Starting in early 2016, we began to see a phenomenon that later became the Trump Country profile: national (and international) news reporters, parachuting into some Appalachian small town, churning out a think piece about the despair, the poverty, the addiction, the desolation, the desperation that was turning voters toward Donald Trump.
Rather than tapering off, the genre only gained in strength through the 2016 election, and has renewed itself repeatedly since as a periodic exploration of How Trump Voters Feel Now.
On a similar track, J.D. Vance’s memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” gained the ear of non-Appalachian conservatives and liberals alike who viewed it as a work of insight into the mind of Trump Country voters, while Appalachian scholars recognized in Vance another writer claiming insider status while making sweeping generalizations about how it is Appalachian people’s own fault if they’re poor.