Ep 123 - Trillbilly Elegy w/ Tarence Ray
Added 2020-12-16 17:46:00 +0000 UTCIn 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
Comments
This is clearly a propaganda piece. I was raised in Christian culture and it reminds me of the propaganda movies they would spit out. The movie is objectively bad as a piece of entertainment, but the audience that it is intended for eats that shit up. I do think bourgeoisie ideology is very common in our culture, but I also think the high audience score is self-selection. Generally, only a neoliberal bourgeoisie ideologue would seek out this propaganda, and of course they would enjoy it. I think it would be to boring to anyone else who is not bought in.
Joshua Schmitt
2020-12-18 12:13:01 +0000 UTC
