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Summary Of Hillbilly Elegy

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Set in the Appalachian region of the United States, “Hillbilly Elegy,” tells the story of J.D. Vance, the author of the book. The book is written about Vance’s life, growing up in Appalachia, one of Americas poorest regions. Unexpectedly, the book came to be used as an explanation for the upset in the 2016 Presidential election, when republican candidate, Donald Trump, beat democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. The reason this was so shocking, was because the Appalachia region, has long been a democratic stronghold. In this paper I am going to look at two reasons why this democrat stronghold turned republican. The first reason we are going to look at, is the decline of the coal industry. The Appalachia region, has long been a coal miner country, and proud of it. The industrialization period that followed the American Civil War, saw an increase in the need for coal and the first mines started out in the Appalachia region. The need for coal was again driven up, with …show more content…

Coal production in the Appalachia region, peaked in 1990, and has been declining ever since. Between 2000 and 2015, the Appalachia region, saw the loss of 9,300 jobs (Hodge, 2016). With coal being biggest supplier of jobs in the region, the decline of the industry affected many people. Counties in the Appalachia region, lost large percentages of their population, the worst case was in McDowell County in West Virginia, which lost 2.2% of its population, leaving it with its lowest population since 1900 (Raby, 2016). There are many reasons for the decline of coal, these include: cheaper natural gas, renewable resources, and regulations introduced to protect public health (Roux, n.d.). In the book, Vance talks about how his family, and many other people he knew, were lifelong democrat supporters. Their reasoning being, they saw the democratic party, as a party of the working man. (Vance, 2016) It was this party

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