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December 25, 2019 - January 20, 2020
Yet by the late 1960s the middle class had become the most inauthentic of places:
middle-class comfort was an illusion.
Besides being a fabrication of his family’s history, Haley’s book applied a kind of logic that was downright conservative.
redefining class arrogance as an admirable family trait.
they did not expect government to provide unfair special assistance (as they imagined blacks were doing).11
Ethnics and poor folk can be admired from afar, or from a temporal distance, as long as doing so ensures the supremacy of the middle class
They drew a sharp class line between the lower-class rednecks and the “upscale rednecks.”
Like the blue-collar ethnics in northern cities who switched their allegiance to the Republican Party, marginally middle-class southerners hated the “weak, lazy, good-for-nothing ones who whine all month until the relief check comes in.”
The same self-made man who looked down on white trash others
Hillybilly Elegy's JD Vance
this new addition to the middle class deeply resented a government that wasted money on the poor.16
Byrd made his mark by attacking welfare, rioters, and communism.
Mephistophelian
In other words, Byrd sold his soul to reach the powerful position he held.
if they were merely hungry, but not starving, they did not merit aid.
Drew had to die. He was the only one of the four Atlanta businessmen who showed any compassion for rural people.
Deliverance character.
The film’s message was clear: sympathy was a sign of weakness that city boys had to overcome.
They embraced a certain species of freedom—the freedom to be a boor, out in the open and without regrets.
Could describe Jambo fans as much as NASCAR
Jimmy grew up with a tennis court in the backyard.
Carter's background story was a pretense.
As a black congressman from Georgia, Young was suggesting that it was possible for the old hostility between poor blacks and whites to be overcome.27
Instead of descending from indentured servants, the president had one of the most significant family histories in the English-speaking world: he was related to both George Washington and the queen of England.
More lies about Carter's background
The man who publicly advocated for miners when he spoke before a labor audience told Shrum privately that “he opposed increased black-lung
He basically held that the federal government should be able to deny poor women benefits because they were poor. The wealthy could do as they please, and the poor had to be disciplined.
Referring to the Hyde amendment banning government funding if abortions
Putting poor blacks and rednecks in the same boat, Buchanan made bureaucracy the enemy of all.
Tammy Faye was the rejection of everything Pat Loud (of An American Family) and middle-class propriety stood for: emotional restraint, proper diction, subdued dress, and obvious refinement.
Redneck, cracker, and hillbilly were simultaneously presented as an ethnic identity, a racial epithet, and a workingman’s badge of honor.
a strangely mutated gender and class identity.
What they showed instead was that women cannot wear “white trash” or “redneck” as a badge of honor.5
Allison’s story serves as a reminder that many more people—women especially—remain trapped in the poverty into which they are born; it is the exception who becomes, like the author Allison, a successful person capable of understanding the poor without condemning.
Palin’s self-satisfied manner:
I think this is what i hated the most about Palin
Hays represents a good many people who persist in believing that class is irrelevant to the American system.
She wanted the pretense of equality, but offered nothing for closing the wealth gap.
They deny that the nation’s economic structure has a causal relationship with the social phenomena they highlight. They deny history.
The founders insisted that the majestic continent would magically solve the demographic dilemma by reducing overpopulation and flattening out the class structure.
"Persistent problem" #1 as identified by the author
a larger, extremely useful myth arose: that America gave a voice to all of its people, that every citizen could exercise genuine influence over the government.
"persistent problem" #2
not only did Americans not abandon their desire for class distinctions, they repeatedly reinvented class distinctions.
those in power have disenfranchised blacks, women, and the poor in myriad ways.
along with any effort to address inequality and poverty comes a harsh and seemingly inevitable reaction. Angry citizens lash out: they perceive government bending over backward to help the poor (implied or stated: undeserving) and they accuse bureaucrats of wasteful spending that steals from hardworking men and women.
Even when it’s denied, politicians engage in class issues.
the power elite in American history has thrived by placating the vulnerable and creating for them a false sense of identification—denying real class differences wherever possible.
The relative few who escape their lower-class roots are held up as models, as though everyone at the bottom has the same chance of succeeding through cleverness and hard work,
J.D. Vance again?
The scalawag of today is the southern liberal who is painted by conservative ideologues as a traitor to the South for daring to say that poor whites and poor blacks possess similar economic interests.
Class has never been about income or financial worth alone. It has been fashioned in physical—and yes, bodily—terms.
The economy cannot provide employment for everyone, a fact that is little acknowledged.
Poor whites are still taught to hate—but not to hate those who are keeping them in line.
On average, Americans pass on 50 percent of their wealth to their children; in Nordic countries, social mobility is much higher; parents in Denmark give 15 percent of their total wealth to their children, and in Sweden parents give 27 percent. Class wealth and privileges are a more important inheritance (as a measure of potential) than actual genetic traits.3
racial dominance was intertwined with class dominance in the southern states, and the two could never be separated as long as a white ruling elite held sway over politics and rigged the economic system to benefit the few.
Liberty is a revolving door, which explains the reality of downward mobility. The door ushers some in while it escorts others out into the cold.
But today’s trailer trash are merely yesterday’s vagrants on wheels, an updated version of Okies in jalopies and Florida crackers in their carts.
