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There's nothing elitist about Applebees. That restaurant is at the bottom of the food chain with respect to casual dining joints. If people think it's worth an hours drive to get to, you are talking about a hardscrabble place for sure.

I thought the article was excellent and not condescending at all. Having spent significant time in Appalachia (especially northern Alabama), the article has the ring of truth. This really is the way millions of people live.

I was struck by the phrase that "poverty is the natural condition of humans". If you think about it, that is a true statement. My grandmother grew up in Alabama during the 1920s and the stories she told me about how things were back then stick with me to this day. Let's just say that the average welfare recipient today is extremely wealthy from the vantage point of my grandmother, who had to raise a family of 10 in a house that is barely bigger than my living room (boys, including my father, slept in the barn with the cows once they got out of diapers).

All this without a single penny of government aid.

"There's nothing elitist about Applebees. That restaurant is at the bottom of the food chain with respect to casual dining joints. If people think it's worth an hours drive to get to, you are talking about a hardscrabble place for sure."

Your first sentence is true, I should not have implied otherwise. But the people on average definitely do not think it is worth an hour's drive. But there are the usual of low information people who will play Applebees roulette without realizing what they are doing.