Thread by @JYSexton

Hillbilly Elegy is Right Wing propaganda that actively promotes Reaganomics, the poor as deserving of their suffering, and intentionally obscures racism and white supremacy as major factors in America’s decline.

https://twitter.com/sethfischer/status/1316426878333456385

Also, Hillbilly Elegy became a bestseller because the media needed a Middle American Poverty For Dummies to help explain Trumpism because they had all but ignored suffering outside of their bubbles. It laundered Trumpism, continues stereotyped, and was Right Wing propaganda.

For what it’s worth, most of us who grew up in rural poverty recognize Hillbilly Elegy as a destructive and bad-faith propaganda piece that was championed by people who had no idea what they were talking about and were hopelessly lost in their own privilege.

Everybody who dug that book and used it as shorthand are the same ones who look at rural poverty and say, “I just wish the poors knew better it could get out of their own way” while completely ignoring their roles in perpetuating the myth of meritocracy and system of oppression.

If you want to dig deeper, here’s my piece in @salon about Hillbilly Elegy as Right Wing, Reagan propaganda that was used to further punish the poor.

salon.com/2017/03/11/hil…

Also. Just a reminder. J.D. Vance literally, and this is true, claimed in Hillbilly Elegy that white people hated Barack Obama...because he was a good father, dressed well, and ate nice food.

That happened.