[2] He attended John Handley High School there, but his teachers told him that he wasn’t cut out for college, and his parents pressured him to work from an early age.
During that time, Bageant worked at blue collar jobs until, in the mid-1970s, he broke his back and had to lie flat for months while he recovered.
The book examines the postwar journey of 22 million rural Americans into the cities, where they became, the author argues, the foundation of a permanent white underclass, and comprise much of today's heartland red state voters.
[5] Bageant frequently appeared as a commentator on radio and television internationally and wrote a progressive online column which was distributed to hundreds of blogs and websites.
[2] Bageant also served as a senior (roving) editor for Cyrano's Journal Today and The Greanville Post, two sites devoted to progressive political and media analyses.
[6][7][8] During the last years of his life, Bageant lived in Ajijic, a small town on Lake Chapala in central Mexico.