Hillbilly Elegy

grocery store: “I can’t understand why
people who’ve worked all their lives
scrape by while these deadbeats buy
liquor and cell phone coverage with our
tax money.”
These were bizarre views for my
bleeding-heart grandma. And if she
blasted the government for doing too
much one day, she’d blast it for doing
too little the next. The government, after
all, was just helping poor people find a
place to live, and my grandma loved the
idea of anyone helping the poor. She had
no philosophical objection to Section 8
vouchers. So the Democrat in her would
resurface. She’d rant about the lack of
jobs and wonder aloud whether that was