Summary

Part One, “Appalachia and the Making of Trump Country,” opens with an account of the 2006 Sago Mining Disaster in West Virginia, in which twelve out of thirteen trapped miners died. Catte writes that the media sensationalized the story, crafting a narrative of “false hope . . . a spectacle of decent but damaged people hoping in vain for a miracle” (20) rather than focusing on the poor oversight of safety regulations and dangerous labor practices perpetuated by the coal company that owns the mine. This conception of the incident, Catte claims, “naturalized” things which should not have been, turning a tragedy that could have been avoided into a “spiritual lesson about sacrifice” (20). Catte argues that Donald Trump capitalized on this notion of false hope during the 2016 campaign, as he promised to correct the social ills that affected impoverished, white working-class individuals, by bringing back the jobs that...