Saturday, July 27, 2024

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis: J D Vance and American Politics

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books


Even the title is poetic. J D Vance who has been declared the running mate of President Trump, the once and future President of the United States is all of 38 years old and is a Senator from the state of Ohio. He has carved out a space for himself on the American Right by carefully selling himself as the epitome of a self made man who has caught the American dream in a green bay and danced with it to political visibility. His wife and mother of there three children is Indian and so obviously there is a great deal of interest in his politics and opinions. We were a little surprised by the nomination as Vance had attacked President Trump in a savage manner and did not expect him to be favored. But the die is cast and it is a Trump-Vance ticket. Vivek Ramaswamy had an incredible  run but after the Presidential debates he withdrew and it is certain that he will find a prominent place in the Trump Administration.

Vance advertises himself as a Hillbilly, a colorful word that has several  less respectable synonyms of which "poor white trash" is well known. After the Civil  War in America many white share croppers  and tenant farmers were displaced and made their way to the Appalachian regions. Vance's family settled in Kentucky and later Ohio. Poverty,  alcohol and substance abuse, serial marriages and joblessness were all part and parcel of Hillbilly society. And J D Vance's writes about his own mother as a typical representative of Appalachian upbringing--quick temper, a foul tongue, a violent passionate temper coupled with strong familial loyalty and Vance writes, " I was the abandoned son of a father I hardly knew and a mother I wished I did'nt."A very poignant statement about family in the poor regions of the US. As the country song of Lisa put it, learn right from wrong from a color T V.

Vance entered Yale Law School and graduated with a good degree in Law and joined a very prestigious Law firm. From his public positions he seems to have opposed the Iraq War and the costly military adventures  in Syria, Libya and other parts of Asia. And here he will certainly be on the side for maintaining peace in the world. The whole world is watching the Presidential Election very closely as another term for the war mongering Deep State will spell disaster. The crucial vote in this battle will be the African American vote.

Since the turn of the  twentieth century, the American Media and the "Professorate" has run a campaign blaming the Republicans for all the ills confronting African American Society. It has been pointed out that black families were functional entities until the 1960 when with the Civil Rights Movement and the transition to all enveloping Social Welfare, the families began to disintegrate with absentee fathers and multiple social crises within the Black Community. Some scholars have traced the process of ghettoization of Blacks to the Federal Housing Agency set up by the Democratic President Dwight Eisenhower when funds were made available for housing and by redlining neighborhoods whites  only communities were set up and with the concentration of high paying jobs the local schools tended to be better leaving the African American communities bereft of skills, social capital, jobs and education. The nanny state provided doles and that very much sealed the fate of most communities.

The Democrats are crafting a narrative that centers of "Black Empowerment" but few are trusting this narrative driven by the corporate media and Hollywood.