‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Book And Movie Soar After Trump Makes JD Vance VP Pick

J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” book sales and viewership of the movie based off his bestseller have soared after former President Donald Trump named the Ohio Senator his vice presidential pick.

Following Trump’s announcement on Monday that Vance would be his running-mate in the 2024 election, Amazon sales for the VP nominee’s 2016 book in paperback and hardcover catapulted it to the best seller list, The Hill reported.

As of Tuesday morning, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” was in the number one and two spot on Amazon, The Hill noted. Before the announcement on Monday, the book was at number 220, the Associated Press noted.

By Monday night, the AP reported that sales for  “Hillbilly Elegy” totaled at least 1.6 million copies.

By the same note, after Trump’s VP pick was announced, viewership on Netflix for the movie based on Vance’s book increased by 180% to 19.2M minutes watched on July 15, according to data from Luminate, Deadline noted. The day prior, 1.5M minutes had been watched. Translated into individual viewers, that’s 164,000 viewers on Monday compared to the 9,000 the day before.

‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Netflix views up 1000% since JD Vance named as Trump’s VP pick — No. 1 on Amazon https://t.co/EIxhmt5Cgk pic.twitter.com/XLP3r2b6y5

— New York Post (@nypost) July 16, 2024

The book is described on Amazon as “a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis – that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over 40 years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.”

“The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were ‘dirt poor and in love’ and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them,” it added. “They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility.”

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“Vance’s grandparents, his aunt, his uncle, his sister, and most of all his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America,” the description continued. “Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history.”

The book was later turned into a movie by director Ron Howard in 2020 and stars Gabriel Basso, Glenn Close, and Amy Adams.

Related: ‘Very Confident Pick’: Ben Shapiro Reacts To Trump Picking J.D. Vance As Running Mate

Newsom Mocks Musk. Musk Waves Bye-Bye: ‘Gavin’s Career Is Over’

In the latest salvo in the war of words between Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk and California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, Musk pronounced that Newsom’s “career is over.”

On Monday, Newsom signed into law AB 1955, which barred school districts from alerting parents of their children’s sexuality, or if they use pronouns or have adopted gender identities that conflict with those on their school records. Musk recalled that he had warned Newsom last year that if the law were passed, it would force families and companies to leave California “to protect their children.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Musk had pledged to give roughly $45 million a month to America PAC, which supports former president Trump’s reelection campaign.

On Tuesday, Musk announced that in response to the passing of AB 1955, he would relocate his companies out of the so-called Golden State, tweeting, “This is the final straw. Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.”

This is the final straw.

Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas. https://t.co/cpWUDgBWFe

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 16, 2024

He added, “And X HQ will move to Austin. …Have had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building.”

Have had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 16, 2024

Newsom then mocked Musk, claiming he “bent the knee” to Trump with his recent campaign pledge.

That prompted author and journalist Michael Shellenberger, a foe of the environmental movement who also challenged Newsom in two gubernatorial elections, to fire, “You took the most beautiful state and made it the ugliest. You increased homelessness by 40%. You let addicts die on the street.  You unleashed violent crime. Now you’re trying to medically mistreat children. You’re the worst governor in our state’s history. Resign.”

Musk then offered his succinct conclusion to the episode, writing bluntly, “Gavin’s career is over.”

Musk has an estranged relationship with his child who reportedly came out as transgender as a 16-year-old, which he partly blames on a leftist school his child attended in Los Angeles.