Do yourself a favor: READ Hillbilly Elegy. Or watch the movie.

@akindheart about the county maybe, but there is enough information that shows he did not grow up in poverty, or live in a shanty.

@samueltyler2 No one said he did.

@Reason10 in his speeches he speaks about his rise from poverty.

@samueltyler2 he most certainly lived in one of the poorest parts of the country. I know this first hand because my mom is from there. his family moved to middletown Ohio again where my family moved to. he lived with his grandmother and grandfather because his mother tried to kill them. This is one you will not win. I know firsthand the story.

@akindheart it isn't worth fighting. I also know the area. I was involved trying to deal with the opioid problem there. Yes the tri-state Appalachian are was poor, still is. But, from the record which has surfaced about him, he was not in the forest of them. His story about his mother's addiction is likely true. But many of the addicts from that area were middle class and better. Blame Purdue for that if you like.

@samueltyler2 In his book, the environment he grew up in was poverty on many levels. (And in America, the poverty level in income is constantly raised by the DemoNazis, so he could have owned a car and would have been considered in poverty.)

He was not raised in a shanty. He was born in a hillbilly environment that resembles the inner city welfare state ghettos for blacks. Fathers making many women pregnant and not taking care of the kids. Mothers leaping from one job to another, going on welfare, doing drugs. He had to deal with her going from one man to another, the fights, the breaking dishes, etc. His family would have had to tunnel up about thirty feet to reach the level of trailer trash. In fact, the book Hillbilly Elegy was about a family in crisis.

For the most party, Vance's grandmother (he called her Mamaw) raised him and got his brain right as far as school goes. This is an OLD story of the average black family (75 percent of all black kids are born into single family homes). But leave it to Vance to remind the country this has NOTHING to do with race and everything to do with culture and choices.

Mamaw MADE him study in school and graduate. He has her to thank for him not dropping out and winding up like most of the men in that section of Kentucky.

At one point, he was looking at attending Ohio State University. He had been accepted. But after looking at the financial aid paperwork, he was unsure if he had the mental discipline necessary to take the classes, do the work and succeed. That was the reason he joined the Marines. They basically turned that hillbilly boy into a man.

The rest of the story (Yale Law School) is an amazing rags to riches story.

@Reason10 yes, in his book, as he wrote it.

@samueltyler2 I agree that the opiod problem affects people across the board, not just hill trash.

Rush Limbaugh (a WEALTHY and successful businessman, media host and best selling author) was a victim of medical malpractice and became hooked on opiate pain killers. It can happen to anybody.

@Reason10 He did graduate from Ohio State. I know this story well because my mom lived there and i suffered the same kind of life. my mom was a decade older than his mom. she had an alcohol and legal prescription problem before the opioid crisis. With time, his mother had that problem. believe me, i have been to Jackson many times. I know this whole story better than anyone

@samueltyler2 Prove it incorrect, or admit you're lying.