Joe Bageant

Joe Bageant (1946–2011) was an American author and columnist. He was best known for his 2007 book, Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches From America's Class War.

Bageant was originally raised in Winchester, Virginia. He left Winchester and worked as a journalist and editor. In 2001, Bageant moved back to Winchester.

In Deer Hunting With Jesus, Bageant discusses how Democrats have lost the political support of poor rural whites and how the Republican Party has convinced them to "vote against their own economic self-interest." The book is mainly centered on his hometown, Winchester.

In 2010, Bageant published a similarly themed book, Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir. Bageant used his extended family's experience after World War II to describe the social hierarchy in the United States. 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.

Bageant frequently appeared as a commentator on radio and television internationally and wrote a progressive online column distributed to hundreds of blogs and websites. He maintained his own blog joebageant.net, assisted by Ken Smith who has continued editing the blog since Bageant's death. Bageant also served as a senior (roving) editor with Cyrano's Journal Today and The Greanville Post, two sites devoted to progressive political and media analyses.

During the last years of his life, Bageant lived in Ajijic, a small town on Lake Chapala in central Mexico. He had been living in Ajijic, where he wrote "Rainbow Pie," when he learned that he had a fast-growing and inoperable cancer.

On January 4, 2011, Bageant announced on his web site that he had been "struck down by an extremely serious form of cancer" that was inoperable and so he was unable to engage in correspondence or his usual work, but he hoped to be able to resume them in the future.

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