In “How Donald Trump seduced America’s white working class,” J.D. Vance shares the story of Pattie, a drug-addicted neighbor, who got stoned and flooded her house:
During my junior year of high school, our neighbour Pattie called her landlord to report a leaky roof. The landlord arrived and found Pattie topless, stoned and unconscious on her living-room couch. Upstairs, the bathtub was overflowing, thus the leaking roof. Pattie had apparently drawn herself a bath, taken a few prescription painkillers and passed out. The top floor of her home and many of her family’s possessions were ruined.
What significance does Vance attach to Pattie’s actions? For Vance, how are Pattie’s actions characteristic of the white, working-class voters who elected Donald Trump? What do you think of Vance’s characterization of the white working-class, both in his Guardian article and in the excerpts contained in Dreher’s review of Hillbilly Elegy?
