With Sen. JD Vance named Donald Trump’s running mate, commentators are dusting off Vance’s 2016 memoir, “ Hillbilly Elegy ,” to explain America’s political moment.
Eight years ago, Vance was a Never-Trumper, comparing Trumpism to “ cultural heroin ” in an op-ed for The Atlantic. Yet Vance’s book about growing up in a struggling city in southwestern Ohio became a go-to primer for explaining the Trumpian turn in American politics. One reviewer even likened Vance to an Appalachian Ta-Nehisi Coates , revealing white, blue-collar America to outsiders in the same way that Coates’ writing explained Black America to white readers.
Today, with Vance on the Republican presidential ticket, national attention is once again turning to Middletown, Ohio. His hometown – just north of Cincinnati – risks becoming an abstract symbol of Rust Belt America. Ironically, it is easy to lose sight of the city’s rich, distinctive heritage, from which Vance’s memoir drew its potency.
As a British-born scholar of religion and immigration , I stumbled into the study of Appalachia. Twenty years ago, I could not have guessed the difference between a banjo and a mandolin, and would struggle to name a single bluegrass song. Dubious portrayals such as the horror movie “Deliverance ” shaped my impression of Appalachian folkways.