Think This Coal Country Southerner Voted for Trump?

[IronLionZion]

Coal miner gives a very thoughtful answer about what's happening to coal jobs. The TYT reporter is deliberately trying to bait him but he seems like an intelligent reasonable person, possibly liberal. There's a good chance there are more like him.

People will eventually find out that Dolt 45 lied to them and took them for granted. We can start winning again in these previously reliably Democratic regions on a jobs platform.

[Wellstone ruled]

1. With Power Plant

re-licensing happening across the Nation. Many operators will be shutting down those older Plants that are at there or beyond there design and efficiency life span. Nat Gas is cheaper than coal,and now Solar and Wind are even cheaper.

What is sad,is these Politicians not facing the real truth.. Either we retrain people and move them to viable areas for the new jobs,or we pay them some type of payment to live out their days where they are. Eourpe has already come to grips with this issue.

[Warpy]

2. I doubt it, he's got too much upstairs

He's got a good handle on what's killed coal jobs over the last couple of decades. He knows that's not going to change and he's well aware that immigrants aren't flooding into coal mining jobs and undercutting the unions. He knows what's going on and I honestly doubt he was dumb enough to think Dolt45 was capable of doing anything about it. Coal will never go away completely, not while there is steel to be made, but the boom years are over.

This guy seems to know that.

The only thing that might have caused him to cast a vote for Doltie is pathological Clinton hatred. There was a lot of that going around in coal country and in the rust belt.

[maddiemom]

8. The mystery is that he does have enough upstairs to understand that Trump was full of shit...

Stranger things are at play here, I've posted some personal experience below in this thread WAS it Hillary being a woman who was too blunt "Outsider" Jay Rockefeller served West Virginia for years and became appreciated by many in the state. Trump just floated in from time to time and was believed by the citizens who had to know better regarding the coal industry--to be promoting a lie. Was it just "anti-woman"? I must admit that it never occurred to me before

[IronLionZion]

14. It is strange indeed

because many of them do know better. They know that Trump is a "yankee braying jackass who needs his ass whooped" but they have problems with Hillary. Yes, she had plans for job training but people were not liking it. No other jobs there provide the pay of coal mining. And there was irrational Hillary hate, Hillary specifically not just opposition to a woman.

Her messaging was terrible. I couldn't believe it since she had the experienced professionals on her side plus our media and party machine. There were a few analysts who did side by side comparisons of Hillary's and Trump's campaign messages and Trump's were more memorable and resonated with more people even though it was complete BS. He made people feel something and it motivated them to vote for an unqualified piece of shit.

[Rural_Progressive]

10. I'm probably going to regret this but....

I am posting this with the greatest of respect but you probably won't like it anyway.

First, I don't think this guy voted for the Bloated One. He might not have voted for anyone but the way his mind appears to work, no vote for the Traitor in Chief.

As to Ms Clinton and the pathological hatred for her. Not only did she come to the party full of baggage from her husband's time in office. She was, and is, totally identified as part of the Wall Street and political establishment in rural America. You noticed that the rust belt and hinterland did not cotton to the republican establishment candidates this time around either.

But the real problem, and I cringe as I type this, is the idea of expecting the good ol' boys and girls of rural America to have put up with a ni.....black president for 8 years and expect them to embrace the idea of a gawd dam woman running the country for another 4 years. I don't think any woman, even Warren, would have won in my part of the country but maybe enough urban folks would have turned out to have kept dRump out of office

As much as many of us didn't want to accept it, we have had the racism and misogyny of a significant percentage of our fellow 'muricans shoved right in our face.

Had we had Biden or Sanders as the democratic candidate Trumplestiltskin would be a pathetic footnote in America's political history right now.

[Warpy]

15. I see absolutely nothing in your post that I disagree with

Surprise, surprise!

I agree that the guy in the video probably gave up in sheer disgust and sat on his couch drinking a cold one rather than going out to vote. I really don't see him voting for Dolt.

I don't see him voting for Clinton, either, honestly.

I always thought the party completely underestimated misogyny (especially, as you pointed out, after people had endured a black guy in office for eight years) and the Clinton baggage. I live in a largely rural state and heard a lot of both these complaints and I always thought it was a bad idea to push two "firsts" back to back. I voted for Clinton, anyway, as did a majority of my fellow New Mexicans. A vote for Dolt was unthinkable. That wasn't the case in red states bordering us.

I hope the housecleaning Perez and his deputy party chair Ellison are doing will have a positive effect on healing some of the wounds and bringing the party together.

[Thinkingabout]

19. Hillary did talk about retraining the coal minors, Trump threw them a carrot to bring back

The coal mining jobs, Trump was lying.

[GWC58]

29. They fell

for his "bring back the coal jobs" lie hook, line and sinker." Many of his supporters, not all, will blame Obama and Democrats. I'm talking about the "make Murica great agin." The real brain surgeons of his supporters.

[True Blue American]

21. I absolutely agree with your post.

It was very clear the hate of Hillary was fed by those who had nothing to feed on but Hillary hate.

It was also very clear that a good share of the Bernie backers were in that same pattern..
I never saw so much Hillary hate on various boards by those who called themselves Democrats.

We also know the Russians were behind much of this and so many bought it.

Notice how many protests now that people realize they put Trump and Republicans in charge to do their dirty work of destroying the protections Democrats have tried to build up through the years,starting with FDR?

[GWC58]

27. Okay, so I'm guessing

Bernie would've run unscathed by the right wing hate machine? They'd have thrown everything, plus the kitchen sink, at him. He still may have won, but maybe not.

[Rural_Progressive]

28. Of course he wouldn't have been unscathed

but he would not have encountered and engendered the visceral hatred felt towards Clinton(s). He would have won. Biden certainly would have won.

Would either of them been effective under the current circumstances? That is another question entirely.

[DinahMoeHum]

3. "Ain't no damn immigrant stole a coal job. . ."

at 1:03 of the video

[maddiemom]

4. This guy was great...

and just the sort of mine worker I knew several decades ago when living in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. My ex was a mining engineer and managed mines in those areas several decades ago. It was never unusual to know and interact and socialize with regular miners and their families (my ex was also the son of a strong union miner in Pennsylvania),. Back up North, and still in touch with a liberal friend from those days, I've heard unpleasant, hidden racist stuff about Mitch
McConnell (but wait...his wife is Asian...'nother story). This clip is EXACTLY why I couldn't understand how these guys swallowed the Trump line. Hillary made a big mistake in claiming coal mining dead, because nobody stayed to hear her alternate energy plan for the area . These guys knew Trump was full of shit about mining jobs, but still voted for him?

[zentrum]

5. Wasn't the mine worker's

...union once one of the most progressive in the country?

[Plucketeer]

6. All they needed was a

DEMOCRATIC populist - one that DIDN'T have a boxcar full of "baggage" - one that hadn't been char-broiled for years prior to their run - one that chained themselves to the oppressed instead of lawyering for a chain store mega-enterprise.

[zentrum]

12. Yeah, I know what...

...you mean.

[kag]

13. One named "Bernie" perhaps?

[Warpy]

16. One named "Joe" might have been better

especially if he'd lifted a few of Bernie's better ideas like Clinton did.

Unfortunately, the death of his son had left him too traumatized by grief to run.

[True Blue American]

22. I have to disagree on that

Sam Walton was in charge when Hillary worked for him. Sam asked her to join.

WALMART was far from the Mega business his children turned it into.

The first store in my area was full of,Made In America signs.

Please do not swallow the lie.

[maddiemom]

26. YES! I remember the "made in America" thing when Walmart was going nationwide...

and old "Mr. Sam" was still in charge

[GWC58]

30. Sam Walton was a kind man, a very good man

from what I've heard and read about. His children, on the other hand, are greedy, selfish POS Dickheads!

[True Blue American]

34. Sam took very good care of his employees, checking on them personally

When they had family problems.

His children destroyed all that by bringing in cheap goods, hard negotiations to under price competitors.

But it makes me sick for those who continue the lies about Hillary. Certainly not perfect,but head and shoulders against the one in office today. The Russian connection gets worse every day.

[maddiemom]

24. It WAS up until about the late Seventies

All it took was one miner to "throw out his water&quot from his lunch bucket) and the whole mine walked out in a wildcat strike. Originally this happened for legitimate reasons, mostly safety conditions. Gradually the older miners who'd worked their asses off to change things for the better were replaced by newer, younger guys who came aboard (still, going underground is not for everyone) and lucked into better pay, great overtime and better safety conditions. More and more, if it looked like a good day to go fishing or whatever, some "kid" would throw out his water, and a day's work would be lost for every hourly worker. This drove the veteran miners crazy, but they still had to go along due to union solidarity. My perspective on those days is based on one half of a family who were largely U.M.W.A. members and some of the management side through marriage.

[zentrum]

31. Interesting description.

Thanks for that.

Hope you get a chance to see "Salt of the Earth", a black listed little masterpiece made in the 50's about zinc miners in New Mexico. My dad told me that to see its single showing back then you had to go through a tunnel of armed policemen inside the lobby of the movie house.

They featured some actual miners and immigrants as the actors. One of the lead actors, Clinton Jencks, was jailed for a while, I think by McCarthy. But then later won a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Jencks v. United States of America. The case played some role in allowing access to documents in the Watergate investigation years later.

Michael Moore has said that this is the movie that made him a film maker.

Very advanced because it's incredibly feminist for the era.

It's on Youtube.

[maddiemom]

32. And Thank YOU! I'm currently looking it up.

I hope you've seen John Sayles' "Matewan," Classic.

[zentrum]

33. Loved "Matewan"! nt

[True Blue American]

35. The same thing

Happened with most Unions. The younger people took the better pay and benefits for granted.

Started being arrogant, voting for Republicans that did everything they could to tear down the Unions.

Now,those same people are the ones complaining about living wages,yet still vote for Republicans. Go figure.

[Hulk]

7. Gives me hope...

Educate and bring clean energy jobs to the coal mining country. These people have NOTHING ELSE. He's right...THEY are the ones choking on the coal dust and living next door to these sewer creeks and poison ground. Educate these folks, and bring them some hope.

Why can't we be manufacturing solar and wind and other green sources of energy in West Virginia and Kentucky and the other coal mining states? They NEED the jobs. They need something because coal jobs ARE NOT COMING BACK!! Drumpf and his shills are saving coal profits for the corporations. These little people are just the pawns. He gets it. We need more folks back there to see the light and demand a change and a better life.

[maddiemom]

25. I THINK Hillary had this in mind; just presented it poorly

[They_Live]

9. HE should run for office!

Absolutely.

[democrank]

11. We need more Nic Smiths, "hillbilly from the holler"

Some will laugh at him, call him "white trash", better yet....."trailer trash", throw out a few nasty comments about his camouflage jacket, or use any number of put-downs like some I've read here on DU in the past.

Nic made a solid point about the role desperation plays in some voter's decisions. It's that very point that helps me understand what motivated SOME Trump voters and leads me to believe they are not all racists.

If we were doing a good job reaching out to the Nic Smiths of this country, there would be fewer red states and more of a chance to take back some of the 1,034 state and federal seats we've lost in the last 8-9 years.

I applaud the Nic Smiths out there, some of the finest people I know. They're better at identifying problems and solutions than most of the talking heads on television or the hosts of these big-deal fundraisers.

[kag]

17. "I applaud the Nic Smiths out there"

So do I. He's smarter, by far, than many of the congresscritters out there.

I went to high school with lots of Nic Smiths, but I also knew a lot of the racist, misogynist idiots that give Nic a bad rep.

[IronLionZion]

18. Jim Webb understands Appalachian Americans

And people like him should be sent to listen to people and campaign in these areas and be a part of our party's platform building even if he's not ideal as our presidential candidate. It was a major thing when he unseated openly racist George Allen back in 2006. Back when Republicans thought they could call minorities racial slurs and still win the great state of Virginia.

We flipped Virginia blue mainly to Demographic shifts and diversity, but we seem to have lost several traditionally blue states along the way.

[LakeArenal]

20. Finally a good ole boy who seems like a good ole boy!

Good Post.

[True Blue American]

23. My kind

Of good ole boys. They are almost becoming extinct with the lies we live with.