West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D) says he is “thinking seriously” about leaving the Democratic Party and declaring himself an independent before the 2024 election, when he will have to decide whet…
“If it was good enough for my grandpa (dead at 45 from black lung), my father (currently in hospice with lung cancer) and me (on disability after a collapse), its good enough for my kids (TBD)!”
I think its partially familiarity, and partially that a lot of the communities were formed around these mines… and without them the community will dry up and wither away. Which is a hard pill to swallow for people who’ve lived there for multiple generations.
It also doesn’t help that Appalachia has basically been reduced to an internal resource colony. Never mind the people who actually live there, its only purpose has been extraction, and everything was built around that. Yes it’s brutal, but it paid well. When that dries up it’s basically an existential threat. It’s not just a case of being set in their ways.
To me, there’s little difference between the desire in Appalachia to bring back coal and the desire to bring back factories from overseas.
“If it was good enough for my grandpa (dead at 45 from black lung), my father (currently in hospice with lung cancer) and me (on disability after a collapse), its good enough for my kids (TBD)!”
I think its partially familiarity, and partially that a lot of the communities were formed around these mines… and without them the community will dry up and wither away. Which is a hard pill to swallow for people who’ve lived there for multiple generations.
It also doesn’t help that Appalachia has basically been reduced to an internal resource colony. Never mind the people who actually live there, its only purpose has been extraction, and everything was built around that. Yes it’s brutal, but it paid well. When that dries up it’s basically an existential threat. It’s not just a case of being set in their ways.
To me, there’s little difference between the desire in Appalachia to bring back coal and the desire to bring back factories from overseas.