I’m guessing many employees can’t easily be retrained from coal mining to solar or wind energy–definitely LOTS of retraining.
They’ll just cut the solar/wind energy subsidies and they’ll be out of work, too - along with the unemployed coal miners.
No wonder Elon is bending backwards to make the “good list”…
They sound like many of the town locals in/around the college town where my LAC was located in the mid-late '90s. This constant entitled complaining over earning a comfortably middle/upper-middle class job with a vocational HS diploma or sometimes less education was astounding.
Especially considering it was already out of living memory except for the seniors and middle-aged town locals even by the mid-late '90s.
Also, like what I’ve heard from friends who lived/grew up in the deep south…including West Virginia or large parts of the rust belt in the midwest(including large parts of upstate NY, many of them are only too happy to scapegoat racial minorities for their problems.
Vincent Chin who was murdered by an auto factory supervisor and his stepson in 1982 because they mistook him as one of the Japanese who “took their jobs” was one of the victims of this type of scapegoating.
There’s also the fact most are adamantly against social welfare/public assistance due to the Reagan era canard about most welfare recipients stereotyped as urban welfare queens(really coded for Black and sometimes Hispanic if one critically reads between the lines of that stereotype) despite the fact they are the biggest demographic partaking in social welfare benefits among all racial groups.
This factor was one of the key factors in the bad town-gown relations between the town locals and the college students other than the extreme divergence in political views and the fact the majority were upper/upper-middle class SES.
How someone can read this heartbreaking article and then say this is beyond me. I’m aghast at the callousness.
I’m done feeling sorry for people who willingly voted for people who were going to get rid of their healthcare - among other things they will now lose. I care about those who, through no fault of their own, are going to get screwed. But these people - no way in “fill in the blank.” Let them reap what they sowed.
We as a society will all end up paying if folks in the society get inadequate or no care–more ER jammed rooms, more untreated mental and physical illness, more premature deaths, more suffering, more things that could have been prevented or stopped before they became major health issues. 
But would it have been any different if Clinton had won? The jobs STILL wouldn’t be coming back, the ACA would still be the current health plan, and the people still wouldn’t want to move or be retrained.
… many of them are only too happy to scapegoat racial minorities for their problems.
Too true. People here go on and on about Obama’s policies and perceived mistakes, but it’s all just thinly veiled racial prejudice. That said, McDowell County has a fairly large black population and race relations there are good for the most part.
It’s not only a matter of WANTING retraining–people have different skill sets as well. The attributes that make a coal miner are not the ones that would necessarily be valued in fields where jobs are growing.
These people have health care now because of the ACA! They wouldn’t be losing it if Hillary had been elected.
And because of their stupidity everyone is going to suffer.
No politics
@marvin100 - When you live here and see the same people shooting themselves in the foot for decades, sympathy sometimes wears thin, especially when so many refuse to even try.
@Bestfriendsgirl especially interested in your comments, since you are there and we are not.
The earlier death rates for McDowell County are pretty staggering: 13 and 10 years earlier for men and women, respectively. The drug induced death rate is also 10 times the national rate.
D has been studying Appalachia for a semester and is there this week for spring break. Will be very interested in her reactions and comments. It was very enlightening when S did this a few years back. We’re in a rural, depressed area so it’s not like they are completely unaware. but still…
Her readings for this class were very interesting and heart-breaking. The loss of coal jobs, not just the ACA, was responsible for bringing many more into the clinics because they qualified for black-lung benefits and would refuse treatment while working in the mines for fear of employer reprisal. Wide seam coal being gone and having to bore through more rock, and the resulting silica dust, is causing lung problems 10-20 years earlier than previously seen with black lung.
It’s not just the mountains where people shoot themselves in the foot for decades. I get it…that’s here too and the automotive jobs aren’t coming back either.
This is one reason those people hate the Dems so much. And reading some of the comments here, it’s hard to blame them. Huge swaths of Americans have been getting screwed by the ruling class for generations now, and this last election was a great example of how people in that position will grasp at any promise of change, no matter how disingenuous.
I understand that, but you can’t blame individuals for institutional problems. It’s like blaming Fred for taking a long shower during a drought when enormous corporations are irrigating a desert. Fred may be a jerk–and I’m sure there are many people who could “help themselves” if they made better life decisions–but if the system functioned better, if the power structure were more responsive to the actual needs and wishes of the people, then that wouldn’t matter and they’d be more able to weather a few bad life decisions (like most of us can!).
Sadly these changes being proposed will really hurt their ability to access any care
“This is one reason those people hate the Dems so much. And reading some of the comments here, it’s hard to blame them. Huge swaths of Americans have been getting screwed by the ruling class for generations now, and this last election was a great example of how people in that position will grasp at any promise of change, no matter how disingenuous.”
Yes, they hate us because for years we have been fighting for progressive policies for their benefit, not to mention fighting for unions to protect them from those who will take any opportunity to exploit them. It has not been the people who they vote for who’ve been fighting for them all these years and they won’t be doing a thing to help them now, either. I hope they are happy.
I have little sympathy for people who refuse to look for other jobs because they are waiting for better jobs to come back. I was downsized 10 years ago from a job where I made a very good living. I tried getting jobs that paid as much but it wasn’t happening. After 6 weeks, I took a job that paid about 30% less because I needed to support my family. I STILL don’t make what I made before, but I am working. If I had held out for a job that paid the same as my former one, my savings would be depleted and my family would be homeless and on welfare. Sometimes, you have to bite the bullet and swallow your pride to take care of the people who depend on you.
The fight for unions has been driven largely by the actual Left in US history, not from the Dems or center-right (which is what the Dems have been since at least the early 90s), and The Dems of the last 40 years have been hawkish partners of Wall St. at the expense of the working class. The fact that the GOP has been even more grossly in that direction doesn’t give the Dems a pass, and the Dems’ condescension and disdain is part of what drives rural, poor, and working-class people into the GOP.
But this is probably too much politics.