JD Vance’s ancestral region is not what “Hillbilly Elegy” would have you believe
- Sep 30, 2024
I spent years investigating the story of Vance’s ancestral region. It’s not what “Hillbilly Elegy” would have you believe.
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Jason Scott Montoya @JasonSMontoya
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Oct 9, 2024
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'“We live in both a material economy and a pride economy, and while we pay close attention to shifts in the material economy, we often neglect or underestimate the importance of the pride economy. Just as the fortunes of Appalachian Kentucky have risen and fallen with the fate of coal, so has its standing in the pride economy…"
Jason Scott Montoya @JasonSMontoya
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Oct 9, 2024
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"“And our place in the material economy is often linked to that in the pride economy. If we become poor, we have two problems. First, we are poor (a material matter), and second, we are made to feel ashamed of being poor (a matter of pride). If we lose our job, we are jobless (a material loss) and then ashamed of being jobless (an emotional loss). Many also feel shame at receiving government help to compensate that loss. If we live in a once-proud region that has fallen on hard times, we first suffer loss, then shame at the loss—and, as we shall see, often anger at the real or imagined shamers.”'
Jason Scott Montoya @JasonSMontoya
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Oct 9, 2024
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"In places like rural Kentucky, that sense of shame and lost pride is connected to what Hochschild identifies as the paradox of the American Dream: A self-sufficient, middle-class life has become harder to attain in many rural, conservative communities—but people in those communities are more likely to blame themselves for this."
Jason Scott Montoya @JasonSMontoya
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Oct 9, 2024
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"Trump would not, of course, deliver on these voters’ economic needs. But he would deliver on their need for pride. And it’s that issue that Hochschild returns to in her new book, Stolen Pride, set in the heart of what Trump calls the forgotten America—the town of Pikeville, Kentucky."