Tag: election

By Mike Koetting October 1, 2024

My wife regularly reads Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter and from time to time reads potentially interesting passages to me. The other morning I almost got whiplash doing a double take at something JD Vance said a few years ago:

American history is a constant war between Northern Yankees and Southern Bourbons, where whichever side the hillbillies are on, wins. And that’s kind of how I think about American politics today, is like, the Northern Yankees are now the hyper-woke, coastal elites. The Southern Bourbons are sort of the same old-school Southern folks that have been around and influential in this country for 200 years. And it’s like the hillbillies have really started to migrate towards the Southern Bourbons instead of the Northern woke people. That’s just a fundamental thing that’s happening in American politics.

My first reaction was stunned amazement. Was he suggesting, for instance, that it would have been okay if the South had won the Civil War? On second thought, I was struck with how flaccid an explanation he was offering for the “fundamental thing that’s happening in American politics.”

Continue reading “Vance Is Misleading the Hillbillies”