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Book Review: Hillbilly Elegy

07/29/2025

Summary

Critical review of 'Hillbilly Elegy' - Vance's controversial memoir that became key to understanding Trump's America.

TL;DR (Summary)

"Hillbilly Elegy" is an autobiographical memoir by current US Vice President J.D. Vance. In it, he describes his childhood and youth in an impoverished working-class family from America's Rust Belt. The book shows the grim consequences of economic decline for people in Appalachia and the concrete effects of America's deindustrialization. Vance describes his own painful experiences in this environment and how he escaped it. From a drug-addicted mother through the Marines to studying law at Yale. He tries to combine his personal experiences with sociological observations to form a complete picture and indirectly draw political conclusions from it.

Why I Read This Book

I was interested in how J.D. Vance, raised in the broken Rust Belt between violence, poverty and government failure, could become the great hope of the American right. How do you explain the paradox that millions of impoverished Americans would rather vote for a billionaire than trust established politics?
What particularly interested me was the bigger context: How does deindustrialization and the brutal shift from a manufacturing to a tech and service economy shape the political landscape? Which people get left behind and how does their anger manifest politically?
The book promises insights into the mechanisms of how economic decline becomes cultural identity battles. How Silicon Valley billionaires like Peter Thiel strategically invest in figures like Vance to shape political narratives and influence the public discourse in the long run. How the right skillfully works with victim narratives while simultaneously branding DEI and "woke politics" as victim mentality.
In short: I wanted to understand how America went from the factory floor to the culture war, what this means for the country's future, and to what extent these mechanisms can also be seen in Europe.

What's It Really About?

  • Culture vs. Economics: Vance argues that the problems of the white working class are primarily cultural rather than economic. He sees a growing culture of irresponsibility where people view themselves as victims of external factors instead of taking responsibility for their own lives
  • Personal Responsibility: The book promotes the American Dream view that anyone can succeed if they just try hard enough. If Vance himself could make it out of these difficult circumstances, why shouldn't others be able to?
  • Distrust of Elites: A recurring feature of Hillbilly culture is distrust of government and institutions. Vance himself describes how he felt torn between two worlds at Yale and shows how different and suspicious the working class is toward the upper class

Strengths of the Book

  • Authenticity: Vance reports very personally and authentically about growing up in a problematic, often overlooked demographic. He breaks through the romanticized image and ruthlessly shows the dark sides of his community too: A taboo broken from within
  • Cultural Translation: Vance acts as an interpreter between two worlds. His descriptions of the alienation at Yale (which fork? what dress code?) make invisible and non-obvious class barriers visible
  • Historical Document: The book gives voice to the frustration of a demographic that felt forgotten by Obama's America. Regardless of whether you share Vance's interpretations, this book captures the mood of the white working class very well
  • Emotional Ambivalence: Throughout the book, Vance shows a variety of contradictory feelings like pride, hatred and shame toward his origins and culture, expressing a much more complex situation than outsiders often assume

Weaknesses and Criticism

  • Hindsight Perspective: The perspective is distorted by the background of a successful person who made it out of the milieu. Defeats become lessons and coincidences are reinterpreted as destiny. This retrospective perspective makes it too easy to construct "success factors"
  • Overgeneralization: The subtitle "A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis" already reveals Vance's claim to draw conclusions about an entire culture from his family. That's exactly the problem: One individual story, however authentic it may be, cannot represent millions of people. Vance's specific experiences (his saving grandparents, his path to the Marines, his talent) are precisely not typical, but the exception. By using his success story as an example, he ignores the diversity of fates and reasons why others didn't "make it"
  • Racism as a Blind Spot: Vance focuses exclusively on the white working class. Yet Black workers were often hit even harder by the same economic forces. This omission makes his analysis incomplete and ignores systematic differences between white and Black working communities

Context & Background

The book appeared in 2016 with perfect timing, shortly before Trump's first election victory. Overnight, "Hillbilly Elegy" became required reading for anyone trying to understand the political earthquake: Why did the white working class vote for a billionaire?
Media Hype and Controversy: The book landed on all bestseller lists, Vance made the rounds through TED Talks and talk shows, and in 2020 came the Netflix adaptation with Glenn Close. But the criticism was as fierce as the success: Left-wing critics accused Vance of portraying poverty voyeuristically and simplistically. The right, however, celebrated him as proof that laziness and victim mentality were the real problem.
Vance's Spectacular Turnaround: In 2016 Vance was a sharp Trump critic, even comparing him to Hitler. Over time, however, he became a supporter. He first offered open backing in Ohio’s Senate race, and by 2024 he had reached his political zenith as Trump’s vice-presidential running mate. A remarkable reversal.

Learnings & Transfer

Mindset and Structure: Vance shows an uncomfortable truth that victim mentality can indeed be paralyzing. Those who only wait for better circumstances and shift responsibility to external factors miss the opportunities they have despite adverse conditions. But this mustn't become an excuse to ignore structural problems. Both are true: Individual attitude matters and the rules of the game are unfair from the start for many. The danger lies in seeing only one side.
Power Follows Capital: Vance's career (book → Thiel funding → politics) is a very accurate example of modern political influence. (Tech) billionaires invest strategically to push their agenda. The important question is always: Who benefits when this story is told?
Understanding Deindustrialization: What abstractly is called "structural change" concretely means: destroyed families, drug addiction, hopelessness. The book makes tangible how the loss of industrial jobs grinds down an entire social class. When the factory closes, not just the job disappears - the entire social infrastructure of a region collapses. The proud middle class becomes the forgotten underclass. This humiliation and anger inevitably leads to a desire for radical political change.
New Political Currency Hillbilly Elegy represents a trend: Personal story and confident appearance become the entry ticket to politics. In a polarized society, it no longer matters who has the better arguments, but who appears credible. Authenticity replaces expertise. Those who can narrate their fractures, defeats and origins gain trust, often more than those who are simply right.

Connections to Other Ideas

René Girard: Mimetic Desire and Scapegoat Logic: Vance describes the Hillbillys as a group that sees itself as "hard-working but unfairly left behind," full of envy, shame and aggression. The cultural rage isn't directed at the cause (e.g., globalization), but at visible proxies: "the woke," "the elites," "city people." This is classic Girardian dynamics: Mimetic rivalry turns into collective projection, where the political opponent becomes the moral enemy.
Peter Thiel: The Mentor and His Philosophy: Thiel's support for Vance is no coincidence. Both share the conviction that America's problems lie less in systems than in mindsets. Thiel sees "fake culture wars" as a distraction from real challenges - technological stagnation, economic decline, lack of innovation. Vance's personal success story embodies Thiel's belief in individual excellence and entrepreneurial thinking as the solution. Thiel's patronage helped Vance not only financially but also shaped his worldview: change comes through exceptional individuals, not mass movements.
Trump as Outlet for the Unspoken: The book helps understand why many white Americans feel represented by Trump: He breaks with conventions of political correctness and says what many think but don't dare to say. His directness and rule-breaking signal: "I'm not part of the establishment that forgot you." For his voters, he's authentic precisely because he polarizes, not despite it.

Conclusion

Hillbilly Elegy isn't a classic politician's biography. It's an important historical document that provides authentic insights into the lived reality of an often overlooked demographic and helps better understand political developments in America and Western countries. The parallels are already visible in Europe: In many formerly industrial regions of Europe, the same mix of deindustrialization, cultural uprooting and anti-elite narrative drives the rise of right-wing parties.
Is the book worth it? Absolutely. Vance gives voice to a forgotten class and powerfully shows how deindustrialization concretely affects people. His personal story is moving and makes abstract problems tangible. The book stimulates reflection about personal responsibility and structures, about advancement and origins, about the division of modern societies. A courageous book that sparks important debates.