53 Comments

More of this please. I hate that goddamned Ivy League flim-flam man. I quit a book club of nice liberal middle-aged ladies because we read Hillbilly Elegy, and they BOUGHT IT. (To be fair, I was on thin ice, owing to the involuntary fits whenever David Brooks -- whom they RESPECTED -- was referenced.)

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Forty years after college, a chum from that era severed relations with me hard upon an online spat that began when I dissed David Brooks, unaware that she was an admirer. I was actually trying to make up for this when I said, “Well, in fairness he’s not as toxic as Maureen Dowd.” Turned out she 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 liked Dowd. Exeunt, pursued by bores.

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Everyone who hates David Brooks raise your hand. Not you, Malcom Gladwell!

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I prefer hating Malcom Gladwell; by the transitive law, does that count?

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It does, however by the law of negation, if Malcolm Gladwell hates David Brooks, others’ Brooks hatred is weakened.

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I have a heart big enough to hate JD Vance, David Brooks AND Malcolm Gladwell.

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Damnit Roy now I’m gonna have that song stuck in my head all day!

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LOL. I expect hillwilliam to get absolutely bodied in the primary, but as I’ve said before, hopefully the comedy gods will smile on us and his defeat won’t come until after he feels compelled to give a speech or participate in a debate wearing an SS officer’s uniform while carrying a large cross in one hand and a glossy photo of Mawmaw in the other.

I mean, if you needed any more evidence this guy is an elitist fraud, he is enthusiastically supported by that oyster-sucking, champagne-guzzling, globe-trotting Man of the People Rod Dreher.

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It's like he can't decide if he's running for Senator for Ohio. . .or West Virginia.

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I'm not sure there is a difference if you live in South East Ohio.

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roger that. or western virginia, for that matter. my bailiwick.

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Growing up in a small , extraordinarily white southwest Ohio farm town, we learned all the racist jokes about blacks first repurposed as "briar" jokes. There are enclaves of Appalachian heritage - East Dayton, Middletown, Camp Hill in Cincinnati, Hamilton. And like Lawguy mentioned - SW Ohio is as much West Virginia as anything else. They might go for that "Man of the Hill Country "crap. But in most of Ohio - All the farmland in the west and anything north of Columbus , when JD stands up in front of a bunch of Trumpers and says "I am one of you" I bet most of them are thinking "Fuck you Hillbilly" That's before they start hating on the Ivy League stuff.

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" SW Ohio is as much West Virginia as anything else. " should be" SE Ohio."

Between Old Age and Weed , I am not one to be turned loose without an edit function.

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Yeah this. (SW Ohio AKA North Kentucky)

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Thinking of Little Kentucky in Dayton when I lived there. A lot of good weed there, or at least that is where I got a lot of my good weed.

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Is there bad weed?

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Not anymore. It's a miracle!

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There certainly was in the 70s.

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Maybe we should create distributed states, say all the Alabamas in Ohio and Pennsylvania and Massachusetts &c. ceded to ur-Alabama, or 'Urlabama' as nobody ever calls it….

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My mother lived in southern Illinois during the Depression and they got an influx of people from Down There…followed by an influx of incest rumours.

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I'm ignorant: is his Republican opponent likely win the final and worse?

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They are both hideous but I believe Mandel is a bona fide fascist and early Trump supporter. To make matters worse, J.D. has just apologized for his 2016 criticism of Trump. He should know the first rule of MAGA world is you never apologize – a true MAGAt just denies objective reality and moves forward.

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The Hee Haw shout out is *chef's kiss*!

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J.D. has a nice round head. That's a valued trait among the Hill People. Shows good breeding. Close, but not too close, if you know what I mean. Meemaw was evidently able to leave the holler to find a husband.

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"J.D. has a nice round head" Too bad he's a Cavalier

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'I never should‘ve let you marry outside the family!'—Cotton Hill. (probably paraphrased)

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Don’t go marrying that girl, JD. If she ain’t good enough for her own kin, she ain’t good enough for ours! (Accent ala Meryl Streep)

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Because I'm using a different computer, substack didn't recognized me at first so I think I may have given you 2 or 3 likes. Do I get extra credit for that?

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Credit? With whom?

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OK, then maybe a pass for my next incredibly stupid comment?

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At least some of the HeeHaw stars were actual hillbillies. Sure, they milked it for laughs. Beats Vance trying to make a goddamn brand out of his heritage.

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Junior Samples for Senate!

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Junior, say whut you will, was arguably more with it than Crazed former Football Pro Herschel Walker…

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Say what you will about the Hootervilliad, at least we got three women in a water-tower nekkid from the clavicle up, occasionally the same three from one week to another….

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'Breathlessly, my hand found her petticoats‘ junction and the green acres below. "Billy," she whispered "…I heard they do it a _different_ way in Beverly Hills." and my heart was beating anything _but_ "kinda slow".'—from "'Some Spider!', a Space Hooterville fanfic".

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Just as appalling high powered shysters (and not a few senators, cough, J. Kennedy, cough) act and claim to be "jus' an ol' country lawyer, so the successful here in Reddestneckistan are "jus' poor ol' hillbillies", and claim,like every entitled dirtbag with a support system and a well off family, that if they made it to the top of the local economy, anyone else can. There are the folks who keep wages low, and public services slim to none.

If Vance is notably more moral or fit to decide the deserving I'd like some proof.

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It's almost like if they found an actual hillbilly, they might be for health care, education, infrastructure, social nets, environmental regulations. You know, things that actually improve their communities' lives & futures.

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A surprising number of us actual hillbillies are in fact for these things...The rub is to many of us feel that others(possibly immoral, improperly color coded, or of recent arrival, e.g.) don't deserve them.

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And they would rather not have these things than the undeserving, the Wrong Folks, get them...Almost J.D. Vance all the way down.. If enough don't fail, the righteous and moral won't succeed, in his scheme.

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grrr, that's "too many"

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Since y'all stole my Hee Haw jokes, I'll just note the irony that the man who captured the hearts of the hillbillies is a rich guy from New York.

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The Hee Haw reference at the end is brilliant. Pulitzer level brilliant.

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I got a good chuckle out of that one - loved the ending!

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Roy, Roy, Roy, that Buck Owens was from Cal-ee-for-niyay! Why cain’t y’all channel a little Grandpa Jones, like “Mountain Dew” or “Are You From Dixie?” He’s from Kentucky, a real-billy.

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Owens was born in Texas, but he was 100% Bakersfield, which is more Hill Country than the actual hills.

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J.D. Vance is truly a son of the night soil

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If NPR was a state, Vance would definitely be elected as one if its two Senators. I'm assuming David Brooks would be the other.

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Would Megan McArdle and Jonah Goldberg be Representatives then?

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I imagine NPRistan as one of those states so small it only gets one Representative. Megan and Jonah can mud-wrestle for it.

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Ron Jeremy and Hee-Haw, the Master's touch. We're not worthy...

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And yet, I’m convinced Vance is electable. Could be wrong but wouldn’t bet on that.

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Against a non-Sherrod Brown Dem in Ohio, sure. Against more Trumpy Republicans, probably not

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I meant were he to get the nomination. Did not mean his odds in a primary. Can’t even speculate.

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