Hillbilly Elegy, by J. D. Vance: on Jobs

Ronald Reagan: OpEd: "Reagan Democrat" exemplified by Rust Belt politics

In late summer 1984, just a few months before [my grandfather] Papaw cast his first and only vote for a Republican--Ronald Reagan. Winning large blocks of Rust Belt Democrats like Papaw, Reagan went on to the biggest electoral landslide in modern American history. "I never liked Reagan much," Papaw later told me. "But I hated that son of a bitch Mondale." Reagan's Democratic opponent, a well-educated Northern liberal, stood in stark cultural contrast to my hillbilly Papaw. [Democratic nominee Vice President Walter] Mondale never had a chance, and after he departed from the political scene, Papaw never again voted against his beloved "party of the workingman."