People seeking easy answers to the problem of perpetual poverty, or hoping to justify their political ideology about why some achieve upward mobility and others do not, should likely look somewhere other than author J.D. Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.”
Vance’s widely acclaimed 2016 book skyrocketed to the top of the New York Times’ best-seller list, in part because it helps connect the dots about Pres. Donald Trump’s rise to power. But Vance also detailed his own family’s struggles in the nation’s Rust Belt. That term refers to an area along the upper Northeast, the Great Lakes, and Midwest, where communities experienced economic downturn, dwindling populations and urban decay as the once-powerful industrial sector declined.
During an insightful dialogue with Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox Thursday at Weber State University, Vance detailed the culture and forces at work in these struggling and seemingly forgotten communities.
“The idea is that if you’re a poor kid, you have the same opportunities as everybody else, you can make it in the U.S., we call it the American dream. And I realized, both personally and as I looked at some of the evidence, that’s not necessarily true, that there are a lot of kids, especially in certain regions of the country. . . where kids who grow up pretty poor actually aren’t that likely to achieve the American dream,” Vance said. “And that really bothered me . .. for personal reasons and for reasons of patriotism and what I think the country should be and should stand for.”
[For more of this story, written by Cathy McKitrick, go to http://www.standard.net/Govern...t-s-complicated.html]
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