Ep 123 - Trillbilly Elegy w/ Tarence Ray (Patreon)

In order to discuss the appalling ways that poor white people are portrayed in the United States, we had to have on Tarence (@tarenceray) from the Trillbilly Workers Party. We all watched JD Vance's execrable 'Hillbilly Elegy' so you don't have to.

Out of this came a great discussion about deindustrialization, rural poverty, the opioid epidemic and media portrayals of that figure of derision and fear, 'the white working class'. What changes to US political economy caused widespread immiseration over the last 50 years in places like Appalachia? How have politics failed the workers in these communities? And what dark visions do the Charles Murrays and JD Vances of the world have for a solution to the rural poverty problem?

Outro song: Total Eclipse and Re-Emergence of the Heart - Bonnie Dauvé