231 Comments

So, he's a Republican, then?

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Not to mention that Ryan the Granny Starver went to a state university - Miami of Ohio - where he was mentored by some libertarian professor who saw no hypocrisy in badmouthing government spending while receiving a paycheck from the government.

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I read it pre-publication as a favor for a bookowner friend, and am very proud and relieved to say I outed this fake before anybody else. As I said then, only someone who never set foot in the mountains and never met anybody who had could possible fall for Vance's insulting bullshit.

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Wait, I recognize Thiel's name, but I've forgotten his evil connections. Will you please remind me?

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Yes he does. Or at least he got them in the book, so maybe he's lying.

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It's freaking crazy to watch what has and is happening in American political culture from my perch up here in the Great White North. The Republicans are out and out fascists and white supremacists, no hyperbole. Truth and science and logic have become politicized and undermined. This is not all Trump's fault, of course, but he certainly greased the slide with his verbal and intellectual diarrhea.

Good luck to y'all. I watch and hope with bated breath. I'm still optimistic that the better Angels in America will prevail.

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A somewhat less cynical alternative: sometimes the politics of a state-wide or nation-wide race are very different from those at more local levels. So a mayor in a pretty liberal city might be gerrymandered into a much more conservative congressional or legislative district (or vice versa), so a statewide race is the next logical step. If that mayor is not just in a more conservative legislative district but also a super red state, you could end up where a presidential run is a very long shot, but maybe not that much longer of a shot than Congress or statewide office.

ETA: Whoops, I’m thinking of people with only a little bit of political experience, not those with absolutely none.

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Same.

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Worse, he is one of those people who grew up poor and then, because being a white male getting social and economical breaks afforded to him, he starts to believe his own bullshit about having pulled himself up by the bootstraps. A real "I-got-mine-so-fuck-you" type.

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Inbreeding Elegy

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I miss the writings of Joe Bageant. He would have been a far better politician, too, than J.D. Vance.

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He co-founded PayPal, and as such is largely responsible for springing Elon Musk on the world.

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I thought that Meghan McCain was Domenech's beard.

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I thought the actors gave wonderful performances.....playing totally unlikable characters in a story that was all about white grievance.

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So was the film an attack on white grievance? That would be fascinating, since that would go against the point of Vance’s book.

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Oh, Mr. Vance, does Chap Stick come in orange flavor now?

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