“If Mamaw's second God was the United States of America, then many people in my community were losing something akin to a religion. The tie that bound them to the neighbors, that inspired them in the way my patriotism had… — J.D. Vance Copy Share Image
“I’m the kind of patriot whom people on the Acela corridor laugh at. I choke up when I hear Lee Greenwood’s cheesy anthem “Proud to Be an American.” When I was sixteen, I vowed that every time I met a… — J.D. Vance Copy Share Image
“Wed don't need to live like the elites of California, New York, or Washington, D.C. We don't need to work a hundred hours a week at law firms and investment banks. We don't need to socialize at cocktail parties. We do need to create a space for the J.D.s and Brians of the world to have a chance. I don't… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“Within two generations, the transplanted hillbillies had largely caught up to the native population in terms of income and poverty level.” — J.D. Vance Copy Share Image
“Powerful people sometimes do things to help people like me without really understanding people like me.” — J.D. Vance Copy Share Image
“Research does reveal a genetic disposition to substance abuse, but those who believe their addiction is a disease show less of an inclination to… — J.D. Vance Copy Share Image
“the first impulse is escape, but people who lurch toward the exit rarely choose the right door.” — J.D. Vance Copy Share Image
“was my first indication that the policies of Mamaw’s “party of the working man”—the Democrats—weren’t all they were cracked up to be. Political scientists have spent millions of words trying to explain how Appalachia and the South went from staunchly Democratic to staunchly Republican in less than a generation. Some blame race relations and the Democratic Party’s embrace of the… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“A young man was sitting at home when a terrible rainstorm began. Within hours, the man’s house began to flood, and someone came to his door offering a ride to higher ground. The man declined, saying, 'God will take care of me.' A few hours later, as the waters engulfed the first floor of the man’s home, a boat passed… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“As a culture, we had no heroes. Certainly not any politician--Barack Obama was then the most admired man in America (and likely still is), but even when the country was enraptured by his rise, most Middletonians viewed him suspiciously. George W. Bush had few fans in 2008. Many loved Bill Clinton, but many more saw him as the symbol of… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“To this day, being able to “take advantage” of someone is the measure in my mind of having a parent. For me and Lindsay,… — J.D. Vance Copy Share Image
“As one book, Appalachian Odyssey, notes about the influx of hill people to Detroit: “It was not simply that the Appalachian migrants, as rural strangers ‘out of place’ in the city, were upsetting to Midwestern, urban whites. Rather, these migrants disrupted a broad set of assumptions held by northern whites about how white people appeared, spoke, and behaved . .… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“As a 2011 Brookings Institution study found, “compared to 2000, residents of extreme-poverty neighborhoods in 2005–09 were more likely to be white, native-born, high… — J.D. Vance Copy Share Image
