• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Vance did come from a troubled family. His mother was – like so many Americans, whether they’re poor, middle class or rich – addicted to painkillers. In the book, Vance searches for an explanation for his traumatic relationship with his mother, before hitting on the perfect explanation: His mother’s addiction was a consequence of the fact that her parents were “hillbillies.”

    The reality – one that Vance only subtly acknowledges in his memoir – is that he is not poor. Nor is he a hillbilly. He grew up firmly in Ohio’s middle class.

    It works on trump, because he doesn’t know hillbillies.

    The hillbillies like trump, because he matches their idea of a powerful smart business man

    But picking Vance to cater to them is fucking stupid. You can’t fool an actual hillbilly with a fake hillbilly. Trump ironically would have been better off doubling down and getting one of his kids as VP.

    • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      vance wrote an entire book blaming hillbillies for their own generations-long problems and not bootstrapsing themselves out of poverty (like he did), and is now trying to 100% blame “biden’s america” for those same generations-long problems

    • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’ve always referred to the town I come from as a toothless hillbilly meth town. However, I guess I should probably replace the word hillbilly with redneck because, while parts of my family definitely descended from the hills in Appalachia, we were just dirt poor rural folks in Texas.