JD Vance's 'Hillbilly Elegy'

[frigidweirdo]

I found I had JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy on my Kindle so I started to read it. It's a good book, readable and interesting from both a family view, a hillbilly view and a political view.

At times I wonder how the person who wrote this book could end up becoming Trump's VP candidate.

"The paper suggests that hillbillies learn from an early age to deal with uncomfortable truths by avoiding them, or by pretending better truths exist"

It's basically saying that hillbillies make a fantasy version of the world and live in that. It kind of makes sense that they'd vote for MAGA which is, in effect, a fantasy world created to make people feel like they're in control of their lives.

So, how does someone go from identify this fantasy world created, saying it's a problem, saying it leads to people making bad choices, to going out there and taking advantage of these people making bad choices?

"Instead of encouraging engagement, conservatives increasingly foment the kind of detachment that has sapped the ambition of so many of my peers"

Here he's talking about how people just don't care to work hard any more. He spoke about a friend who quit his job because he didn't want to get up early any more, but then claimed the "Obama economy" effected his life, in a negative way. But Vance is saying it was because of the individual, and not the "Obama economy" (which was part of the recession that started before Obama became President.

"Many try to blame the anger and cynicism of working-class whites on misinformation. Admittedly, there is an industry of conspiracy-mongers and fringe lunatics writing about all manner of idiocy, from Obama’s alleged religious leanings to his ancestry. But every major news organization, even the oft-maligned Fox News, has always told the truth about Obama’s citizenship status and religious views. The people I know are well aware of what the major news organizations have to say about the issue; they simply don’t believe them. "

He's talking here about misinformation, that most of the "misinformation" comes, not because people are lying, but because people just don't bother to accept what they're told, but also don't bother to find out the truth.

Trump lies, and the people believe because they want to believe him. Vance has started doing the same. He's said things, like about the UK, that simply wasn't true. A country with 6% Muslims is not a Muslim state, especially when the Monarch and head of state is a white man, and the PM is a white man.

So when reading this book I wondered how a guy like, a guy who can look at the issues and see them for what they are, can then turn around and say things like 'I'm a hillbilly and this is what I think, stuff everything else' and then became a MAGA person, a person who ignores reality and replaces it with his fantasy, like the UK is a Muslim country.

 

[Oddball]

Lying and not bothering to find out the truth, you say?....You mean like the last 3+ years of being lied to and gaslighted about Pedo Peter's senility?

Man, them hillbillies are seriously fucked in the head!

 

[frigidweirdo]

Lying and not bothering to find out the truth, you say?....You mean like the last 3+ years of being lied to and gaslighted about Pedo Peter's senility?

Man, them hillbillies are seriously fucked in the head!

I'm not saying Democrats don't lie here. The whole system is messed up. One thought I had was the Vance might have ended up somewhere else were there CHOICE.

If the US had Proportional Representation there might be a better fit for him, that he's gone MAGA because he wants to be successful and the choice is either Maga or Democrat and he doesn't want to do Democrat.

He said in the book many times that people on hand outs were a problem and this is a Democrat problem. I don't disagree with that, the Democrats and Republicans will find their trenches and stay in them for the long term, abortion, execution are examples of Republican trenches and welfare an example of a Democratic one.

The difference in lying with MAGA compared to Biden (yeah, you had to use insults, didn't you? creating the fantasy world) is that Trump doesn't even try and hide it, doesn't try and be subtle about it. He'll say anything, whatever pops into his head, whatever lie he's read in backwater media. Biden at least tried to make his lies with a semblance of the truth.

 

[Oddball]

The difference in lying with MAGA compared to Biden (yeah, you had to use insults, didn't you? creating the fantasy world) is that Trump doesn't even try and hide it, doesn't try and be subtle about it. He'll say anything, whatever pops into his head, whatever lie he's read in backwater media. Biden at least tried to make his lies with a semblance of the truth.

Oh....My team's lies are more moral than the other team's lies!

Fuck my life.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Oh....My team's lies are more moral than the other team's lies!

Fuck my life.

It's not about being moral.

US democracy is very fragile. It's fragile because it's not democracy.

In Germany they have FPTP and PR voting on the same day and get wildly different results. From one party getting 77% of the seats with FPTP to getting 34% of the seats with PR. Same day, same voters.

So, the think that stops the US being like.... just about every other country in the Americans (except Canada) is the TRUST people have in the system.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/politics/fact-check-biden-false-claims-first-year-2021/index.html

"When President Joe Biden passingly said in a voting rights speech last week that he had been “arrested” in the context of the civil rights movement – even suggesting this had happened more than once – it was a classic Biden false claim: an anecdote about his past for which there is no evidence, prompted by a decision to ad-lib rather than stick to a prepared text, resulting in easily avoidable questions about his honesty."

Whether Biden was arrested or not, doesn't really make much difference. This kind of lie doesn't do very much. Maybe some people might like him more and be more likely to vote for him, but beyond that it doesn't do anything.

Biden on Afghanistan fact-checked

'We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong'

"However, this figure combines both army/air force personnel (182,071) and the police force (118,628) - who are not deployed as part of the country's military."

So, the figure is wrong, and it's not wrong. There was a force of 300,000, but only 182,000 were "military". It's the sort of lie based in half truths. The US did train 300,000 men to stabilize the country (not that it did any good). Also a lot of this happened under Bush and Trump.

"The Sigar report notes that these figures also include "ghost" personnel. These would be non-existent or previously registered names, no longer active members of either the military or the police.
This, Sigar says, meant that "more than $300 million a year was spent paying salaries to non-existent personnel in the Afghan security forces.""

Then there's the ghost personnel, people who were a part of this figure who didn't exist.

The difference between this and what Trump said about things.

For example he claimed he defeated ISIS in Syria. Nothing, absolutely nothing points to the US winning that war. The US hardly had any troops, the number of aerial bombing was 1/10th what the Russians were doing.

 

[Oddball]

It's not about being moral.

US democracy is very fragile. It's fragile because it's not democracy.

In Germany they have FPTP and PR voting on the same day and get wildly different results. From one party getting 77% of the seats with FPTP to getting 34% of the seats with PR. Same day, same voters.

So, the think that stops the US being like.... just about every other country in the Americans (except Canada) is the TRUST people have in the system.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/politics/fact-check-biden-false-claims-first-year-2021/index.html

"When President Joe Biden passingly said in a voting rights speech last week that he had been “arrested” in the context of the civil rights movement – even suggesting this had happened more than once – it was a classic Biden false claim: an anecdote about his past for which there is no evidence, prompted by a decision to ad-lib rather than stick to a prepared text, resulting in easily avoidable questions about his honesty."

Whether Biden was arrested or not, doesn't really make much difference. This kind of lie doesn't do very much. Maybe some people might like him more and be more likely to vote for him, but beyond that it doesn't do anything.

Biden on Afghanistan fact-checked

'We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong'

"However, this figure combines both army/air force personnel (182,071) and the police force (118,628) - who are not deployed as part of the country's military."

So, the figure is wrong, and it's not wrong. There was a force of 300,000, but only 182,000 were "military". It's the sort of lie based in half truths. The US did train 300,000 men to stabilize the country (not that it did any good). Also a lot of this happened under Bush and Trump.

"The Sigar report notes that these figures also include "ghost" personnel. These would be non-existent or previously registered names, no longer active members of either the military or the police.
This, Sigar says, meant that "more than $300 million a year was spent paying salaries to non-existent personnel in the Afghan security forces.""

Then there's the ghost personnel, people who were a part of this figure who didn't exist.

The difference between this and what Trump said about things.

For example he claimed he defeated ISIS in Syria. Nothing, absolutely nothing points to the US winning that war. The US hardly had any troops, the number of aerial bombing was 1/10th what the Russians were doing.

Picking flecks of pepper out of a pile of shit.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Picking flecks of pepper out of a pile of shit.

I'm not surprised you're on my ignore list with that kind of pointless reply. Back to being ignored.

 

[jc456]

I found I had JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy on my Kindle so I started to read it. It's a good book, readable and interesting from both a family view, a hillbilly view and a political view.

At times I wonder how the person who wrote this book could end up becoming Trump's VP candidate.

"The paper suggests that hillbillies learn from an early age to deal with uncomfortable truths by avoiding them, or by pretending better truths exist"

It's basically saying that hillbillies make a fantasy version of the world and live in that. It kind of makes sense that they'd vote for MAGA which is, in effect, a fantasy world created to make people feel like they're in control of their lives.

So, how does someone go from identify this fantasy world created, saying it's a problem, saying it leads to people making bad choices, to going out there and taking advantage of these people making bad choices?

"Instead of encouraging engagement, conservatives increasingly foment the kind of detachment that has sapped the ambition of so many of my peers"

Here he's talking about how people just don't care to work hard any more. He spoke about a friend who quit his job because he didn't want to get up early any more, but then claimed the "Obama economy" effected his life, in a negative way. But Vance is saying it was because of the individual, and not the "Obama economy" (which was part of the recession that started before Obama became President.

"Many try to blame the anger and cynicism of working-class whites on misinformation. Admittedly, there is an industry of conspiracy-mongers and fringe lunatics writing about all manner of idiocy, from Obama’s alleged religious leanings to his ancestry. But every major news organization, even the oft-maligned Fox News, has always told the truth about Obama’s citizenship status and religious views. The people I know are well aware of what the major news organizations have to say about the issue; they simply don’t believe them. "

He's talking here about misinformation, that most of the "misinformation" comes, not because people are lying, but because people just don't bother to accept what they're told, but also don't bother to find out the truth.

Trump lies, and the people believe because they want to believe him. Vance has started doing the same. He's said things, like about the UK, that simply wasn't true. A country with 6% Muslims is not a Muslim state, especially when the Monarch and head of state is a white man, and the PM is a white man.

So when reading this book I wondered how a guy like, a guy who can look at the issues and see them for what they are, can then turn around and say things like 'I'm a hillbilly and this is what I think, stuff everything else' and then became a MAGA person, a person who ignores reality and replaces it with his fantasy, like the UK is a Muslim country.

Who cares what you think

 

[Dragonlady]

Lying and not bothering to find out the truth, you say?....You mean like the last 3+ years of being lied to and gaslighted about Pedo Peter's senility?

Man, them hillbillies are seriously fucked in the head!

No lying, like you just did. Like you do all the time with a stolen election and now over Biden’s mental acuity.

It’s what you do.

 

[Lesh]

The points illustrated in the OP are real.

Vance got a taste of success because of it and fell in love with that.

Everything after is just him doing anything and saying anything to further that aim

 

[Mac1958]

At times I wonder how the person who wrote this book could end up becoming Trump's VP candidate.

I've never seen so many people sell their soul like this, and to this degree.

From politicians to pastors to pundits.

 

[Dragonlady]

I've never seen so many people sell their soul like this, and to this degree.

From politicians to pastors to pundits.

Look at what has happened to every single person Trump has co-opted into his lies and his schemes.

All of his lawyers have been disbarred and/or arrested. Anyone who has ever bought stock in his businesses, has lost everything.

The new Media Corporation hasn’t gone broke yet, but SEC has already filed charges over lies in their filings. As soon as Trump dumps his stock, the thing will collapse.

I want to give Trump credit. The Media Stock pump and dump is the perfect vehicle for Trump. Anyone can buy the stocks, including foreign governments. Only Americans and American companies are legally allowed to contribute to his campaigns or PACS.

Foreign buyers are snapping up his stock. By Christmas, Trump will be in a position to dump his stock. Right after the election.

 

[Rocko]

I watched the movie. Pretty good flick, but I’m not in rush to read the book.

 

[Mac1958]

Look at what has happened to every single person Trump has co-opted into his lies and his schemes.
All of his lawyers have been disbarred and/or arrested. Anyone who has ever bought stock in his businesses, has lost everything.
The new Media Corporation hasn’t gone broke yet, but SEC has already filed charges over lies in their filings. As soon as Trump dumps his stock, the thing will collapse.

One of the many mysteries of this ugly period is how he gets people to sell their soul at their own cost. It's uncanny. I don't know if it's something that he does on purpose, or if his particular malignant narcissism just naturally creates it. But he can just suck people in and wreck them.

I understand this thing much more than I used to, but there is still a lot of mystery to it.

 

[jc456]

One of the many mysteries of this ugly period is how he gets people to sell their soul at their own cost. It's uncanny. I don't know if it's something that he does on purpose, or if his particular malignant narcissism just naturally creates it. But he can just suck people in and wreck them.

I understand this thing much more than I used to, but there is still a lot of mystery to it.

uncanny, how was it someone convinced creepy to back out? now that's uncanny!!!! Or in my world, evil. I'm confident it was a threat of something.

 

[Mac1958]

uncanny, how was it someone convinced creepy to back out? now that's uncanny!!!! Or in my world, evil. I'm confident it was a threat of something.

 

[Dragonlady]

One of the many mysteries of this ugly period is how he gets people to sell their soul at their own cost. It's uncanny. I don't know if it's something that he does on purpose, or if his particular malignant narcissism just naturally creates it. But he can just suck people in and wreck them.

I understand this thing much more than I used to, but there is still a lot of mystery to it.

Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg were a really toxic couple. They used to enjoy finding some sweet young thing and just destroying them with heroin and kinky sex.

I think Trump enjoys corrupting the people who found him loathsome at best. The cruelty and sickness of such behaviour cannot v be underestimated. At this point why do any of them think this will turn out well for them?

Trump drove Steve Bannon out of the White House and threw Bannon right under the bus for daring to speak openly about the Trump family to a writer. Bannon ends up in prison for fraud. Trump pardoned him, and Bannon goes crawling back and helps him plan January 6th, and now Bannon is back in jail again.

Even those he couldn’t corrupt are ruined by their association with him. Milley, Kelly, Bolton.

These are not people one would normally think of as stupid or gullible, I don’t believe any of his January 6th team of lawyers have a law license left between them. Lin Woods, Rudy Gulliani, Genna Ellis, Eastman, Chesboro.

 

[Mac1958]

Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg were a really toxic couple. They used to enjoy finding some sweet young thing and just destroying them with heroin and kinky sex.

I think Trump enjoys corrupting the people who found him loathsome at best. The cruelty and sickness of such behaviour cannot v be underestimated. At this point why do any of them think this will turn out well for them?

Trump drove Steve Bannon out of the White House and threw Bannon right under the bus for daring to speak openly about the Trump family to a writer. Bannon ends up in prison for fraud. Trump pardoned him, and Bannon goes crawling back and helps him plan January 6th, and now Bannon is back in jail again.

Even those he couldn’t corrupt are ruined by their association with him. Milley, Kelly, Bolton.

These are not people one would normally think of as stupid or gullible, I don’t believe any of his January 6th team of lawyers have a law license left between them. Lin Woods, Rudy Gulliani, Genna Ellis, Eastman, Chesboro.

He has this reptilian instinct for identifying people who are corruptable, and then he puts them in impossible situations. So, politicians and lawyers? Holy shit, absolutely tailor-made for him. Right down his alley.

Milley and Kelly should never have gone near him. They're far more honorable, and they thought they could make a difference. They learned the hard way.

I put Bannon separate from the rest of the craven cast of characters. He's a True Believer, and he's the biggest winner of this disaster so far. He wants this chaos and destruction, and that's what he's getting. We'll see how he fares in his upcoming fraud case.

That whole White House was crawling with criminals, CONVICTED criminals, and it might very well be again.

 

[Dragonlady]

He has this reptilian instinct for identifying people who are corruptable, and then he puts them in impossible situations. So, politicians and lawyers? Holy shit, absolutely tailor-made for him. Right down his alley.

Milley and Kelly should never have gone near him. They're far more honorable, and they thought they could make a difference. They learned the hard way.

I put Bannon separate from the rest of the craven cast of characters. He's a True Believer, and he's the biggest winner of this disaster so far. He wants this chaos and destruction, and that's what he's getting. We'll see how he fares in his upcoming fraud case.

That whole White House was crawling with criminals, CONVICTED criminals, and it might very well be again.

Why would any honest decent person want to work for him, knowing his history.

Posters in this forum used to make a big deal about the notion that Barack Obama wasn’t properly “vetted” before his election and the public knew little about him.

But neither of the Republican Party, nor the media on either side of the political spectrum said anything about Trump’s criminal history, or his record of business failures and lawsuits, and they knew because everything Trump has ever done has been publicized, and reported for decades.

The state of New York has been trying to file charges against him since the 90s while Trump went around the city publicly bragging about how many politicians he bribed to get his buildings built.

His 4000+ lawsuits are a matter of public record as are his delay tactics and abuse of legal proceedings to attack his enemies.

As always, Trump accuses others of “lawfare” against him, when in fact, Trump invented the concept of attacking your enemies through the courts, appealling every order, dragging out the process until the other side gives up or runs out of money.

 

[jc456]

He has this reptilian instinct for identifying people who are corruptable, and then he puts them in impossible situations. So, politicians and lawyers? Holy shit, absolutely tailor-made for him. Right down his alley.

Milley and Kelly should never have gone near him. They're far more honorable, and they thought they could make a difference. They learned the hard way.

I put Bannon separate from the rest of the craven cast of characters. He's a True Believer, and he's the biggest winner of this disaster so far. He wants this chaos and destruction, and that's what he's getting. We'll see how he fares in his upcoming fraud case.

That whole White House was crawling with criminals, CONVICTED criminals, and it might very well be again.

WTF are you babbling over and over about cuck?