First off – Scots-Irish is different than Irish. Second, their plight is documented after WWII. They are the great white underclass. And yes, some did escape their path. Second, Biden and Kennedy don’t qualify. Andrew Jackson is one, though, I am not sure of Grant.
It’s a sad story actually, that most could not pull out of this now decaying drug ridden sub-culture. White people especially don’t like talking about the white underclass, that are mostly Scots-Irish.
It’s a good case study.
A book written by one
Set between 1950 and 1963, this coming-of-age memoir discusses one of America’s most taboo subjects: social class. Combining recollections, accounts, and analysis, this book leans on Maw, Pap, Ony Mae, and other members of this rambunctious Scots-Irish family to chronicle the often heartbreaking postwar journey of 22 million rural Americans into the cities, where they became the foundation of a permanent white underclass. Telling the stories of the gun-owning, uninsured, underemployed white tribes inhabiting America’s heartlands, this record offers an intimate look at what was lost in the orchestrated postwar shift from an agricultural to an urban consumer society.