, do-gooders, or hypocrites. Yes, institutions are human, and therefore fallible and flawed. But they are reformable if not perfectible. If we reject them, we're alone, or dependent on family or something equally susceptible to flaws. Libertarian fakery would have us believe that organizations, especially any based on community selection and voting, are mobs. Right, mobs--clamoring for the destruction of personal independence and dignity. In American politics, this can be seen in the rants of slave owners of the 1830s as well as in their spiritual heirs from the 1950s through to today. "Right to Work?" Why is that so popular with the wealthy? "American independence?" Why is that so popular with advertisers? But this "mob" designation is found well beyond America: Albert Schweitzer fell into that trap. Reading his jottings, I try to imagine how my loving family may have recruited their Churches and political parties in order to oppress me and deprive me of my personal independence. I just can't make that leap. It's fake. There's strength in unity.
1
A point about the headline...
The whole United States is “Trump Country,” as he is the president.
There is no alternative federal system for coastal areas and blue states.
1
@MR
No, MR, the whole United States is not "Trump Country." Trump was elected by a majority vote of the Electoral College, not by a majority vote of the electorate. He was elected with the help (and is now beholden to) the Russian dictator, Putin. Trump serves America's oligarchs rather than its people. I recognize Trump as the person who is present in the Oval Office, but he has forever lost my respect and the standing of POTUS in my heart and soul.
6
For those interested in a deeper understanding of White poverty in our country the best source is White Trash: The 400-Year History of Class in America, by Nancy Isenberg. While we have our British forebears to thank for classism and transportation, we have only ourselves to blame for the continuance of “waste people” in modern society. And those “waste people” are found not only in Appalachia but, in equal number, in our inner cities.
I, too, found it beyond ironic that Vance decried the very institutions that our society has set up to help those whom we’ve pushed to the bottom of the class ladder. My family’s story is the immigrant tale of other countries’ waste people pulling up stakes and braving the new world in order to rise out of poverty. Regardless of where we come from, realizing our cherished dreams takes individual grit AND the help of others, including institutions.
10
Howsabout luck? No one ever acknowledges the “luck factor” in these rags to riches stories. And, intellectual ability. It just comes down to those two things in the end. Sure, what womb you fell out of and in what time and place matters. But, in the long run, aside from the wealthy whose prodigy are guaranteed a secure future no matter how despicably their characters, or lack thereof, turn out to be, or slow-witted they are beneath their slick, superficial veneer of “success”, the great equalizer in the game of Life is always, always, always - LUCK!
1
Interesting that Ms. Westover's father accused his daughter of being "taken over by Lucifer" after she decamped to Harvard. Lucifer, in Christian mythology, was an angelic "bringer of light" before he fell from Heaven and became Satan.
Ms. Westover, in her achievement of enlightenment had, in a sense, been "taken over by Lucifer", but in a good way. Lucifer shares etymological roots with words like lucid, luminous and illuminate.
3
I read both Westover's Educated and Vance's Hillbilly Elegy. Vance reminded me of Justice Thomas who went to Yale using the system but afterwards turned against it. Westover reminded me of quite a few women who hung in there and after attaining their goal acknowledged the system's contribution as well as other people's, The system was established by people, and it's managed by people, not robots. I prefer people like Westover. It is hard to acknowledge other people's contribution to one's success but that's the first step towards being a human being.
17
Southwestern Ohio? ever heard of a city called Cincinnati --- 29 miles from Middletown, where JD Vance grew up?
Heavily Republican, amongst the middle and even upper classes -- traditionally. (Actually, Hillary Clinton from a Chicagoland Republican family could explain it all -- except for her bad campaign encouraged by certain snob elements of the media that assured her she would win no matter what!) "Trump Country" is a misnomer.
JD Vance, who attended public school, which would have been economically/intellectually diverse (unlike inner city schools), had many models besides those at home.
I left S-W Ohio; many friends stayed and have had wonderful lives . Industries also left -- the story of much of the USA-- helped impoverish the community. Escape previously alcohol and other drugs -- meth, heroin, eventually became oxycontin, then heroin and fentanyl.
1
Along with cuts to higher ed, the trump administration is working to make it easier for for-profit "universities" to bilk their students, many who come from circumstances described in this article, without reprisal or penalty. Disgusting.
5
Traditionally, Republicans and conservatives have touted the “pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps,” “no-government-handouts” approach to individual success. Suddenly, they justify and explain Trump’s election victory in terms of Hillary and the Democrats having ignored his working-class voters, and not having done anything for them in years. Which is it?
4
But here’s the thing: the ignorant and backward have been with us for a long time, while Trump is a stark break from American tradition. Appalachia and the Northwest have had their share of kooks and degenerates since there was an Appalachia and a Northwest with white people.
It is great to shine a light on those dark corners. But I remain skeptical that it much explains Trump. How many of Vance’s relatives even voted?
The Trump story is more about the long term self-induced debasement of the Republican Party. If you want to understand Trump look at Roger Stone, Newt Gingrinch, Ollie North, Jerry Falwell, the Kochs, the Heritage Society, the NRA, Rush Limbaugh ... those are your protagonists in this tale of destruction.
10
DT: "Why solve the problems I can exploit?"
7
I'd really like to hear about the people belonging to the 7% in Franklin County Idaho who voted for Hilary Clinton.
3
It's worth to remember that the original meaning of "Lucifer" was "light bearer". So in the literal, totally unintended substance of meaning, Ms Westhover's father was for one time spot on. Light took her over in the end.
297
@Arne Lohf
Very worth remembering! Thanks, Arne.
7
@Arne Lohf Good point!
5
The praise for JD Vance is one of the great jokes of our time. Tara Westover's story is almost otherworldly...and just sad. But, Vance, as Mr. Egan points out, gained greatly from "government" and his conservatism is just plain old White ignorance and narrow-mindedness. I found absolutely nothing inspirational about his book, having grown up in environment every bit as impoverished...though urban...as his. There's a sophistry in his work and appearances on tv that is very off-putting.
If he doesn't think African-Americans, for example, benefited from voters rights acts and other helpful programs of the 1960s he doesn't understand history. Don't be duped by his act.
19
Both books are compelling reading. Both authors do not acknowledge that their significant native intelligence contributed to their success. People can’t really say that I guess. Half the population has an IQ of less than100. Hard for them to make it in the world no matter what their circumstances.
2
I've not read Westover's book. I will. I found it sad that J.D. Vance's story is sometimes interpreted as a rugged individualist narrative because it is likely so that without his "Memaw," Vance might not have escaped the path of his own mother, a woman who herself was raised by "Memaw" when Memaw was herself a younger woman. Education plus time can result in problem solving skills and wisdom. Many comments below tout church as a stabilizing institution, but throughout history and now, many churches have sought to control members by keeping them uneducated. Local, often church based, community standards limit what books are available in both the public library and the local elementary school. I will read Westover's book as soon as I finish the books I'm now reading: David Grann's "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes" by Thomas Doyle, Richard Sipe and Patrick Wall. Not all institutions are good all of the time. We live in dangerous times.
2
My parents grew up in Eastern Kentucky, about 50 miles east of Vance's grandparents. This coal country area, which includes nearby states, has very high addiction rates, high Black Lung disease for folks able to get a coal job, and high poverty. It is largely white and conservative. Vance was able to escape the fate of many of his cousins. But I hope he keeps going back to his roots, to face the real lives of his kinfolk and the people where he came from. How many will manage to take a path like his?
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@mtwjo
very few when they keep voting against their own self-interests. they need to move beyond their ingrained beliefs about government interfering with their lives and realize they need the help to move beyond the lives they are now mired in.
19
Many readers will feel uncomfortable with this fact: Tara Westover would never be where she is today without the understanding, generosity and support of Brigham Young University and the Mormon Church.
9
I worry that Democrats are going to miss the boat on this. I don't know how Obama won West Virginia (it's hard to believe it now) but it wasn't by talking about Medicare for all, 70 percent income tax rate, or third-trimester abortion rights. And he didn't talk about "white privilege" . Please don't argue the fine points of these positions with me. I'm just trying to say that they are NOT going to win votes in the key electoral college states.
Better broadband and cell phone service, affordable college and community college, better access to affordable health care....Obamacare tried all these things, but was often blocked by Republicans (who claimed everything was unaffordable due to the soaring national debt! Oh Lordy, the hypocrisy!) Why not pick up his moderate mantle, rather than getting too progressive?
7
"Their cultures are toxic and intransigent." What a comforting view this seems to give people who ultimately know very little about the place, a distorted picture of the area today that's been bought into by people who should know better. That myopic picture of the possibilities within the region offers a road to nowhere. Up next "Metro Elegy: Escape from New York--the Sequel"
1
The Greatest Lie Ever Told:
"Government IS the problem." Ronald Reagan
However imperfect, government is part of the solution. Completely unregulated capitalism with profit-making run amok is the problem.
8
I now feel like I have to read Educated. I read most of the Vance missive. Here is how I explain his journey. I hit a drive that never got more than 5 feet off the ground. It hit the cart path about 4 times and rolled another 30 yards on the sun baked Nevada ground. I turned to my parter and said "that is about the worst 250 drive in the history of mankind". His response: "nobody knows, you can write the narrative any way you want". I felt like Vance back in loaded his story. Too many gaps and inconsistencies. Too may advanced thoughts for a kid surviving in Crackerville. But, good for him. He and this young woman are extreme outliers. How do we get at at least 10% more of the 10 Tooth Rube Cult? That is the question cause they sure won't read either one of these books. They wouldn't know where to find a bookstore or library.
1
I've read both books. While I found Westover interesting, bordering on the heroic, I found Vance to be nothing less than infuriating. Here is a guy who now has everything trying to tell us a story about why his family had nothing, and almost all of the family's problems were entirely self-inflicted. Please, spare us the victimhood.
For a much better look at both the working class and Appalachia, find a copies of Elizabeth Catte's "What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia" and Joan Williams' "White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America" and Arlie Hochschild's "Strangers in Their Own Land".
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@Peter I disagree on your charge of victimhood against Vance. It’s too simplifying in view of the obvious damage that economic and educational institutions do to people. I’m not condemning all institutions or government regulation (on the contrary). But, the institution of an underregulated free market and the lack of a robust social safety net can undercut individual efforts to the point of oppression . A sincere Thank you! though for the book recommendations!
16
@Peter I agree. I thought Tara Westover's book was well written and interesting. She had great love and understanding of her parents, even in her rejection. I thought Vance's book was poorly written, and made me dislike these people intensely. His relatives took advantage of government programs although they professed to dislike the government.
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@Peter
Haven't read any of them -- Egan's recommendations or yours -- yet. But I can't imagine a more compelling account of escaping poverty and transcending class than Sarah Smarsh's "Heartland." That should definitely be on the reading list. A remarkable woman.
18
The US Marine Corps as a government hand up?
The NYT is quite out of touch with the majority of Americans.
6
"Hillbilly" is a word Mr. Vance can use, carefully, but probably not urbane Mr. Egan or his headline writer.
1
@Jim Holstun agreed!
Hillbilly is a disparaging term
@John Poteet That's why Vance uses it. He really hates his own people.
3
@Julia Richardson
I am offended by the Times repeating it.
What other epithets would be allowed here?
No...I do not lament the fate of white people in America. But there is no reason for this.
I have an uncle who attends an evangelical church, votes Republican and distrusts government. Meanwhile, he went to college with assistance from the government, would not have been able to buy his home without an FHA loan, and was only able to afford college for his children because they went to a State school with tuition adjusted. He's on medicare, and he works for the state. How do you make people like this see that they are voting against their own economic self-interest?
20
Yes, education and the marines enable these two individuals to surmount devastating childhoods that have held far too many down and contributed to trump country. However, let's not, in the service of easy answers, believe that it was education alone that propelled these individuals upward. It was resilience that enabled them to rise above and fight against the forces that would have pulled them down. Over and over events conspired to keep them where the majority have people in their environments have remained. I would love to believe that education, opportunity, money, or even combinations of these, provide an answer but they don't. As a former social worker I was struck over and over by those people who were able to rise above environments that kept others down. What was the difference in most cases? Resilience. Why are some people more resilient than others? Nobody truly knows. This is not to deny the importance of creating opportunities, or to say trump's cruel policies are anything but mean-spirited and uncaring, but these two individuals don't light the way. They are two candles, but that's about all.
8
@Barbara
I suggest 'Ramp Hollow' by Steven Stoll. Remarkable book.
1
@Barbara Our President actually basks in negative lighting. He's not happy if he doesn't have an enemy, a fight going on. He was a failed businessman...a con artist, who leveraged his notoriety on The Apprentice to give the illusion that he was a successful businessman. He is all about hypocrisy...he built his Chicago hotel with Chinese steel and undocumented Polish construction workers. His daughter's business did all it's manufacturing in Asia. He tells the public that what they saw on live TV - the intelligence chiefs (he appointed) - was "fake news". It was broadcast live!! He cannot tell the truth. I'm a conservative...he's not...he's a wrecking ball.
3
It's easy to twist the truth around in order to frame the President in negative light.
1
@Alan Einstoss do you have anything to say about the BOOKS?
2
@Alan Einstoss My reply to @Barbara from Maine...was meant for you.
@mark Thats exactly what I meant ,and I've lived it ,so it's different as an individual.
You nailed the head on why I found Hillbilly Elegy to be frustrating. I really liked Vance but the fact that he is a conservative after all that makes me batty. Yes, the social welfare programs of the 60's have had mixed results but how in the world are modern-day GOP policies going to help? I also was struck by how similar the rural white poor problems are to Black inner-city poverty. If you took away race and location, one would have a hard time guessing which population is being discussed. But somehow we have been led to believe that it's the government that has let down the poor rural whites, while for the Black urban poor, it's all their fault.
1302
@Rebecca and @Peter - you did nail it on why Hillbilly Elegy was frustrating to say the least. I read both books and Vance's book basically says "I made it out so can anyone else who cares too, and if they don't make it out it's their fault" - that whole sentiment is an issue, it says we, as a society, don't owe anything to anybody, we don't have to make the society work for all and we don't have to support those in need. That sentiment is also the basis of the republican party - every man for himself (I do mean man), that attitude leads to what we have, extreme income inequality that will only get worse which leads to poorer health and all other ills. In addition I didn't see anything in Vance's book that said "here's what I propose to solve today's problem" It came across as he likes that status quo, and there are no problems to solve. He's got his so everyone else can....fill in the blank
119
@Rebecca in Vance’s book, he credits his grandmother with a lot of the love that helped him rise above his circumstances. Lots of families don’t even have that. If there isn’t a caseworker or public school teacher to care there’s nothing for those kids. That’s what infuriates me about many conservatives- they never understand we need a robust social safety net and that costs money.
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@Rebecca As other writers here have said, I also was frustrated by Vance's book. He had a very different upbringing than many of his neighbors because he had the encouragement of grandparents who believed in the value of education. They pushed him to read and to do well in school. As a retired teacher, I can tell you than supportive parents make a huge difference in the success of a child in school. Vance may have lived in the same community as his neighbors who keep looking for a government hand-out for their problems, but he had supports that many of them did not have.
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Fixing blame is a difficult and sometimes offensive, dangerous practice and I have to disagree strongly with this sentence from the column:
"... the hillbillies of his book have no one but themselves to blame..."
Only someone who has lived a life entirely outside the confines of limited opportunity and poverty or near poverty would ever reach that conclusion. There are many people born into hardship who make it out but there are also people of intelligence, personal capacity and hard work who do not.
The problem resides in the mental horizons and touch points available to people in these mostly rural "forgotten places". Television and the internet bring constant news of the outter, other world but most kids growing up have no idea how to get there nor any examples around them to see and study on how others have escaped. Housed in poorly run schools where many of the teachers are themselves from deprived backgrounds, their K-12 education provides little help also, unless native intelligence and raw talent forces the issue and a wider world opens up.
Be very careful in casting judgement. Just because there are interstate highways between Appalacia and the elite educational institutions in the forzen eastern zone, it does mean kids are at fault because they can't find a way to take them.
5
@Doug Terry I believe the phrase comes from Vance rather than the column author. According to what I took from the article, it is Vance’s take-away from his experiences in the run-down community in which he was raised.
I agree that the phrase in itself smacks of a Victorian throw-back concept my (Victorian) grandparents espoused, that of the “worthy poor”. The implication of that phrase is that some of the extremely poor at least made an effort to maintain decent (Victorian) standards of cleanliness and godliness. The “unworthy poor” were those who spent their time in pubs, didn’t work hard, were dirty, and might even - gasp - be beggars. Alfie Dolittle - in itself a classic Shavian aptronym - in Pygmalion/My Fair Lady is a classic example of the unworthy poor.
All that said, what I understand of Vance’s perception of people and communities he grew up with and around is that not only were they dirt-grindingly poor, they had no hope of extricating themselves. The only differences between Vance’s communities in Ohio and their Victorian counterparts are the welfare cheques and that drug of choice: opioids in Ohio, gin in Victorian Britain.
3
@Doug Terry That is a quote from Vance, not Timothy Egan.
1
@Sarah Hearn In regard to your first paragraph, the quote I used was the columnist's conclusion or extrapolation from the Vance book. I read this book when it came out and was so very popular in its attempt to explain the so called "backward" cultures around coal mining, etc. and I don't remember the author reaching that conclusion, though he looked with great disdain on the drug taking and general lack of initiative he found all around him.
The story of Dr. Paul Farmer is better than either of these two although I much prefer Westover’s. Farmer got out of Trump country while it was still Reagan country and got help from institutions along the way. The difference is how he has used his brilliance to help others and the world. I mean, who would spend more time in Haiti helping others with medical care while still a student at Harvard Medical School? Today Dr. Farmer still works to improve the lives of others.
4
I grew up in Northern KY, left in 1960 and never returned.
My mother was from Cincinnati and every Sunday she would drive over there to spend the day with her family. The bridge from KY to Ohio was very busy with as we called them Hill Billies driving back from rural eastern KY to their jobs and new homes in Ohio.
Twenty or thirty miles south of where I lived Appalachia began. I spent many a day hunting rabbits and quail down there and from an early age was fascinated by the differences between how we lived and how people there lived. I had a summer job with the KY Department of Revenue and my duties often took me to their farms and towns.
That culture has never been explained better or in more detail than David Hackett Fischer did in his masterpiece Albion's Seed. This book is a must for anyone who has a desire to understand the deep divisions in the cultures of America.
He characterizes the people coming from the violent borderlands of England, Scotland and Ulster where some border people emigrated as they were described by earlier settlers in America from other regions off England as bound tightly to family, violent, evangelical, prone to drunkeness, distrustful of authority and education. They settled in western PA, VA, Carolina and eventually migrated in large numbers to TN, AL, and TX.
When they moved to OH for work they brought their culture with them. When work left their social structure collapsed. Vance is an exception but he did not do it on his own.
29
Mr. Egan
Well done ... the geopolitical exist throughout the entire U.S. and the demise of some institutions, in large part attributable to lower levels of funding, have caused the rise to middle class much more difficult.
Post WWII it was possible for so many, the GI Bill various aspects, funding of state colleges, a military path and the influence of the Cold War contributed. Of course not all made it out, but the conservative influences surfaced in Goldwater and Reagan (Nixon did start the EPA and the earned income credit) and the folly of Newt put a boot on the neck.
The systems/institutions can and will work, but as RBG aptly stated get your boot off our necks.
3
Sarah Smarsh, who tells a similar tale in "Heartland", seemingly arrived at a somewhat different conclusion, recognizing the role that institutions and good government can play. I recommend her version of the story.
18
If this column is a book review, it is spot on. It analyzes two books that depict escapes from desperate lives in Trump country.
If it is an indictment of Trump and how he has betrayed his base, it is true enough but we've been there and done that. He has betrayed everyone he ever did business with; there's no reason to believe he would do any better by his supporters.
If it is a commentary on how to improve things in those places, it is an abject failure. The authors did not make it better, they escaped. That's a fine solution for individuals but it won't scale. Most of those people are going to remain where they are.
The authors are outliers, sort of like a pair of modern-day Horatio Algers. As the books show, their life stories are extraordinary.
14
@mlbex I agree that they are outliers in life and as writers and thinkers. I do wonder if Egan's main point is still correct though: utilizing the institutions available can become a salvation. The deeper question is why people do not grab for the life line? Behind each of these books is a community of "learned helplessness". We should not blame people for that; we should figure out ways to break through other than exceptional grit.
3
That's always been the perplexing Rubik's cube of Trump's "base".
Why do the people who were "left behind" want to support a brazen grifter like Trump, who obviously is not going to throw the flimsiest of lifelines their way?
It's because of his professed hatred and scorn of "institutions", and even more importantly how he has taken advantage of them in every way he could think of.
These people in the cosmic irony of ironies admire others who "bite the hand that feeds them" and can get away with it. The fact that Trump might have been born wealthy is not held against him in any way.
J.D. Vance is obviously a master of self deception if he truly believes conservatives and a party led by a charlatan like Trump is more likely to provide a "way out" for the downtrodden from whence he sprang.
It's easy to admire individuals who escape dire circumstances where the odds are stacked against them so high they can't even see over the top of them. However, it's a fallacy to believe that the ones that do pull off that magic trick automatically acquire a monopoly on the best ideas to help the ones that didn't.
Those people we're born with a spark that allowed them to transcend their circumstances, not necessarily understand them. It then becomes tempting to convince yourself that if you did something, than others can too if they just try hard enough.
As a result, it facilitates the cognitive dissonance that we see manifested in Vance that allows him to remain a "conservative".
50
I find it curious that we have a country that was founded on freedom and protection of its citizens and yest we really don't follow through with that founding principle. We have a military to protect our country, citzens and treasure. We have laws, judges and jails to protect the afore mentioned. I do not understand why we don't have and education system to protect our country and citizens from ignorance. I do not understand why we do not have health care to protect the health of the citizens and there fore the health of the country. And, furtheremore I do not understand how it serves the greatness of our country and serves to provide for the growth of our country when we ascribe to the position that it is better to have so many people living in such poverty.
Some people do their best by just working at jobs that others would consider beneath them, but those jobs need to be done too. That does not mean that people should be taken advantage of or thought of to be lazy.
I say to those who call themselves conservative patroits show some real backbone. Protect the minds of our citizens and their children from ignorance by providing high quality education through out our country. Protect the physical and economic health of all our citizens. Stand up for values for all.
19
I’m always struck by the distrust of government in so many rural communities but yet they are the ones who need and use those resources. It is contradictory, just like voting for a businessman who in his past has never shown any regard for them.
18
Great piece.
I am from the same area that Vance grew up in. After I left the area in the mid-80s, I began to see the “learned helplessness" that I grew up in. It's a reality.
22
As a product of the landless urban poor in the still backwater island of Trinidad, at a time when secondary-school education was the preserve of the privileged, it was a "chance" opportunity that got me into "high school" and the grace and love of many that saw me, despite persistent poverty, through university in Toronto and on to a fine tertiary education and a successful professional career. I picked up religion as a young man and am amazed at the peace and contentment that it has provided. I am humbled by Tara Westover's story.
10
When I read Vance’s book, I got the feeling his distrust of government institutions came from his need to have to look down upon those dependent on those institutions or swallowed up into them in order for him to succeed. It may have come off as hypocritical but I think it was his own personal need to have that “not be ok”. Otherwise, he’d end up like his friends, neighbors or worse, his mother.
But the thing he had was stability, albeit nit so, in his grandparents. For a lot of people it is institutions that provide stability. Sometimes school or the military or a sport is the only structure kids have. All parents and child care experts can tell you children need structure and stability to feel safe and thrive. Try throwing a 3 year old off schedule. See how well everyone’s day goes.
And ask adults how much they like retirement a year out. Unless they have a time-consuming hobby, they are usually bored, drinking more and lazing around watching TV.
I don’t think that parents should always stay together. But I do think they should always be present in their childrens’ lives in a healthy way, meaning no abuse or neglect. The whole world knows it’s easier said than done. So, in my opinion, it doesn’t matter who provideds the stability, whether it’s both mom and dad, just mom, just dad, grandma, two moms and two dads or an institution, as long as the child feels stable and safe, they can thrive.
15
There are approximately 4,500,000 college degrees conferred each year. These stories are inspiring and a must read for every college freshman.
However, in the real world, families and students wind up with substantial debt that they'll never be able to repay. During the last quarter of 2018, student debt $32.6 billion. This brought the total outstanding student debt to over $1.5 trillion.
Parents, students and colleges have difficulty determining "which student will have what it takes to be successful".
Unfortunately, GPA averages, College SAT scores, natural intelligence, family background and personal initiative . . . are mutually exclusive.
1
@Enarco "Unfortunately, GPA averages, College SAT scores, natural intelligence, family background and personal initiative . . . are mutually exclusive."
What does that even mean, mutually exclusive. Are we to believe that the set of people with high GPA's is disjoint from the set of people with natural inteligence. I think you mean that those things are all corralated, which is the case; however, that is not a bad thing. It might just be that students with a better backround are more prepared for college and thus will benefit more from it.
1
@Max
From my experience that's not true. Back in the middle of the last century, the top valedictorians had grades in the high 80s and low 90s. Meanwhile, students from the best NYC schools had GPAs over 100!!! And most them were not that very bright. My comment was based on my own experience. Larry Cremin (Past President - Teacher's College at Columbia University) once opined at one of his many lectures that I attended, "We are graduating too many students with high confidence but far less competence". Also, "Too much education is focused on "memorization" and not on "critical thinking".
I agree that if all the traits mentioned in my original post were correlated, that would be great. I guess I have seen too many graduates with high GPAs and SATs who really didn't cut it in the real world and were great at the detail level, especially knowing a lot of facts, but less able to put them together into exquisite solutions.
I've read both books. The final chapter of Vance's book felt very different from the rest of it...more making a political point. Glass Castle is another book in the same category.
There have been many studies for over 80 years about children raised in adverse, even brutal, circumstances, and which ones fared well. They tended to be bright and curious, had at least one adult or older sibling somewhere in their lives who took an interest in their welfare, and were connected to social institutions that provided structure and a path-- usually church or school, or as in Vance's case, the military. They suffered psychological and physical scars, but these protective factors helped them muddle through and out of adversity.
My mother's mother was an orphan who worked in the mills as a child. No education. My mother was raised in a tenement. Then WWII happened and she went to nursing school on a government stipend. My father was the son of immigrants, joined the Navy, and went to college on the GI bill. They bought a house on the GI bill. My graduate program was paid by a government grant. My husband, son of immigrants, had a full scholarship to college.
Institutions, private and public, can provide opportunity. They matter.
102
I read Dr. Westover’s alarming memoir in one sitting and have concluded that her single story of growing up isolated, poor, and undereducated is synecdochic of what is happening across vast swaths of America. I’ve said this before, and I continue to say it: when we fail to appropriately invest in and value education, we lose the ability to govern ourselves. The elected officials who represent these districts should be ashamed — and everyone else who supports continued tax cuts should be too.
89
@A California Pelosi Girl,
Therein lies the rub.
These people are unable to feel shame.
5
We do know, but the media does not find alluring: to put a fine point on the fact that there are poor, working and middle class people all over this country.
No one points out that it was Trump Voters that have caused anguish -unto sickness and death- among us.
And, it was Their Votes which have Guaranteed Long-term Harm to our country's infrastructure, healthcare, and bequeathed loss of friends and allies around the world.
Their votes have caused long-term harm to recruiting federal workers and severe to the Justice Dept. and its morale.
They have strengthened the hold of the very rich, big corporations and big banks over 89.9 percent of us BY THEIR VOTES!
27
@Dart We must never forget that more people voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for Trump.
4
I totally agree with this essay's main point, but the subtext deeply troubles me. I am disturbed by the metaphor of "escape" as a way of describing how people from impoverished rural communities build successful lives. If the only "happily ever after' scenario we can envision requires escape from the "backward" middle of the country to one of the "enlightened" coasts, it will only cause further division and resentment. I like the author, Timothy Eagan. But I do think he reveals a dismissive bias. I also think the concept of "escape" (think "Left Behind" series) as a metaphor for salvation is so engrained in American Evangelical theology that even secular writers unconsciously rely on it when they try to describe what it means to become fully human. But escape is not the primary Biblical metaphor for salvation for good reason. Escape cannot be the only path to transformation, wholeness and restoration.
9
In the USA the perpetuation of the mythology of rugged individualism( the Old West), the heroism of Confederate traitors( racial superiority) and , last but not least, religious belief, enable and sustain Trumpland. As long as those three elements remain in the cultural DNA of those afflicted, then the protagonists of Mr Egan's piece are outliers to the extreme; As Martians to earthlings.
13
I read both books with a keen eye on how the church influenced these cultures. A lot. But it's not a Christianity I recognize. In Vance's case, it's a nationalist christianity, a guns-god-and-country faith, not a love-your-enemy faith. As he points out in the book, and as I've studied for some years now as I teach at my church, church attendance is shrinking (even in the white evangelical churches, but not by as much as in other denominations) but more and more Americans claim to believe in God. That God is a red, white and blue god. These are people that would put an American flag outside their churches--ignore the fact that Christ had no interest in any discussions of the Roman government at the time.
In Westover's case, it's a Mormon church infused with the anti-government, religious right from the Western states. It's the apocalyptic, end-of-the-world vision that sees sinister motives in all things government and those not associated with their cultish corner of Mormonism.
Both break out of their chains bound to a narrow, hate-filled view of God. Westover walks away from religion completely (I can't blame her). She does not see a place for God in an enlightened world. Vance continues to search for his faith in an us-vs-them world he left behind.
I hope both of them can find what they're looking for. As for the rest of America, I hope we can stop using God to bash our neighbors with hate. That's obviously not what Christ wanted.
70
@Eric
Thank you. A definitive portrait; a picture spelled out in perfectly-chosen words.
2
Gumption. That’s what these two remarkable individuals had. Actually, perhaps throw in a little serendipity, and presto, you end up with stories of two remarkable individuals.
Great role models for young men and women in Northern Wisconsin, none of whom are born on third base, or even first base for that matter.
5
"Strangers in Their Own Land" by the the renowned sociologist Arlie Hochschild is another important book to read.
The message is much the same. People distrust our institutions because they have failed to help. This book examines the lives of people in St. Charles, LA. The EPA has been around since 1971, and in that time these people have seen their environment destroyed by the petrochemical companies, who can always hold the regulators at bay with their lawyers, while regular folks get regulated and fined without end. The attitude is that government never seems to help "us", so why don't they just leave us alone.
15
I read Vance's book when it was published, and it left a bad impression with me because I too thought he glibly turned his back on the very things that made his success possible. Thanks for pointing that out.
62
I read Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy".
I agree that Trump is probably not helping these people. Certainly, Vance did benefit from financial assistance when he entered Duke University to study law. He also benefited from the power of that system to secure opportunities after graduation. Vance acknowledges that this was a world that he was helped by and he had no idea about it before by chance he ended up there.
I think this commentary misses a serious point that Vance brought up, that child services would have refused to allow Vance to stay with his grandparents when his mother was brought under the scrutiny of the system in court. So the welfare and child protection services appear to have developed regulations that (though probably developed under good intentions) are pernicious.
It seems like Vance has a point that the rules developed in welfare and child services are not always or necessarily helpful. Decisions should probably be made at a far more local level, like at the level of the local community where police and city officials have some more direct way to assess that actual situation in these families.
It seems like this topic needs far more discussion and not just bristle that "they have services and they reject them". On the surface, that is true, but doesn't look deeply into the question of "why?". These areas have been neglected by both parties for a very long time, and it will take several generations to heal.
3
Not true. Grandparents are often the legal guardians of children whose parents are not able too properly care for their children.
7
As a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) in Illinois, working with abused and neglected children, I can assure you that grandparents, when appropriate, are often the first persons we turn to. I would be surprised to find it was different in Kentucky or Ohio.
7
9 percent of Kentucky's children are being raised by grandparents or other relatives, the highest rate of any in the nation. Kentucky also has the lowest rate of relative foster care homes, the program that pays relatives just as it pays stranger foster parents. Research generally shows that if children cannot live safely with their own parents, they fare better in life growing up with relatives with whom they share a sense of enduring connection.
2
Undermining faith in institutions is one of the building blocks of brainwashing, so it's no wonder that authoritarian leaders -- whether at the head of a family or at the head of a government -- seek to convince people that salvation lies only in blind allegiance to a particular person or entity. "I alone can fix it." Sound familiar?
48
I've always wondered to what extent Trump's election owed to economic insecurity ABOUT government handouts and programs.
Many of them depend on these, though they don't like to admit it (having swallowed the Calvinist/Social Darwinist/libertarian propaganda); they are also told all the time by the divide and conquer oligarchs they throw their votes to that these programs unaffordable--mostly due to the horde of non whites and immigrants clamoring for them, too. So, they are told, if they want to keep any decent share of those benefits, they better vote for those that'll deny said benefits to those not like them, and who'll try to keep 'em out, or down, in the first place.
The poor white working class has been snookered into believing those poor "others" are the threat, and don't realize oligarchs spew this ethos as they really fear an alliance of poor whites and poor everyone else.
Such poor whites were not as easily hoodwinked in the FDR era. Of course, schools tended to teach civics then, and the propaganda was not as sophisticated then. The success of improved propaganda directly parallels the shift in this electorate from Democrat to Republican (though certainly Evangelical entry into politics contributed).
40
The Vance story's argument is classic conservative blindness to what worked for him.
In the end it really is about the money. If you tell the so called conservative that it will cost X dollars to do something then the conservative wants to do it for half as much or less. Learning and progress on the cheap with a confident toss that it's really just a personal failing that makes the difference.
We see it even from the "liberal" rich (Howard Shultz - I'm looking at you and your coffee empire) that call themselves socially liberal, but financially conservative. They enjoy the benefits of the educated liberal society, but don't want to actually pay what it costs to obtain and maintain that society.
94
These comments are both interesting and thoughtful. I have more than a few friends who supported and continue to believe in the messages of Pres. Trump. With very few exceptions most are college educated, some with graduate degrees. They may “feel sorry” for the people surrounding people like Westover and Vance. However, they do not condone helping people scam the system. Listen to the comments from people who call in to C-Span after a presentation about health care being a right of every citizen. “I worked and saved to pay for my health insurance. They should have saved their money instead of just spending it on who knows what. If they can’t pay they should’t have health insurance.” “Why don’t they use the ER like all the other poor people.” I found most people with that attitude have very little, or no, experience with poverty. They’ve never experienced the pain and suffering that comes with poverty. Without exception they are all rock solid Republicans. TV is always the Fox channel. No fake news for them — think the failing NYT. I could go on with examples, but I think you get the idea. If that group was willing to be educated perhaps the journey those of us who are less fortunate wouldn’t be so difficult. And it might be reflected in how they vote.
65
@JMac Knowing a lot of the same type of people you describe, I agree with one caveat; while they claim not to "condone helping people scam the system," they are never really bothered by the wealthy scamming the system and often are, themselves, great scammers of the tax system or any other government system when scamming it benefits them, all the time complaining about the poor and other "scammers."
9
@JMac
Used to be poor, so I know what I'm talking about - the problem with poverty is that everything cost more and takes longer. You fix one problem and it makes 3 more problems
Read the book Hand to Mouth, Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado. Great read.
6
@JMac
To vote Republican is to vote for selfishness, cruelty & greed, while pretending that those three traits add up to noble individualism.
3
When Dems feted corporate donors and allowed them to assume an out-sized role in policy, Trump base knew they no longer mattered to Dems…or anyone else in the political establishment.
This is the font from which their anger, and Trump's win, springs.
It is also fair to say - and no politician has had the courage to make this part of their patter - that when Trump’s base (and other Americans) engage in the blame game, they need to take a good long look in the mirror and gauge the extent to which they are responsible for their/our current status. There is plenty of greed and unwillingness to change toxic behaviors to be shared by all.
Both these ideas can be (and are) true...but doesn’t make things better for any of us.
If we are going to move forward to a more fair and inclusive politic, we need to start with community values. We are all in this together or not…and mean it. These aren’t words…but behaviors. We can no longer afford uninvolved citizens…whether they are our chronically unemployed, cynical tax dodgers not paying their fair share, or our US based multinational corps that play both ends against the middle. We need all of you and the capabilities/resources you can bring to the country...and we need it now. It’s all of us…or none of us.
As always, backing this idea with real resources and behaviors is always the difference that “makes the difference”. But change for all Americans, including those comprising Trump’s base – starts with this idea.
4
@JL1951,
Agreed.
Repeal Citizens United!
That koch-written law is killing our Democracy.
2
@Victorious Yankee
I think a repeal of Citizens United - as much as I would like to see that happen - is going to be an easy pull.
I would rather spend those resources/efforts on compulsory voting in the US..as well as the voting holiday suggested by the Dems.
I think everyone voting will get us to consensus about a whole bunch of important issues (including campaign financing) and lessens the power of political elites and moneyed brokers. You can't buy everyone...I hope!
I read Vance's book but not yet Westover's. To understand the issues it would be best to read the story from the perspective that will not be written: the illiterate, biased peons who spawned the authors. With these books we have the perspective of the successful whom we join with our graduate degrees and we have no voice uttered by Westover's father comparing it all to evil. That is the voice to understand in order to understand the anger and attitude of white-poverty. Vance tries to do it as he captures the pride in his community but the deep mindset of its emotions and rationales seem missing from the people he describes maybe because he is not one of them even when he was.
11
@JEM Unfortunately, I know many of those with this mindset. Some are family members. They never consider another perspective because they are only exposed to right wing media and their own group, whether it is their church or the single issue they care about like guns.
15
@JEM
The "I-escaped-from-poverty-and-ignorance" story is an old one. One of the more graceful, non-tub-thumping books is poet Robert Peters "Crunching Gravel." And even today in rural outposts thousands of young people with gender identification issues dream of escaping narrow strictures of the small town and remote county. True also for urban or suburban ghettos. Eventually we see that the ultimate prison is oneself.
2
The insititutions were there to help both Westover and Vance. But do not discount the role of people who helped them along the way. Neither of them would have gotten where they are today without people who cared for them encouraging them and showing them the way out. We need the institutions, yes, but we also need people who care.
41
@Leah
Leah, very well stated. We can all be instrumental to provide critical support in the process.
Next Tuesday, I will volunteer for a Habitat Humanity framing crew to build walls for a new build. The new occupants will be there and we all work together.
Everyone needs a home ... the systems are not broken, they do need help to maintain plumb and square though ....
4
My father and mother were both educators (retired now; just celebrated their 65th anniversary), so I was raised with that ethic. It’s impossible for me to imagine why anyone would be opposed to educational opportunity, but look at what the GOP does: Strip away educational resources and money, leave those who do manage to get through college on their own with life-long debt, etc., etc. For what purpose?
I’ll tell you what: It’s a lot easier to control the minds (and hearts) of low-education voters who lack anything like analytical thinking skills and a familiarity with (classical, logical) rhetoric. And they know it.
A useful translation of GOP governmental policy, education included, is this: Socialism for corporations and the wealthy, and rugged individualism for the rest of us.
167
@David Walker You right on!
4
@David Walker
Just one example - upon graduating from law school, I thought about a job with a Legal Services Corporation office, which was doing great impact work in communities. I didn't consider that option for long because of the student loans I had to pay back, and the need to make a salary which was only available in the corporate world.
2
Thank you Mr. Egan for pointing out that Mr. Vance benefited from the military. He acknowledges that in his book but seems to be in danger of forgetting that fact.
The article does not mention another institution that, per the book, Mr. Vance benefited from, his grandfather's union. Mr. Vance's grandfather's union negotiated pension helped him have a more secure childhood than he otherwise would have.
All of us who have "made it" to the middle class or beyond should pause and give thanks to all that made that ascent possible. This includes our own hard work and the hard work of other individuals but also the institutions that created paths upon which we could progress.
185
The military is the one government institution that conservatives support.
3
Mr Vance and Dr Westover have achieved far beyond what might be predicted from their backgrounds, and in comparison to their peers.
Poor whites are among the least likely of any group to end up in the Ivy league, yet they both managed to do so.
I'm not ready to second guess their takes on their own achievements, or their perspectives on their origins.
I also find it offensive to suggest that they are not smart or aware enough to know that institutions helped them to achieve.
Plenty of people enter the military and college. Very few start where they did and achieve so much, especially today.
I am more interested in why they believe what they do that I am in telling others they are wrong.
4
@Talbot
Is anyone going to thank the ivies for admitting the less-socially favored to their halls?
3
I think that if we will talk about lack of trust in institutions in Appalachia, we should consider why that trust is rightfully withheld. A common occurrence in Appalachia is an outside entity gobbling up all the resources in the area (coal, timber, people) and leaving them high and dry after they've bled all the profit. I think a lot of people see the military and college as taking a valuable resource (bright young people) and moving it to communities that don't need them as much. In this instance, Westover and Vance are both good representatives. In other ways, they don't represent the whole of the Appalachian experience.
16
@Chelsea, you make a good point. However, I think the opposite is true in regards to the mistrust. I live in Appalachia, and most of the people here will fight tooth and nail for the very ones who have stolen the most from them. They do not see or believe the owners of the big coal companies raped their land and stole their birthright. It's the same with Trump who they think is the savior, refusing to see or believe that he is just a newer version of the coal companies. A popular bumper sticker around these parts pretty much sums up how they feel about those who steal from them and then walk away with bulging pockets - "If you don't like Coal, stop using electricity". The brainwashing is complete.
2
this atitude goes back 200 years to the Whisky Rebelion and the Scots-Irish settlers who arrived in them thar hollers with authorities and poverty snapping at their heels. and there isolated in the dim woods it festered for generations, through the Hatfields and McCoys, the Jukes and the Callicaks, and, pushed by the collapse of the coal economy, finally blossomed into support of Trump. ignorance opioids that old time religion = bliss.
1
Besides institutions that educate, travel is also expansive. I've often wondered what the political landscape would be like if all Americans were provided mandatory college / university in cities away from their own homes with then sent, on their summers off, traveling outside of their regions and country. Exposure to other ideas and other people is almost always broadening. It won't cure everything, but it would have an effect, i'm sure.
23
@Sharon Sheppard
Traveling on whose dime?
Education, education, education! Location, location, location - important, but not as much - if strong Federal institutions are there to offer the hand up.
14
"Conservativism" has been intellectually, morally and economically bankrupt for decades.
As demonstrated in this column, the main behavior attributes of Republistan include a general lack of education, a lack of curiosity, xenophobia, religious 'thinking' (non-thinking), cognitive dissonance, irrational and hypocritical ill will toward the 'educated' and the government and white tribalism.
If Republistaners had any honesty, self-reflective abilities or brains, they would swallow their racist pride, stop swallowing Republican snake oil and vote Democratic so their infrastructure, their education systems, their tax base and their futures could be rehabilitated.
But Grand Old Poverty will not be helping their Deplorables anytime soon; they would much rather surf the sad racist votes of Deploristan to electoral glory than give a Christian helping hand to these abused right-wing citizens.
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
- LBJ (complaining about the sorry state of white voting habits in 1960)
That quote has been the official Republican Party electoral platform since 1968.
Sad.
315
@Socrates I just post that LBJ quote on my facebook.
The saddest thing is that the quote applies to BOTH parties. Clinton and Trump are both major pick pockets.
1
@Marymary28
Your false equivalence is unhelpful and destructive.
The Republican Party consistently provides 0.1% welfare and drives the economy over deregulatory cliffs while the Democratic Party constructively raises taxes to pay for decent infrastructure, healthcare and a decent society.
Public policy matters, and GOP policy is a giant poison pill.
False equivalence is a propagandist's very best friend.
Don't fall for it.
73
@Socrates
Nothing to add there. The base is pretty loyal though...until it is not. When that day comes, I can imagine that Tucker and Sean are going to have a hard time finding sponsors for their antics. Actually, that will be the least of our worries.
10
"we have the tools at hand to ensure that demography is not destiny in Forgotten America." The extremely atypical anecdotes provided are not very convincing about the large-scale utility of such " tools. " Is everybody supposed to join the Marine Corps and straighten out their lives, or have the exceptional wherewithal to get themselves into college from a seemingly hopeless disadvantage? What is the point of this article?
10
We look to the poverty as the primary cause of the 16 M Trumplanders , it is not. It is the breakdown of American family structure. There are many poor countries in the world where the poor people are able to survive more devastating level of poverty but over time came out of that horror through strong family structure - look at China, India. What is the difference - America systematically destroyed its family structure by adopting a cruel consumerism as the driving force of its economy. Consumerism can never build a healthy society - it creates individuals who are addicted to materialism and final stage is the drug addiction. American Trumpland has reached to that level. We can not come out of this misery without getting control on this consumerism culture. We have to control the corporate culture of materialism and consumerism - without getting it controlled, in another 50 years, most of the country will be Trumpland.
16
@Kalyan Basu
Alas, India is moving in the direction of the same consumerism. The much celebrated individualism is becoming "everyone for himself and devil take the hindmost"
3
@Kalyan Basu
Excellent, well written point.
On an unrelated note, the picture of the hill covered in kudzu reminds me of my home in Mississippi.
1
I was born and raised in an upstate NY county where workers were left without jobs when its main industry went overseas. Many people have moved out; the remainder went 69% for Trump. It may defy reason, but It's a kind of independence, or pure cussedness, people are proud of around here.
8
@Anne W.
Right. What other way do they have to show their discontent but in this display of meager power? Going against reason and spurning sensible choices convey a feeling of brave stand-up integrity, no matter how perverse. People DO cut off their noses to spite their faces.
4
It always amazes me how the people in most need of government help and so-called socialist type programs (like universal health care) love Trump a privileged elitist if there ever was one and who are the most vocal in denigrating these program. Surely this is at least partly due to lack of education --in the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world you have many kids who never go to school or get beyond primary grades. Tara Westover, Vance are exceptions, in fact their books if they do anything -- highlight how so many others live in dismal ignorance..
14
Both of these books are noteworthy because they are stories of individuals who, through courage, will, and perseverance were able to rise above circumstances that countless others could not. But both are “one in a million” success stories - that’s what makes them good stories!
I’ve not yet read Westover’s book, but what troubled me about Vance’s book was his distain for government programs and regulations meant to help and protect the poor. He proudly describes himself as a conservative, and promotes a conservative point of view pretty much in line with Tea Party policy. For example, he was able to use “payday loans” without getting in financial trouble, so he disagrees with government regulation of these usurious lenders. He doesn’t seem to see that others are not as strong or smart as he is. The government’s role should be to help and protect those who can’t rise above their circumstances on their own. Sure, government programs are often flawed, but “rolling them back” is not the answer.
45
Many struggling communities sabotage their children's success for a variety of reasons. Some are jealous, insecure, see the success of others an indictment of themselves, or seek to keep their children close. This is a primary reason for the distillation of failure in these communities.
36
Poverty knows no race or ethnicity, it has devastating impacts whether you come from the city or country. If you are lucky enough to get out your environment and see how other people live you might have a chance. The military and higher education introduce people to a world where actions have consequences that are consistent.
35
@Yolanda Perez
I absolutely agree with you. The institutions helped enable these two authors to see "another way." Also, and most essential, both these authors had a person - at least one someone they trusted - to lend a helping hand so that they could SEE another way.
8
It is unfortunate that those struggling early in life ("struggling" not quite a strong enough description), who manage to engage their survival instinct, forget or overlook the lifelines that were used in their deepest moments of need. So thank you to those like the individuals in this opinion piece for bringing to light their recognition that holding on to the promise of hope for a better life can lead to a better life. But please, remember you didn't do it all by yourself.
38
@Jim, Paul Ryan being an outstanding example of this particular blindness.
2
I live in a place that is not dissimilar to those described in Vance and Westover's books (both of which I've read and recommend). There is a fearful "Turks at the gate" narrative here; that America and its traditional "Christian" ways are under attack. Trump has exploited and stoked this fear, and though the narrative is grossly false, the fear is starkly real.
So how do you reach out to neighbors and (yes!) friends who have fallen victim to this fear-mongering? How can they let go of the incessant messaging of Graham, Robertson, Dobson & Falwell? What could the counter-narrative be?
36
@Kent R I believe the answer is forcing public education to educate all students to their potential. Then this group of parents will see their children have the opportunity to be productive, not just grab for whatever piece they can hold on to and crow 'I've got mine, too bad for you" to those who lost the game of 'steal the bacon'.
Right now rural schools are so underfunded they can't send their 'best and brightest' to vo-tech or to the traditional acceptable college majors -- ag, nursing, engineering -- because the necessary high school coursework isnt offered. For ex, Trig and College Algebra now is pay to play, and that's only if enough people sign up - if not its cancelled. In my day, that was independent study and the math teacher had a room full of kids going thru the math between Alg 2 and Calc, successfully going on to college or trade school. The instructional nonremedial money now is going to special needs and ENL as well as unfunded mandates, not to unrequired academics. That's why the college aid news goes unremarked...the children who need it can't get there, study hall starts in kindy, the library closed decades ago, and the internet has not been run out to their locale. Its big news if a civic club raises enough money to supply one grade level with a dictionary for each student or if a student who isn't a teacher, banker or preacher's child makes it into the top 25%. Our rural schools can't raise children out of poverty of the mind anymore.
9
@Kent R The counter narrative can be your own life. If you live sanely and calmly, stay away from the fearmongers, radiate contentment and serenity one or more of your neighbors might possibly ask how you do it. Even if no one else ever notices you'll be happy. In my experience the only person you can ever write a narrative for, in the end, is yourself.
3
@Kent R
Get them get outside of their black boxes of ingrained thinking. If they won’t read or travel or listen, go onto YouTube! Type in American Racism. Or, for that matter type in anything you want to investigate, and watch the stories unfold in front of you.
1
Vance's and Westover's stories are inspiring. But Vance and Westover are statistical outliers -- luck in the natural abilities, and, in Vance's case, a strong set of grandparents, enabled them to take advantage of institutions and their gateways to better lives. People who rise from poverty via taxpayer-supported insitutions (the military and colleges and universities in their cases) but then want to shutter those institutions for others send a hubristic message: "I was worth all the taxpayer-supported institutions that went into my success, but all those others aren't."
43
I have read both books, indeed both authors had their own tenacity in the face of ignorance. Yes, the word is ignorance, both of the individuals were able to rise above much physical and mental cruelty that would surely destroy 99.9% of others in these scenarios. There are others, around the world, that do indeed succeed, but too many are lost in the chaos.
The secret for both was the desire to learn to grow and to challenge themselves and their preconceived beliefs. The answer is good available public education, good teachers and mentors, this is the common thread.
This is the number one problem in middle America, what they share is low education and skill. Those skills were ample for good paying Union jobs that created the middle class, those jobs are gone. They wrongly parrot the talk lines that the elitists or those others have caused their problems. No the problem lay in their State and Local Governments. This makes survival in the twenty-first century difficult, if not impossible.
14
@Carol
It's all so snob. Someone has to cook the hamburgers at MacDonald's, be a crossing guard, bag groceries, stock store shelves -- the cashiers might be robots.
Such people are possibly more valuable than a bunch of lawyers or plastic surgeons. Already medicare is supposedly costing too much --subsidizing all those well paid people? (possibly overpaid -- but no one wants to debate income fairness because that's socialist!! )
1
There are maybe 5 out of a hundred people who will take the ball and run with it no matter what their situation is but for the rest of us, it is to the common interest to have a life boat out there, just in case we may grab it.
Charles Ingrals took money from the state in desperate times and on the personal front he did not pay off his personal debts, but that enabled his family to survive.
4
I'm another who escaped a small town. Most people aspired to be Produce Manager at the local Tops supermarket or to just get a job working on farms, etc. I escaped because I had brains and because I joined the military - I had no money for college so couldn't go on my own. The military gave me discipline and training and enabled me to use ROTC to attend college.
Without those institutions and programs, I'd be a smart guy in a small town struggling like everyone else. Community college maybe and maybe I would have succeeded. But these institutions were an invaluable accelerator.
Conservatives don't see that because they never had desperate nights wondering how to go to college or to escape a small town. Or how to pay for the basics. They've never been stuck in a place where traveling 30 miles is a big trip. They want to believe that it was their own smarts and hard work that made their success. And supporting institutions that help "lesser" people is throwing good money after bad. They do not think they ever needed help. Supermen and Superwomen all of them.
Well, on planet earth, the "super" is in short supply and needs to be grown or nurtured with education and programs rather than silver spoons. Our dear "leader" is a great example of how tarnished one can become with silver-spoon only feeding...funny how all the Republicans in Congress bear the same stains.
192
Mr. Vance's book incidentally did explain to a limited extent reasons for Trump's election.
Unfortunately, for me the takeaway from his book was that vast portions of the United States have been "Third World" for centuries and appear to be resistant to any kind of social progress.
By "social progress" I do not refer to what many Americans would call the "liberal" scourge of "socialism" but rather self-destructive clan warfare and utter dependence. People who are expecting this portion of America to "learn its lesson" should expect a very long wait.
America's self image has evolved with limited geographical scope through human creativity and insight, replayed in great speeches by JFK and MLK and many others. It's coastal cities have rapidly progressed, from the 1920's into a modern era. Most of America has no use for this "progress." We ought to accept the reality that our nation is not what it appears to be and that Trump is less an aberration and more an inconvenient truth.
48
Thanks, Tim, I will be heading to Books-a-Million after the sun comes up to add a couple of more volumes to my library. Trump's presidency, if it had done nothing else, has at the very least enlarged my personal library and contributed to the bottom lines of BAM and Amazon. Whatever else may be said about the Trump fiasco, it has benefited the publishing industry, hugely.
6
Very few people survive, or even prosper, all by themselves. I grew up in systems and the influence of systems I didn't even know about, as did my father, who hated government and legislated controls on his life despite the fact that government jobs, union benefits, World War II, and social security and union pension gave him the only "leg up" in life he every had. He was not very good at doing things on his own.
People aren't rational. They don't weigh two or more things and come up with the best solution for themselves at the moment. One of the problems, in America, is that we have a corporate-sponsored class of oligarchs (who really know how to profit from climbing to the top of systems) lording it over the rest of us as the "elected." They love to pretend that they did it "all by themselves," and that if you are not rich, then you are a bum, or a take, or somehow inferior.
I guess my father would have preferred being "poor and proud" than benefiting from an enlightened policy of health care, education, unions, retirement schemes, fluoridated water, etc. But he would much more have preferred to be a member of the "elite class" of coddled capitalists who looked down upon the rest, including people like himself. In America you are either a bum or a "Big Shot." We don't go in for "in-betweens."
39
Benefits from being a Marine are well earned.
They are differed income, nothing more.
3
@mike Tim isn’t saying they aren’t earned, he’s saying that the existence of a very well run and essential government institution gave Vance a path out of his sorry beginnings. It’s time to stop equating government with the mythical “welfare Cadillac” and acknowledge that it does about a million critically important things that keep American life functioning, as the recent shutdown just highlighted.
64
We enjoyed hillbilly elegy very much and could recognize many of our neighbors who essentially give up and don't take advantage of opportunity for a multitude of reasons. We have lived in those communities and it is just sad. Young bright men and women who do succeed in school are looked down upon as being too uppity and too full of themselves. Peer pressure is very strong and the few of us who escape, like Vance, look back and try to understand why the community is satisfied with failure.
68
I read both of these books, and while I was impressed with Westover’s self-education, the Vance book disturbed me.
What is more impressive is that millions of Americans never emerge from circumstances like these, and that their lives are fraught with difficulties, including poverty and drug addiction.
As a country, we need to pay more attention.
33
A straw-man argument. Few conservatives believe that there should be no government services. What is missed in the article is the theme of self-reliance, responsibility, the opporutnity to succeed, and the triumph of individuals. And isn’t this the bankrupt view of humanity that fuels progressive thought?
1
Fooled so easily by your own good luck. Our family hit hard times when I was a teen. Fortunately I somehow figured out that their were government grants along with work study and summer jobs that eventually led to a college degree. Far from patting myself on the back I am forever grateful to a government that supported a struggling youth. That was 40 years ago and unfortunately republicans have been on a terror to gut what made/makes our country thrive.
242
@LTJ
Opportunity? That is exactly what conservatives in government are working to deny to the masses of people mired in poverty. It is almost as if there was an overarching strategy to remove as much support for education as they can get away with, from public schools to higher education opportunities. My cynical side wonders if it is more than just plain stinginess, but actually a concerted effort to keep people from becoming educated, economically stable and less easy to manipulate.
48
@LTJ In a word, no, this is not the "bankrupt' view of humanity that fuels progressive thought. In fact the view of humanity that fuels progressive thought is quite the opposite. If success was a by product of the triumph of the individual, solely, we would have a different country and thousands more memoirs of the successful rise out of the ashes of poor folks. Conservatives always use the one man/woman who succeeded, despite the odds, as opposed to looking at the thousands who didn't. In order for more to succeed from marginalized, generationally poverty stricken communities we need many programs that give them the chance. Starving children can't learn, bad schools can't teach them, zero health care can't keep them well, domestic violence must be prosecuted, (which is a new paradigm), a living wage is necessary. These are the views of progressives. People sometimes need a hand up to enable their self-reliance and therefore triumph. It's a ridiculous, cruel, American myth that everyone has the same opportunity, no matter where they start. We progressives would like the basic necessities of a dignified life in place for all, which then enables the rest of the JD Vance's (who, despicably, hates his own people and is narcissistically self aggrandizing) and Tara Westovers to emerge triumphant from the despair of poverty, drug addiction and violence in America. Note, we haven't talked about the systemic and institutional racism that these two never experienced.
42
J.D. Vance's book has been hailed as the explanation of why this country elected Donald Trump as president. Frankly, accepting Vance's self-serving explanation let a lot of people off the hook for their bigotries. His surety that he pulled himself up by his bootstraps, all on his own, and his condemnation of his peers for having failed to do so i frustrating in its refusal to acknowledge the tremendous benefits, albeit inequitable, provided by government via taxes.
An honest assessment on his part of the role government has played and how it could play a more equitable and effective role would be of far more use to the people among whom he grew up than 'Hillbilly Elegy' has been as an apologetic for the Trump phenomenon.
157
@Davina
Having read the book, I have to disagree with your takeaway entirely. J.D. Vance clearly acknowledges the life-changing generosity of multiple individuals who took the time to give him a hand up. He also believes the Marine Corps literally saved his life by giving him structure, purpose, and a clear set of values. What he doesn’t believe in are government programs, like Head Start, that he sees as too difffuse to actually make a difference. Instead, he thinks we’d be better off encouraging individuals to mentor disadvantaged kids and help them make their way out of inter-generational poverty.
Quibble with him all you want on his conclusions—there’s a fair debate to be had—but please don’t misrepresent what he said.
Vance wrote that his Grandmother encouraged him to do his homework and because of her he took school seriously unlike many of his peers. It is my opinion that choosing your parents or grandparents wisely is the most important thing you can do. When you are unlucky in that category then the village has to take over. But Vance's people don't trust the "village" a.k.a government because they feel threatened by it.
7
@Amy
Head Start is an early education program--is education truly too diffuse or is it underfunded and understaffed? How do individuals who are overwhelmed string together part-time minimum wage jobs, as are the people where is is from--at least those fortunate enough to work--have the time to mentor disadvantaged kids? And honestly, in that particular community, aren't the majority disadvantaged in terms of education and access to healthcare and jobs?
Government must help solve problems that are simply too big for individuals to solve and to suggest that volunteers or charities bear that burden is to leave those without abandoned.
5
On that note, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college and went on to establish major companies and become billionaires. Therefore, we should recommend everyone do the same.
6
@LeapInLogic of note, those listed had money and or access to those with capital and connections. They are many brilliant poor people with neither whom ideas languish because of that. College for the poor is how they make those connections !!
23
@LeapInLogic Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg entered college with a solid background in fundamentals and the knowledge of what they were looking to learn/achieve. Although they did not graduate, it would be wrong to say they did not benefit from their university experience and that they would have achieved the same outcomes without attending.
18
@LeapInLogic
As for Apple Steve Wozniak was a main component. Steve Jobs was the promoter. He has multiple awards and honorary degrees. The rarity among businessmen, he is a true philanthropist.
1
So much of the response to this article is to the content of the books of Vance and Westover. I was so struck by the fact that Westover's book was primarily a recitation of one child's horror and not the writing of a Cambridge University graduate. There was little or no analysis of her situation, curiosity about how the same members of a family have disparate memories of the same and little scholarship overall. This book could have been so much better and put forth many different ideas that the writers of this article have regarding people's choices and the rise of Trump.
13
@Janet
Westover's book is a statement of fact, a picture of a dysfunctional family and community and their behaviors. It is the task of the reader to delve deeper into the reasons some individuals have come to their warped world views. The book also serves as a partial explanation of how people out of touch with reality could be so easily manipulated to support Donald Trump
10
@Janet Westover's book describes with heartbreaking clarity what it felt like to be a child growing up in the world of two utterly mentally disturbed parents in a community where everyone else turned their backs on them. It was not an anthropological treatise. Children all start out thinking that what they experience is normal because it's all they know. I saw this book differently; I saw it as a story of the gradual awakening of a young woman to the terrible situation she was put into. And even after that awakening, like so many of us, she still had love for the people who brought her into the world and then abused her so terribly.
16
Both books push the message that everyone can succeed if they work/try hard enough, but both authors are truly exceptional. That's the crux of the problem. Not every child has the skills or personal qualities that would help them to overcome the terrible family dysfunction that J.D, Vance and Tara Westover endured AND they needed help from the government, whether in the army or via grants to study. Public Policy isn't able to counter belief systems that are antithetical to government help in any form.
77
@Fran B
“...but both authors are truly exceptional”. I would venture truly lucky too. Good for them, and thanks to them for sharing a part of their story.
Truth is, life is hard. It’s a grind to make it from the starting point, zero, to some level of success. And nobody does it by themselves.
We love hero stories, but wouldn’t we be smart to refashion our world so that success wasn’t exceptional, not a hero story?
10
@Fran B
Because public education is mandatory to some degree, effective early education can open doors for many who are otherwise isolated by their family beliefs. As for homeschooling, more supervision needs to be done to ensure that children are getting the basic requirements and learning how to read and think for themselves and are taught the fundamentals of science, history and government. Perhaps achievement tests on a regular basis to ensure the benchmarks are being met?
10
Thank you, Mr. Egan, for another outstanding column. Now I will have to read both of these books.
Many of us read about poverty-stricken regions like rural Appalachia and wonder why people don't just move out. Viewed from the outside, it's hard to recognize the grip that holds those people in. It's complicated; it's a mix of positives (community, family) and negatives (community, family). And a lot of mixed messages at emotional levels that seems to enable selective blindness at an intellectual/rational level. It's feeling very superior and very inferior, and oscillating between the two. It's a deep social illness, passed from parent to child.
Well-funded public schools offer a path out of the poverty traps, not just by providing basic literacy but most importantly by enabling children from poverty-trapped families to see that there are other, healthier alternatives for life in human society.
That is why, to my mind, free and public education should be compulsory, at least through grade 8. Our public schools need a lot of improvement, but they are still the best path out of ignorance, hatred, and distrust.
79
@Duane McPherson Access to decent education ought to be a priority in this country. Charter schools, championed by the wealthy and by Betsy de Vos, tend to syphon funds away from public schools. For profit schools of any kind are also a drag on the funding for good public education. Sadly, there is a large group within the 0.1% who prefer to have an ill-educated underclass.
44
@Duane McPherson
I suggest the “free” part go well beyond that. In fact for my lifetime it has, through grade 12, and in some places effectively through grade 14.
There’s a very good argument that to remain competitive as a nation, free and universal should go to grade 16.
14
@Duane McPherson great comment about compulsory education until 8th grade. I personally know of too many poor homeschooling situations where the kids never go to college or leave their small town. Homeschoolers may be getting a poor education through no fault of their own. These kids are basically under the control of their parents at all times.
4
Tara Westover’s story, as I read it, is about the grip that family culture and community have on all of us. If we are fortunate, the gap between family/friends and the world beyond is narrow enough for us to easily step across, but for some it is a broad, deep canyon. That’s the expanse that Westover describes to us in her memoir. She enters BYU somewhere near the middle of her narrative, not near the end. The rest of the story is about the unrelenting, deep, emotional attachment and pull of a brutal, delusional world that demands her obedience and loyalty above all else. If Westover is exceptional, and she is, so is the upbringing she describes.
So, to the commenters who say that these two authors are exceptions to the rule, I’d reply you are absolutely correct, but they are exceptions because we haven’t done enough to make the journey easier for those who are not quite as gifted, or as strong. And, not every story begins in such a harsh and remote world as Tara Westover’s. Many young people only need a modicum of support and encouragement to improve their lives. We could start by giving every child free health care and good schools.
398
I saw a Brexit quote that applies to the folks the authors grew up with. Paraphrasing, “It’s okay to vote against your own interests,”
I do. And it’s a values thing, which was pointed out in the Brexit article. I value protection of the air and water. Environmental regulation costs more. I value funds for education paid for by property taxes. My view of freedom includes abortion and a woman’s right to choose and not unfettered gun ownership.
78
@Nbf. And how is voting for clean air and water against your interests? Breathing and drinking water are essential to human life, so having those is beyond an interest. I would call them an imperative. Not being killed by gunfire, and not having an overpopulation issue seem to be in your best interest as well. And as for education, the article makes the best argument for why it serves us all well.
7
@Nb
It sounds like you care about values beyond your immediate financial payout, and recognize the existence of tradeoffs in both time and (the) space
— of the population as a whole and the environment in which it is situated.
Why does that constitute "voting against your own interests?" It seems quite the opposite to me.
2
@Nb
You are not voting against your own interests. You are putting aside short term costs in favor of longterm positive goals. Poor and working people who vote for Republicans are voting against their own interests and the well being of the planet.
3
I love the comment section. I may spend more time reading comments than the article. The comment about how mining enterprises dissuade other business development to ensure a cheap source of labor is fantastic and is common sense that I never connected. When the mine closes, oh well. The comment about how Vance doesn’t write about all the personal support he may have received, made me rethink whether I should buy on Amazon or go to B&N and skim a chapter or two before purchasing, etc. You can’t trust the comments but you can learn from them.
38
@Billy Bobby
You can read samples of Kindle versions of books on Amazon. The samples are quite lengthy and in addition to introductions which give you a flavor of the author''s purpose, often entire first chapters are available to read. (I don't know if it's true about these two particular books.)
6
@Billy Bobby
I think that's a good idea. I read this for my book club and was not impressed. I do not think it's worth the time and attention it has received. I would save my reading hours for something a bit less self serving and narcissistic.
1
@Billy Bobby Don't forget that you can check out his book for free at your nearby public library, another invaluable public resource paid for by us taxpayers!
7
In terms of the grip Trump has on the GOP electorate, it’s important to note that it’s not just the people described here. Conservatives who are far from poor are just as blind to Trump’s enormous flaws.
44
@Joel Sanders true-but they only care about getting tax cuts-they'd vote for a broken toaster as long is was the GOP candidate
52
@Rob
It’s not just the plutocrats. Conservative middle class people with moderate education believe Trump’s lies and see him as the hero we need. It’s disheartening, looking to 2020, to know that a documented charlatan continues to bamboozle so many people.
2
@Joel Sanders: "Blind"--agreed. But just as often "accepting" in a deal with the devil. Tax cuts, regulation cuts, a conservative federal judiciary? What's not to like?
1
No doubt these stories are inspiring - great success built out of a person's internal resources, despite external circumstances that were pretty dire.
But we shouldn't look to these stories for guidance on formulating public policy. These two individuals are obviously people of exceptional intelligence and capability. The Harvard-Cambridge road to success is realistically available only to very few. For very few is venture capitalism a realistic alternative to coal mining.
It's sad that Vance doesn't recognize how exceptional he is, and how unlikely most people growing up in his circumstances are to beat the odds without the assistance of institutions, including and maybe especially governmental institutions. Food stamps won't make anyone wealthy, but they do keep people from starving, which seems like a pretty good place to start. Free public education, including college education, seems like a pretty good next step.
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@Ecce Homo
To appreciate the value of our minuscule safety net, read “Maid.” Its the story of a young white woman who tried to raise her daughter working as a maid. To get out of that hopeless trap, she had to borrow money for college and was on at least 7 forms of public assistance.
She concludes that you cannot raise a child on minimum wage. I agree.
We subsidize the corporations and businesses who pay their workers the minimum wage through our taxes to fund public assistance. We criticize those who work for so little and then we give truly huge tax breaks to those same corporations and businesses.
Coal miners make more than minimum wage but at what cost? Black lung disease, silicosis, polluted land and water. And then taxpayers pay the sick coal miners when they can no longer work and excuse the dangerous work conditions and pollution of corporate coal companies. When Democrats point these conditions out they are accused of being anti-business, when in truth its a matter of economic justice.
70
As an avid reader, I have inhaled both these books looking for insight into the mindset of many people who lives in Appalachia who hate the government, eschew reproductive freedom, and insist that guns and corporal punishment are the way to keep families in line. "Glass Castle" is a vivid precursor to these more recent books.
What always astounds me is that the states where pride arises from a warped form of self-help and delusional independence gobble down the largest percentage share of federal dollars in terms of subsidies and programs that literally allow their proud citizens to meet any semblance of a meager existence. The residents of West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio Tennessee, etc actually live off food assistance, health care, jobs, highways to nowhere and support for dying, lethal industries such as coal mining all paid for with taxes from the "elite" eastern states they abhor. Just ask Mitch McConnell.
The astonishing books that disclose triumphal risings up by remarkable individuals never seem to acknowledge that it comes from the very government "handouts" they want to take away from others.
216
@J. Benedict don't forget the 'industrial-corrections'complex both as a regional job creator and a revenue generator for private business.
47
@J. Benedict Thank you. You took the words right out of my mouth. I was puzzled by the lack of insight in Vance’s book on how dependent his family was on government help, without which they never could have survived.
63
I think you are on to something macro that has escaped earlier commentary.
Not only are those followers of Trump “afraid” of losing their gun rights, etc, they are also concerned about losing their government subsidies due to a “shrinking pie”.
The U.S. will not be able to continue to provide various “hand-out” programs due to shrinking tax receipts. Those that have used the “hand-outs” as permanent crutches are responding through their own fears, which the Trump and Republican programs are festering upon.
This is Not the American ideal.
12
Isn't the real "Trump Country" comfortable retirement enclaves like The Villages in central Florida? And for the record, J. D. Vance found the best niche for a writer we have these days, telling the overclass exactly what they want to hear. I believe his academic advisor at Yale Law showed him how to work that crowd.
119
@Steve Bruns retirement enclaves are solid GOP voter block-they'll vote for a broken toaster if need be. While Dems play class warfare, the GOP has brilliantly play intra-class warfare pitting fellow workers and the poor against each other AND this time they came out to vote.
22
The author is mistaken that "the surprise takeaway from these books is that we have the tools at hand to ensure that demography is not destiny in Forgotten America." These two authors are outliers of the system, they are not representative of alternative paths that can be found in a meritocratic democracy; that American doesn't exist anymore.
29
I also thought that it was a choice, perhaps intentional, perhaps not, that Vance did not write extensively about his time in the military or how it changed the arc of his life.
54
@Michael Redmond he clearly found his way out-seems the tiny meaness aspects of the 'learned helplessness' remain embedded in his conservative fiber
1
When working as a social worker in child neglect and abuse, the children who had one or two people who loved them unconditionally developed hope and became much healthier & emotionally. Those people who helped them could be therapists, foster parents, a teacher, a coach, or an aunt and uncle. (Many of the grandparents abused their children.)
30
@mari Vance had his grandmother.
First of all, there is the racist thread. Frankly, racists are not worthy of anything but contempt. Race is a social construct. Racism was invented to justify slavery.
The second thread is the role of the church; most interested in its own power which requires quiescence. Whether evangelical churches with preachers with dictatorial powers in this environment or the Roman Catholic Church as it was in Quebec and Eire; religion is a deep part of the problem.
The third thread is hatred of the government. This is tied to the first thread, racism. The hatred comes from the hatred of others who may be helped by government.
The fourth thread is education - the the lack of it and its poor quality.
The fifth thread is lack of economic activity.
The sixth thread is environmental degradation leading to illness.
A serious social democratic, democratic party would deal with many of these factors.
But racism and the tyranny of the church require change from within.
If we look to the Quiet Revolution in Quebec in the 60s and the last decade in Ireland, we can see how poor insular superstitious communities can be transformed also overnight with enormous government activism.
But here's the point. Quebec had the highest birth rate in the developed world in 1960; four years later (at a time when birthrates were falling everywhere) it had the lowest.
The need if for government activism far greater than liberalism provides and self-liberation from the forces of superstition.
25
@Ed Weissman: "Racism was invented to justify slavery." Maybe, but if so, way, way back, even before the Crusades. It is not an American invention.
@Des Johnson
"Scientific" justifications were invented. Some even coming from Enlightenment figures and savants.
1
This article suggests that the only acceptable way to live is to buy into the credentialed class. While these two stories, and many more, are noteworthy and inspirational, they don’t tell the whole picture. Someone has to work in those scrapyards. In the mines and ditches. In the factories and recycling centers. Drive the trucks and forklifts. Only a certain percentage of us can earn degrees that lead to solid paychecks for inhabiting a cubicle.
55
@From Where I Sit
I totally agree. I work as a family practice RN and I have many families with low IQs who were and never will be able to finish high school much less college. They are not capable, but they DO deserve a job of which they are capable, at a living wage. These are not bad people, they were just born without some of the skills and abilities that some assume they should have and some take for granted.
119
@From Where I Sit workers in scrapyards, mines, ditches, trucks, and forklifts operators are soon (if not already) to be replaced by robots. Not everybody has to inhabit a cubicle. What they need to do is let go of that backward mentality and move forward.
14
@joan williams
I agree. I worked as a Social Worker in Mental Health and had the same observations and thoughts about it. Not all my clients had a low IQ; some were very intelligent but their illness held them back. They all were good people who tried their best to self-sufficient.
12
Another insightful book on this subject is Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Hoschchild. She spent a time in very conservation area and tried to learn the "deep story" these people tell themselves. She learned that this deep story goes like this: "If I work hard like my father, I have a chance of making a living. But those other people keep getting helped up to the head of the line by the left. They jump the queue ahead of people like us who've worked so hard."
34
False narrative, even in being compelling. Most people do noit need a "dream." They need a purpose. These institutions, no matter how worthy, cannot be the sole "community" substitute. The individual, no matter how noble their quest, will always require sustenance from the place from which they come. The systematic destruction of communities, in the reach for wealth ( the wrong kind) is the root of all evil. Vance and Westover were right to be "distrustful."
9
Why in America do only rich people matter? Why for that matter is that true everywhere? Humanity is still foraging for shiny rocks at the river side. We got nothing else.
What should I look forward to? When you leave your home, the only other places to go are places that sell you something. There is no culture, only commerce. Every spot of dirt is owned by someone who wants you off it. Like I have been saying - mediocrity is the American way.
30
@Mogwai
I suggest you read Bill Camarda's insightful comment here.
If you can become involved in service to your community during whatever extra hours you might have, there is your place to go which doesn't try to sell you something... Depending on what sort of service you can find, there might be culture also (e.g. volunteering with a local symphony orchestra or museum?). Also, find a park - county, state, or national if you're lucky enough to live near one - and get out and enjoy public land. You might be able to volunteer there also.
There are probably opportunities to avoid commerce and find culture and community if you take a look around.
"... poor, white, undereducated, violent and evangelical in the extreme."
Mr. Egan, you have given the perfect set of adjectives for describing the Trumpers. Unfortunately, when I read what Vance and Westover's father are saying now, I don't see any hope for changing their mindset. A mind is indeed a terrible thing to waste.
I also don't take any hope from two stories of success. This is progress in the sixth decimal place -- literally, as these are two in millions. To really undo the damage inflicted on us by the billionaire thieves who run our country, progressives will have to work with single minded dedication, and they will have to sustain their effort for half a century. Do they have the ability to do this? I don't have much hope there either.
10
I've read Educated by Westover, so one immediately realizes that, of course, institutions saved her, although the people she left behind would strongly disagree. Westover's isolated Mormon parents hated all manner of organization, even the Mormon church itself, not just the government and medicine, and Tara had to leave that backward culture, to embrace education and academia, to finally grow. Nothing has changed. We still see the people of that world as backward, and the only way forward as leaving it behind.
12
I have read Vance’s book but not Westover’s. I worry about giving Acela corridor folks any more reason to hold low income rural white people in contempt.
These folks are isolated geographically and economically. I’m not sure what can help them (and yes, Trump is hurting) but disdain isn’t part of the solution.
12
I think we need to figure out how they can live freely but yet held to the laws. it is one thing to live without rules but when children are involved they do not have the right to abuse or neglect them. I think there are limits to one's freedom, an old argument, no matter who you are. It's unbelievable to me that people really think we should live in this country without a government.
6
Vance has it wrong about aid for the poor. Welfare really is the wrong word as the right just use it to denigrate the people who use it. In the U.K. it should be better renamed the opportunity state not the welfare state and I’m a direct beneficiary of it. Created in 1945 by our greatest ever Prime Minister - Clement Attlee oh where are you now - it made my life. Born in 1958 to poor parents I lived in a secure,warm council house in a new town created after the Germans flattened much of London. We had new ‘comprehensive ‘ schools that combined new buildings and facilities with great teaching. And acres of open space. The NHS kept us healthy without having to worry about insurance or cost. If you passed the exams as I did you went to university, free and with expenses as well as fees paid. When my dad lost his job he had benefits - no need for food banks then - until he got another job. No threat of homelessness. Now I’ve paid that back many times, happily paying thousands and thousands in taxesthrough the years. And quite happy to. Why can’t the Vance types get that. And yes the US military is a huge welfare state for corporations.
733
@Michael
Spot on.
37
@Michael
The description of your government (public) safety net, despite how positive, logical, and productive it was, has always been the dreaded socialism boogey man that the American right wing, starting with Ronald Reagan (and, just the other day, Howard Schultz) has been sold as gospel to the masses. But thanks to courageous leaders like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren--not to mention your average, informed millennial--that hysterical, selfish, and destructive mentality is destined for reform.
17
@Michael
"Why can’t the Vance types get that"
Indeed.
It's a much harder problem to solve in the U.S. because not only are we dealing with a pernicious form of self destructive "pseudo-dignity", it's much easier to divide and conquer for demagogues who inevitably play the race card.
14
If only 1 in 10,000 is helped that's enough. I see that as taxes well spent. How many more Vances and Westovers are out there? We should not give up - better to spend tax dollars helping those in need than building walls .
18
I have been meaning to dip into "Hillbilly Elegy" for some time now, but Mr. Vance's hard-right, rigid "conservatism" has cautioned me about rags-to-riches tales about survivors who hate the government but need it anyway and then cover it up. Perhaps I'm wrong and ought to read it. I really might learn something.
I don't know a thing about the estimable Dr. Westover. I thought that my own urban story was harrowing enough until I read where whites in dark enclaves treat their own and each other worse than whites treated me in, yes, Boston. I return, however, to what it is that Donald Trump has on those whose DNA is bred from the hopeless, desperate, destructive cocktails of anti-education and anti-everything. The ignorance is rampant, mean, violent and self-fulfilling. I am encouraged that two young persons decided to look away and find something better.
But back to the hold that the now-president and then-candidate has (had?) on them. Rural America, the South, and the unforgiving Appalachian spine seem the natural homes of those who would not look beyond themselves and find the acid high of hate as the fuel that gets them from dawn to darkness.
Education is the least expensive means for getting here from there but Vance's criticism of the "victims" of "white poverty" is straight out of their stereotypical hatred for African-Americans. Poor white America doesn't see that Trump is and has done to them what he wishes for everyone not wealthy. It's class warfare writ large.
50
I think we spend too much time talking and thinking about coalfields or ghettos to Harvard and millions, and not enough time on coalfields or ghettos to electrician for a credible company, or ho-hum enlisted career in the military.
31
There's simply nothing that can be done with these folks. The level of ignorance in Westover's parents - and those like them - is intractable. The don't know anything and what they do know is horribly intellectually deficient. In short, the perfect Trump voter.
That these two people could get out and thrive is nothing short of a miracle. As to the rest of them, I have no idea what to do.
20
At the end of the day though, the communities that produced these two favor a con-man over the educated. These rural spots perfectly represent the thinking of America of today. Remember...Trump "loves the uneducated". Lucky for him there is plenty of ignorance in "the land of the free."
31
It is the cynical brilliance of many Republicans over the last 30 years that created the cognitive dissonance ultimately leading to Trump's presidency. Government is the problem - never mind that Government supports your every move and service even if you don't go to college or the military. It is the obtuse arrogance of many Democrats that allows this narrative to continue.
11
"College is certainly no panacea for all 16 million whites living in poverty, among Trump’s strongest backers. But it is for enough of them."
On twitter, if you tell recently laid off journalists "learn to code" you can be banned for targeted harassment.
This article can be boiled down to:
"Learn to code" poor people.
5
I read Vance's Hillbilly Elegy. He's frank about the bad decisions and laziness of his kin folk being the source of chronic despair and he's convincing.
Less convincing is his constant attempt to overlay conservatism as some kind of inspirational solution to improving their plight. The book is all but silent on what impact the Marines had on the arc of his career. He mentions it several times, but provides no narrative detail.
For many of us who served in the military, the experience proved fundamentally transformational. It may have for Vance, but he's strangely silent about it.
62
A better memoir is Casey Gerald’s “There will be no miracles here”. Deeper, more reflective, and provides much needed context to the story “boy makes good”.
As for Vance:
Could it be more obvious by the time you get to the last 50 pages that Vance will run for office? Mr. Vance has accomplished much and he should be proud. His evocation of his grandparents is filled with empathy and a joy to read. But at some point the book switches gears and loses context.
14
People who have come out of very bad situations and then conclude that 'anyone can do it' are missing a huge part of their own story. If one more thing had gone wrong at the wrong time, they might not have made it out. If they had been born with less talent, they would have remained there. This is an example of "the illusion of control" that many people have; they see their success as inevitable because of their hard work, while in fact, they won a genetic lottery to have the talents that released them. I think many who remain trapped are probably doing the best they can, and are not there because of moral failings.
54
I haven't read Westover's book, but I have read Vance's. There is a glaring omission about what REALLY saved him in both the book and this article: BIRTH CONTROL. Unlike many of those he talks about who did not make it out of poverty, Vance, possibly because his mother was a nurse, did not father any children as a teenager or in college and therefore had no financial or emotional ties to keep him from moving up the ladder.
142
I grew up in rural southern Michigan, in an area where some of my neighbors still didn't have indoor plumbing and used outhouses. Neither of my parents went to college; no one in my extended family even. When it came time for me to graduate from high school my parents told me that I had to either join the military or find a college that would take me for free. Thankfully, in the old days, both Republicans and Democrats saw the value of higher education and did not question investing in it. And because of a scholarship system put into place by the state legislature I was able to attend the so-called "last chance" state college tuition free. It saved my life by opening so many doors.
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@Fester
Graduating high school in the 60s, my parents thought college unnecessary for women because their only path was marriage and children. Luckily for me there were state scholarships and state "teachers" colleges that had low tuition. And then, of course, there was the City College of New York which was FREE! I have repaid my free tuition in taxes many times over. Thank you New York state.
15
While it is true that 'not everyone 'is college material, it is increasingly true that in today's economy, without college, one is pretty much guaranteed a lifetime of financial struggle.
Manufacturing is gone and will never return.
Service sector jobs are rapidly declining, being replaced by advances in technology.
Like it or not, a college education is more or less essential if one wants to participate in the so-called American Dream.
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I am currently reading Mr. Vance's book. And I am impressed by what he accomplished. But he did so by getting out of his hometown and staying out. Yes he has given money to help communities like the one he was raised in. But his effort is a drop in the bucket. The wealthy in this country could help, but don't want to. Think of Bezos, a multi billionaire. Why does he not donate half his wealth to help those in need? He wouldn't even notice it. Same with many others. After all he became a bizzillionaire by reaping profit from the masses. People like him are like Scrooge. Are there no poor houses, no jails, no soup kitchens? They want those like Mr. Vance, in his youth, to be cared for by the government. Then they lament their taxes going to do just that. I agree government programs are not perfect. They enable many who use them. But what is the alternative? The private sector has been handed a huge boost to their wealth. And the "hope" is they will use their new found wealth to benefit mankind. But, alas, they do not. So I would argue the government handout to the wealthy is no different than the one to the poor. It enables the wealthy to do more of exactly what they have been doing. Amassing more wealth. And hand it all to their kids. Oh there are exceptions like Mr. Vance who, as you point out, benefitted from government programs. But he like the few wealthy who do try and make a difference are the exceptions to the rule.
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@walking man
Hi, although I'm all in favour of the ultra wealthy donating money, that isn't the cure for the present problem.
The cure is generating enough tax revenue to properly fund, and expand social programs, health care, education etc.
It's time to have corporations and individuals pay enough to fund society.
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We're still talking about J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" and his bootstrap delusions? Blame the victims and just be more like J.D. Vance and all your problems will be solved. Good for him for getting out and breaking the cycle, but one anecdotal success story doesn't make for a general political prescription. We can also find so-called bootstrap stories of individuals that rose from inner-city poverty, but surely we can all agree sitting back and expecting people, urban or rural, to overcome extraordinarily negative headwinds isn't going to have much success. There's a reason for the "you're statistically more likely to X if..." social science facts. Birth socio-economic status is now the best predictor of future success.
I'm from Appalachia and J.D. Vance doesn't speak for me. If you'd like a much more nuanced view of the region then I'd recommend Elizabeth Catte's "What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia."
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The US has a significant population and regions that are essentially 3rd world in poverty and culturally frightening. That the con in office has worsened the circumstances of people in these regions, and that the fundamentalists proscribe the laws there is terrifying. Think of all of the current victims of such abusive places.
31
I'm happy for Vance and Tara.
Good: 2 escaped.
Bad: millions are hopelessly trapped.
Starting with Reagan, and accelerating under each subsequent GOP president, the US has been increasingly scaling back investment in education, infrastructure, and scientific research.
It shows.
America is in rapid decline. Hopefully we haven't passed a tipping point. I fear that we have.
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These were among the best books I read last year. It is true that these writers were supported and guided by grandmothers who helped out when their parents were unable or too incompetent, yet the option to serve in the military in one case or to go to a university in the other were transformative. For young people to advance out of difficult circumstances and limited opportunities requires the presence of large public and private institutions like universities and community colleges, Vista, Job Corps, and the military. Public and private investment in these institutions not only benefits the individuals who enroll or enlist, but also pays back to the society for that investment over a lifetime of gainful employment, participatory citizenship, and public service.
26
Westover's book shows the importance of education for all Americans. It can literally change lives.
It's time for the U.S. to get its priorities straight, stop investing in multi-millionaires and occupations abroad, and put its money instead where it will do the nation and the nation's future the most good: in education.
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Fine: Two success stories from a nation in steep decline beyond our metro areas. Trump can’t and won’t fix it. A wall won’t fix it. Jesus won’t fix it.
So how do we bring hope and public trust back to all those folks we forget, at our peril, beyond the furthest Starbucks or Yoga studio?
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These books don't belong on the same bookshelf. I read Vance's book just after the elections in an attempt to understand the so-called “other side,” and tried to like it, but what struck me is that his story isn't all that harrowing or heroic. His family members may call themselves hillbillies, but many have as much money and education as people who grow up in suburbs. (Footnote: Many children who grow up in suburbs also have to deal with addictions or mental illness, and divorces, and verbal or physical or sexual abuse.) And Vance hasn't escaped Trump country; he's just moved to a different section of it.
I agree with Bill Gates that Westover's book is "even better than you've heard." Unlike Vance, she writes without judgment or self-pity and seems to realize how lucky she is. It’s true these stories have one common theme: it was institutions that opened doors. But don't underestimate the role of luck. Without question, Vance and Westover are exceptional people who made good choices, but even in those choices there was a degree of luck. Westover gets that, not so much Vance.
Next up I'm reading Sarah Smarsh's book "Heartland"; I've loved everything I've read by her so far.
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@Katie
I grew up in Middletown and was underwhelmed by Vance's book. I had many experiences that were far weirder and harrowing than any he describes, with people much stranger as well.
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@Katie
I also recommend Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickled and Dimed--On (Not) Getting By in America" as a cogent examination of the socioeconomics of this situation.
Not surprising that she grew up in Butte, Montana, a place of mining and contentious union/business relations.
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@Katie Just finished "Heartland". This is the book that should have gotten the attention that Hillbilly Elegy got.
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My best read last year was Educated, which went from harrowing to celebratory over the course of a few hundred pages. One thing Mr. Egan does not discuss, and that surprised me greatly, is the effort it took Tara Westover to get over her feelings of inadequacy, the lingering thought that she did not belong. These feelings persisted even after her first invited visit to Cambridge. The damage done by dysfunctional families and upbringings can be the most challenging obstacle to overcome.
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@ANDY To your point about Westover's feelings of inadequacy, I think you must add the virulent misogyny that pervades right wing apocalyptic religion as a force that would weigh heavily on anyone who tries to leave it.
The role of misogyny in the Trump panoply of hatreds is not to be underestimated. Tara Westover inspires because she is not only courageous and intelligent but because she doesn't hate the haters.
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Very interesting cross-currents in this debate. I think one of the key aspects is Mr. Vance’s sentiment is that his family and community “had no one to blame but themselves for being hillbillies”. The other was expressed a few comments ago by the person who relied on public assistance after job losses, bounced back and now leads what appears to be a happy, productive life. In that case, many would argue that this is exactly the situation the for which the safety net was established — temporary assistance for those going through tough times. Or in more extreme circumstances, permanently for those too frail or old to provide for themselves. I think there is very little resistance, on either side of the political spectrum, to these aspects of the safety net. But when reliance on the safety net becomes a way of life, especially to those who, as Mr. Vance sees it, are responsible for their own social dysfunction, this is where opinions begin to diverge. The left tends to see the hillbillies and other disadvantaged groups who become long-term dependents on these programs as victims of systemic forms of bias, discrimination, institutional racism, lack of good jobs, etc. The right tends to believe that individual choices play a greater role in circumstance and they put greater emphasis on the individual, the choices they make and equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome. Granted these are broad generalizations, but I believe this is the main source of disagreement.
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As someone who is from a place similar to those described by J.D. Vance, and Tara Westover, and who left for the greener pastures of San Francisco and then returned, I realize now that my real act of courage was not in leaving here, but in returning to my roots!
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There are many exceptional people who become great successes having started from highly disadvantaged backgrounds. But exceptional people are indeed exceptional—i.e., they are outliers from the norm who succeed where most others don't. More average people too often become trapped by their circumstances. Unfortunately, conservatives often use these examples of success to justify believing that those who don't have the same success are merely lazy and don't really deserve any help. Far from it. They only show that with the right support the disadvantaged are not destined to failure—but they need support and the less exceptional an individual is, the more important that support becomes.
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@Douglas McNeil. What a beautiful and evocative metaphor. Thank you.
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More than anything else, this is a story of human resilience. In the churn of humanity, there will always be some who are tossed from the froth of their situations onto a drier, safer place where they can take root and prosper.
Good for them and good for us all.
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@Douglas McNeill This is a most glorious comment. It contains both truth and a metaphor so beautiful I keep reading it over and over. Thank you, sir.
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What an inspiring story! Cannot wait to read their books. People like them give me hope that we can get out of the nightmare we are living under trump.
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Tara Westover ‘s book Educated is excellent, exceptionally readable and eye opening.
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@Carol
So is Mr. Vance's excellent autobiography.
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@Susana Altuglu I have read both books. Each a portrait of damaging cultures and damaged lifestyles. Mr. Vance's book is a more dispassionate read, contrasting two areas and lives in each place.
Tara Westover's book is an astonishing, vibrant, memoir of a an off-the-grid, shocking existence that is dazzling in her descriptions of its weirdness.
10
Many of the Trumpists who are harmed by Trump's actions still are loyal to him, even when they are aware of these policies. Such is the level of polarization in our country. Some, may be unaware, but have such deep antipathy towards Democrats, liberalism, or anything that smacks of urban culture that they wouldn't change their tune even if it was pointed out to them how much they are hurting themselves. This is radicalism, through and through, and Trump feeds it with his hate-filled rhetoric.
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@Samantha
"Many of the Trumpists who are harmed by Trump's actions still are loyal to him, even when they are aware of these policies."
Really? How have we been harmed? Lowest unemployment in 50 years? Millions off food stamps? Kids out of Syria? Wages finally going up? 500,000 manufacturing jobs added (the ones Dr Krugman said are never coming back)
Why is this bad for me?
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@Samantha I did not vote for Trump, but in my neighborhood, for those who voted for him (highly educated folks such as physicians and people with Phd's)- they are all doing quite well, as am I. Perhaps it is because we are all retired and have already established our retirements and have excellent healthcare coverage.
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@Tim...lowest wages without even the most basic of benefits...turn off Fox News before blowing your trumpet....
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Ok, but these are extraordinary people. College is a heavy financial burden for most Americans. For every breakout story there is a lot more ordinary people.
The American government has decided that college is a non-public good that requires significant federal funding. For most people, they do not easily overcome their circumstances without some degree of help from institutions for resources.
While countries such as Germany has decided to make college education free, the United States has decided to gut funding to all levels of education. The stark example of public school teachers having to work second and third jobs to subsidize their primary is both tragic and illuminating. This is a government that does not place education as a public good.
To demonize teachers for asking for more funding while standing for the flag is inherently a paradox. What good is it to defend a country, when there are children learning in sub-standard conditions, taught by overwhelmed, under budgeted institutions?
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@Anymore
How do you turn this into the call for free college? The left demonizes people who rise up from poverty or the lower middle class to become high wage earners, or even billionaires. Succeed too much and you are an enemy of the people and must be penalized with high taxes.
My husband and I are both from lower middle class families. Sometimes our parents were hard pressed to put food on the table. We both paid our way through college, both of us the first of our families to attend college. We aren't exceptional. But according to Bernie, we need to pay another 12 to 20 % in taxes to finance free stuff for people who are in far better circumstances than what we grew up in.
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@Anymore Tara Westover's story has more to do with a distrust and dislike of public schools even more than college across much of rural America, as I, myself, have encountered many times over the past 70 years. First reform the schools to actually teach the kids, instead of indoctrinating them with church and anti-government propaganda, then worry about making college more affordable.
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@Anymore
We should not lose sight that the states fund public education and decide the level of costs to be paid directly by the student. It was in the 80's, as I recollect, that the decisions were made to have students bear a significant and growing increase in the costs. This coincided with the rise of conservatism.
Funny though, that the states always seem to find a way to fund the salaries of million dollar plus football coaches. It shows where priorities are, doesn't it?
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I read the Vance book and wondered about what he didn't tell us. How did he get to be employed by a State senator? Who took an interest in him and mentored him? Who noticed his intelligence and nurtured his potential?
I think success stories like his, I don't know the Westover story, mislead if you conclude that anyone, without significant help, can pull free of the influences that make failure likely. Education is important. Self-discipline is also part of the story.
A wise man, who was born to Sicilian immigrant parents and rose to earn a PhD in economics, said that you can only do what seems possible at the time. I think that's the missing component of these success stories and very few people make the transition without help.
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@Betsy S
Read Casey Gerald’s book. It has that kind of context.
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@Betsy S
True! The help is usually not money being given to you, or free tuition. It is someone who sees your potential and perhaps writes the letter of recommendation, influences someone on the college admissions board on your behalf, hires you for a job because you are a hard worker and honest, and not necessarily because you are the best qualified.
Character is probably the most important factor in any successful life, no matter how success is defined. What can't be discredited here is personal responsibility. That includes taking responsibility for ones failures and mistakes.
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@Betsy S: my grandma used to say about stories like that of JD Vance that "there are a couple of pages missing from that book!"
How did Vance go from a kid in rural Ohio with D- grades.....to the Marines, who IMMEDIATELY put him into a cushy white collar job doing PR and media? He was NOT a soldier, never fought or fired a gun. He was never injured, nor saw combat. How many US Marines work their entire career in MEDIA?
How did he go from rock bottom grades in high school...to the elite Marines (not just Army or Navy, but the tippy top) and THEN get that cushy PR job and THEN get A+ grades at Ohio State? or the State Senator gig? surely it was not his "hillbilly grandma"!
I suspected at some point, Vance had a well-connected friend, perhaps a girlfriend, and maybe he was dating a general's daughter? Senator's daughter? It had to be SOMETHING. I know of far more qualified people in the US military, who went in with college degrees and expertise in special fields, and NEVER got his "kid glove" treatment, perks or privileges.
10
This article reminds me of the scene from The Grapes of Wrath where the Joad family finally ends up in a government run migrant camp which is worlds away from the conditions they’ve experienced before. Clean, running water, no goon squads, with a council of migrants acting as a sort of town government, it gives the family a chance at getting their lives under some sort of control again. The message was clear, to Steinbeck, to the Joads, and to the readers. But, not to the right, I guess. Contrary to Regans message, the government can be there to help, if we can keep it open andfunded, that is.
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@ACS
Government programs worked incredibly well in the 1930’s. However, the extreme expansion of government programs in the 1960’s was followed by a massive increase in single parent households, drug abuse, poverty, crime, and riots in many cities.
Causality or just correlation? Perhaps a mix of both. But, you cannot really blame those on the right who look at the crime data from government housing projects or fatherless households from multi generation welfare families and draw the conclusion that government safety nets need to be approached with extreme caution.
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@Cass
Good comment. It's too bad those you mentioned on the right are outshouted by all the others, who approach government safety nets with extreme selfishness. One wonders what the larger group of self-identified conservatives thinks will happen to "single parent households, drug abuse, poverty, crime, and riots in many cities" if those safety nets disappear. Without them, would J.D. Vance, Tara Westover or Paul Ryan have enjoyed the success they did?
Yes, government safety nets may contribute to some social problems in some complicated way. Those must be balanced against the problems they help solve. Where the optimum balance lies is for politics to decide. Inevitably, though, a measure of unintended consequences is part of the price we pay for a just society.
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@Cass
"Government programs worked incredibly well in the 1930’s. However, the extreme expansion of government programs in the 1960’s ..."
An important difference between the New Deal and the Great Society was that FDR understood the importance of accountability -- in particular, auditing -- something woefully lacking in the sixties-era programs which too often became slush funds and piggy banks.
2
This story is incomplete, it needs to give credit to the people who pointed these two toward the institutions that saved them, trained them, got them started. Vance credits his grandmother and Westover credits her grandmother, mother, and older brother.
Both Vance and Westover have abilities far above average in the kinds of learning offered by the Marines and Brigham Young University. It was natural that people who knew and loved them could see that and push them in the right direction.
For the rest of the world, we need more schoolteachers and more Boys and Girls Clubs--wasn't there a recent article in the Times about that? And what about the teachers' strikes?
Most people need more than a magical walk through the portals of a great institution where gifts of education, fame and wealth fall instantly on their heads, as described in this article, which is a fairy tale.
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Alice.....that was a wonderful, well crafted comment. Let's hope you can be one of the guides that brings a young life to a path of learning.
12
Great article. I related to it since I live in Appalachia Siberia Trump land North USA.
My home is a former mining community. All the mines are now closed.
What was once Roosevelt Democrat country is now majority Trump Republican.
It is part of rural America in steep decline.
The Lake Superior mining communities never diversified during the heyday of mining, never developed a four year college. The mining companies were hostile to other enterprises that would compete for labor and, heaven forbid, unwittingly bring in unions. And the communities were content to go along with that state of affairs. Until that one industry began collapsing. The remoteness of the area, the harsh winters (years ago there was not the concept of comfort that we have today: People put up with harsh weather; now they move to Florida).
We have been left high and dry, bitter and resentful about our plight, about being passed by.
"Like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool.
Left there by the tide
A little tepid pool
Dying inward from the edge."
-- Edna St.Vincent Millay
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@gogebic
I always wonder what contributions the mining companies made to their local communities in the way of taxes and infrastructure to help develop jobs, roads, and educational opportunities around them that would help their communities prosper.
From what I can tell, they paid graft to local politicians and bought judges to avoid local taxes that would decrease their bottom line. They degraded the local environment and prevented miners from reporting coal and silica dust induced black lung disease.
Miners liked a job that paid well and overlooked the consequences. Same for those with manufacturing jobs. Neither were prepared for change andresent government for not protecting them.
Some got out. Some give credit to government programs some don't. Too bad.
33
I used to be surprised at how many conservatives I met who had, at one time or another, been on welfare or needed some sort of government aid to help them over bumps to financially stable lives and yet decry government aid. Despite their personal experience or, maybe, because of it?
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@Pip
In those people's minds, it's OK to drink from the trough if you're a Republican (look at Paul Ryan's story) and/or a conservative.
But, apparently, not if you're a Democrat. Or non-white. Or a recent immigrant.
A lot of this has to do with the Calvinist ideas of the Elect tied in with the evangelical idea of the "deserving" poor (which, of course, means that there are poor that are not). But too often these people confuse the idea of merit with ascribed characteristics (skin color, place of origin, etc.) and judge "merit" on those.
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@Pip The thinking is that they would not have needed government help if the govt wasn't taking so much out of their pocket, and the pockets of the extended family. Do the math -- they are right. Return half the tax money and they could fund their own children's college, their own medical,and their retirement. In return they'll not use millions in futile life extending medical, but go gently into the night.
3
@Glenn Ribotsky, farmers forget that food stamps help them the most! Along with the farm subsidies.
34
A little dose of reality!
Most people in this country who start a four year degree never graduate and community colleges are even worse.
The two people mentioned in the article are outliers in every measure. Let’s not pretend everyone can match their accomplishments by simply going to college or joining the Marines.
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@HistoryRhymes, let's not imply that because those institutions don't help everyone, they don't help anyone, and that because they don't help everyone they're not part of the solution, along with other institutions, including many government programs.
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@HistoryRhymes Quite true. However, if Mr. Egan's proposed solution could save 20% or 25% of the lives at risk, and nobody else seems to have a solution that's saving anyone, I'd say his approach is worth trying. 20% would be enough to create a whole lot of role models and begin to change cultures. Then, those new role models can take responsibility for inventing their own new approaches, based on what they know about where they came from.
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@HistoryRhymes
Do not be fooled by the "statistics" that say that most people don't graduate. The statistic is really 'people who don't graduated in the time we decide they should have graduated, i.e 2 years for a community college, 4 for college'. In fact, it usually takes a community college student closer to 6 years because most have to go PT as they are working FT. It takes closer to 5 years for a 4 year college these day. And there are the people who have to take a year off. I'm listed someplace as a never finished as I took several years off before I got my degree. Get your fact right
97
Add Toni Morrison to the list (Howard University) and I’m sure there are many others. Also note the tremendous importance of grandmothers ( grandparents)
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