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."
|
The above quotations are from Hillbilly Elegy A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance. Click here for other excerpts from Hillbilly Elegy A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance. Click here for other excerpts by Ronald Reagan. Click here for a profile of Ronald Reagan.
Please consider a donation to OnTheIssues.org!
| Click for details -- or send donations to: 1770 Mass Ave. #630, Cambridge MA 02140 E-mail: submit@OnTheIssues.org (We rely on your support!) |