...it’s you:
Again and again, President-elect Donald Trump presented himself as the coal miners’ candidate. During the campaign, he promised to bring coal back into the economy, and jobs back into struggling Appalachian towns.
But now some in coal country are worried that instead of helping, Trump’s first actions will deprive miners — and their widows and children — of the compensation they can receive if they are disabled by respiratory problems linked to breathing coal mine dust.
That’s because buried in the Affordable Care Act are three sentences that made it much easier to access these benefits. If Trump repeals Obamacare — as he vowed to do before the election — and does not keep that section on the books, the miners will be back to where they were in 2009, when it was exceedingly difficult to be awarded compensation for “black lung” disease.
This is by no means a done deal, given that at least some coal-country legislators (Joe Manchin, for one) have declared their support for retaining this in whatever comes out of the health care catastrophe the GOP is determined to commit. But McConnell is, as usual, mum on the matter, and if I were a coal mining family depending on the pittance they do get (top payment for a miner with three dependents: $1,289/month), I’d be getting ready not for hard times — they’re already here — but worse.
[update: obligatory post soundtrack]
The key change the ACA implemented in black lung cases was to shift the burden of proof: instead of a miner having to prove that the work caused the disease, under the new rules,
If a miner has spent 15 years or more underground and can prove respiratory disability, then it is presumed to be black lung related to mine work, unless the company can prove otherwise.
This wasn’t a case of free money all around. As reporter Eric Boodman writes, “In 2009, 19 percent of claims for black lung benefits were successful; in 2015, that percentage had jumped to 28.” That’s a big jump — but hardly evidence that the black lung compensation process is a wild government grab of beleaguered coal company assets.
Those companies hate the rule, with a spokesman telling Boodman that it’s created “a supplemental pension program” rather than the compensation for occupational disease, which is as fine a bit of high priced turd polishing as I’ve seen in a while.
TL:DR? Think of this as Mencken’s rule in action:
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
Trump voters in coal country — West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky — were promised their country back.
What will they receive?
The shaft, deeper and darker than any hole miners have dug in the hunt for what will continue to kill them where they stand.
Image: Léonard Defrance, Coal Mining, before 1805.
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Belafon
Until these people figure out that blacks aren’t the only people who will be affected by their votes, that they and their loved ones will be as well, we will continue to struggle to make things better.
OzarkHillbilly
Got Vasel!ne?
Emma
To paraphrase Charles Pierce, I am ashamed of my sins against charity. But for years I’ve heard about this and each time, each time, these people vote for the people who are going to screw them over. It’s the classic sign of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And we’re supposed to understand and accept and coax.
Is everyone as tired as I am of this?
Barbara
The main issue with proving disability related to black lung disease is that a lot of applicants also smoke, which presents an alternative theory of lung disease. My grandmother received the dependent/widow version of black lung compensation because my grandfather worked in underground mines until the age of 69. In effect, it gives coal miners an alternative to Social Security disability that other people don’t have.
Botsplainer
I’m OK with this.
Lurking Canadian
There is a reasonable probability that the Republicans could just rename the ACA something like Trump’s Making America Great Maximum Free Market Great Job Creating Health Care Deal and pass it exactly as is, then claim it’s WAAAAY better than that vile Obamacare. the TMAGMFMGJCHCD would immediately jump to 90% favourable ratings.
Major Major Major Major
“Repeal Obamacare!”
“No not the parts I like, just the parts that make it actually work!”
JPL
ACA also extended the full solvency of medicare by eleven years, and how did those over 65 vote? They just assume that they will be covered.
The Truffle
They wanted to “make America great again.” Why they think black lung disease and lack of coverage is so great is beyond me.
Another thing: isn’t it understood that coal mining jobs aren’t coming back? Or at least, not coming back in great numbers?
I’m all for letting the consequences of their votes sink in for them. At least a panic when they realize elections really do have consequences for them.
john (not mccain)
I wish there was a way to make it such that only Trump-voting scumbags suffer because of him.
The Truffle
@Emma: At least, let these people have a sudden scare when they realize what voted for. And the Democrats need to follow Schumer’s “make our day” rhetoric.
I keep wanting to believe that this election was an extinction burst for a certain line of thinking and a certain paradigm. Meanwhile, is it okay to call these Trumpkins “useful idiots” yet?
Butch
Remember when Bevin was elected in Kentucky how many people admitted that they knew their vote meant the end of their health insurance but that was OK because Bevin was against same sex marriage? I’ve lost the ability to feel sympathy.
Major Major Major Major
@john (not mccain): Given that this particular thing only affects coal country…
Barbara
I have no doubt this was one of Jay Rockefeller’s 11th hour insertions into the ACA, among a few others (the MLR provisions). He obviously had learned the art of using the legislative process to advance his priorities.
The Moar You Know
So sorry, YOU WERE FUCKING REPEATEDLY WARNED but the thought of a black man in charge was just too much for you to handle.
Must be that “economic anxiety” I’m hearing so much about.
Fuck these people.
Botsplainer
@Butch:
Yep.
Lurking Canadian
@JPL: And Ryan’s going to USE THAT AGAINST Medicare. “Because of Obamacare, Medicare is only solvent for the next eleven years, so we’ll have to cut it. Blame it on Obama”.
And CNN’s going to let him, because of his dreamy blue eyes and winning smile.
germy
Don Blankenship for Secretary of Labor…
Anonymous patient
Here’s what I fear. People have remarked about fearing the nazis rampaging in the streets, as a result of der Dumpf’s [that was his family name when his grandfather Dumpf arrived as an immigrant] election. That isn’t what I fear. Home grown nazi nutjobs aren’t very scary.
I fear a new law enforcement organization nation-wide, with new uniforms and a new role, protecting the unitary head of government from everything the unitary head of government doesn’t want around him. I fear that this LEO will have its own new judiciary system, which answers only to the unitary head of government. Obviously the unitary government will control local state law enforcement organizations, the county sheriffs, city cops, the unitary-state will be the only government there is.
I fear seeing this org coming and taking away muslim doctors that have saved the lives of multiple hundreds of people, and their life-saving work not helping them nor their families to survive. I fear hearing rumors about the camps where “those people” are kept, and what happens there. I fear worrying about when they will come for me, because I’m on the federal books as contributing to and working for Democratic candidates.
I worry that I will be early on those lists because I’m on a public list of state concealed carry permittees, and thus obviously an owner of guns NOT part of the unitary head of state support network.
All this makes me want to carry all the time, even at home. A friend and I talked about this fear, he said, “Don’t worry, you don’t look that different from everyone else where you live!” which isn’t the point I was making – I’m on those lists, and they will work off those lists. Friend, on election day night, stashed loaded handguns around his house, well hidden but easily available, so I’m not the only person in fear.
I’m not afraid of random home-grown nazi assholes. I’m afraid of Nazis as part of the unitary-state government apparatus. What then?
With Banner, an actual living and breathing fascist working at the right hand of the demented president, how far-fetched does this black horror show seem? Is one silly to ponder worst case scenarios?
Pogonip
@Lurking Canadian: You know, that’s a good idea! Although they should probably shorten the name a little. Maybe something like the “American Health Freedom Act”? Politicians here who use words like “freedom,” “AMerica,” “patriotic” can get away with a lot.
No politician will ever dare to say ” deplorable” for the next 50 years. “And I condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the de–um, the de–uh, the not-very-nice attack at THE Ohio State University!”
Mnemosyne
@Barbara:
And I wouldn’t be surprised if smoking makes a person more susceptible to black lung since we already know that smoking can make people more susceptible to a whole range of cancers — for example, it turns out that smoking plus alcohol-based mouthwash can cause various mouth cancers. So it’s probably not a simple either/or equation.
janeform
Dems need to jump on this yesterday with scary TV ads. If they don’t, it’s malpractice. We should be permanently in campaign mode.
The Truffle
@janeform: This. Who do we contact with ideas?
Major Major Major Major
@Anonymous patient:
The FBI, especially after the PATRIOT Act, has all of this authority. Trump just needs some Hugo Boss uniforms.
Barbara
@janeform: Only if it’s part of a larger effort to protect the ACA. I don’t see this particular provision as being more important than other provisions. Basically, people in Kentucky and West Virginia don’t seem to be all that motivated by protecting benefits they receive. How much political capital exactly are we supposed to devote to their welfare?
Botsplainer
@germy:
Risk manager for the company that had that Texas fertilizer plant that blew up as OSHA director…
Pogonip
@Anonymous patient: Well, I don’t think it’s ever silly to plan for a disaster. If it makes you feel any better, though, I think this one unlikely.
Botsplainer
@Barbara:
None – please quit protecting Appalachian American wingnuts. They have Jesus….
Chris
@Belafon:
Or until they figure out that maybe screwing themselves in order to screw black people is no way to go through life, more likely.
“We will have peace when they love their children more than they hate us.” I don’t know how much I agree with the original Golda Meir quote, but as applied to modern U.S. politics, it’s spot on.
Major Major Major Major
@Botsplainer:
Buh buh but Hillbilly Elegy!
Chris
@Anonymous patient:
Why new? Why can’t the existing authorities do the same?
Schlemazel
@The Moar You Know:
I’m with you – fuck ’em. They wanted this, hell, they demanded it. It would be a crime to not let Trump & the GOP fuck them up their stupid asses so hard it might cause the light to go on in what passes for their brains
Major Major Major Major
@Chris: Can, have, will. Like I said, Trump just needs to want it, and some Hugo Boss uniforms.
WereBear
As long as they believe things which are not true, they will continue to be the boot in the gears, sabotaging attempts to make everyone better.
That is what seems to stick in their craws; the fact that we are the tide that lifts all boats. It really isn’t enough that their children be fed; they want other children to go hungry.
That is what they have to change.
germy
Traffic was tied up for hours. Children late for school. Ambulances delayed. Who in their fucking right mind would write wildstein a fan letter?
A twisted moral compass or does he have no morals at all?
Gindy51
@Butch: Yes, not one drop of sympathy left for anyone who voted for Trump. Just found out a new FB friend is a trump supporter… unfriended even before I got two posts into her timeline. Blocked her sorry ass as well.
Carol
The hook here is that these people don’t realize that the help they’re getting is actually Obamacare. McConnell and his fellow conspirators have taken great care to call it something else. These former miners are probably among those who are crying for the end of Obamacare.
Betty Cracker
They sure did “send a message,” didn’t they? Unfortunately for them, the message was, “I’m an idiot — please redirect my benefits money to plutocrats who will repossess my hovel and throw me out into the street to choke to death on my own phlegm.” Oh well. Elections, consequences, etc.
Mnemosyne
@Anonymous patient:
FWIW, despite Trump’s big talk, it would be very difficult to create a new agency like that thanks to the Posse Comitatus Act. There would have to be legislation passed by Congress and signed by Trump to do it, and even then the blue states like California, New York, and Illinois would resist.
So while you need to feel safe, don’t get too carried away into paranoia. If nothing else, you will have plenty of notice that this is in the wind. It’s not 1934 and people know what out-of-control governments are capable of.
Major Major Major Major
@Gindy51: Why not just unfollow? I save blocking for people who harass me.
@Mnemosyne: FBI is not military.
J R in WV
My grandfather worked in a coal mine, he was a “hoist engineer” in the sense of a locomotive engineer, a man skilled in working on a complex large machine, repairing it as needed, moving tons of coal, heavy equipment, and hundreds of men up and down 555 feet to the rich coal seam.
When a load of coal reached his work station, it dumped into a chute, amid a cloud of – wait for it – coal dust. All day, every shift, at least 5 days a week.
He died in 1951, when I was a babe in arms. I don’t remember him at all. Everyone liked him, his family worked hard and saved, and bought their own farm near the coal camp, built a little country store.
My Grandma lived a long time as a single person. Closed her little store in the mid fifties, as travel to bigger stores became more common, and took a job. I believe she had several tiny pensions that added up to a reasonable amount, Grandpa fought in WW I, he was a blacksmith shoeing mules carrying material to the front over seas. I believe he worked at a harbor, making sure the mules would be sound when they hit France. So there was a very small pension there.
She had a small miner’s dependent pension, after all grandpa worked all his life in the coal mine, except for that time in the army. Very small, of course.
She had a little Social Security check, because she worked for a time after FDR created the SS administration.
She also eventually got a Black Lung Check, because grandpa died of lung disease, he had lung cancer, what we now call COPD, and Black Lung. Of course, those checks didn’t exist when he died. But he was diagnosed, I saw the paper work. His final hospital stay cost over $100 dollars, mostly for the oxygen that kept him going a few days longer.
But they couldn’t treat any of those diseases, no more than they can today. There was a in-famous radiologist at Johns Hopkins who never ever found any sign of black lung in any miner’s X-rays, ever. Eventually he was fired, because most of those miners died of black lung, after suffering in poverty.
He was really popular with coal companies, for some reason. He probably saved them many millions of dollars in black lung pension benefits. I hope he counts his money every day, and wonders what it costs him.
Roger Moore
So is that an admission that all coal miners wind up with black lung?
Gindy51
@Major Major Major Major: I read some of her timeline, she was NUTS in capital letters. Our only connection is a game we both play so not worth bothering with her as I have more than enough friends to play that game. I do not need a raving trumpette as one of them
germy
Meanwhile…
WaPo
Kathleen
@john (not mccain): This. But I can’t resist adding a boo effin hoo for those who voted for Trump. And Bevin.
germy
@J R in WV: My grandfather was in a mining accident in 1915. I don’t know all the details; I wish I did. I do remember my father telling me a story once many years ago about an elevator accident in the mine; a rope snapped or something , and several workers fell to their deaths.
I think my grandfather survived but was permanently maimed (and therefore no use to the company). I don’t know if my grandmother received any gov. money in 1915.
Botsplainer
@germy:
In South Carolina, there is a nonzero chance of either an acquittal or a pardon.
Jeff Sessions is probably planning on holding a job open for him at the DOJ Civil Rights Division.
Vhh
Sic semper amentibus.
Это курам на смех
Deja vu all over again. Here is H.L. Mencken, in 1925, describing William Jennings Bryan:
Gavin
Democrats are the only ones who do anything for workers.
But the DLC [not some of the representatives individually] has forgotten how the New Deal was achieved and sustained: Not by identity politics but by tangible, actual benefits.
Democrats need to get back to that: Actual benefits for working class citizens and constant reminders of those benefits. Bleating about racism/sexism just benefits Trump.
SatanicPanic
I don’t think anything will ever get through to most of these people. They live in bubble of fake news and bad pop country, all of which tells them that there are surrounded by mean people who are out to get them.
SatanicPanic
@Gavin:
Like Obamacare?
germy
@Это курам на смех:
pamelabrown53
@Anonymous patient: #19
Jeebus. You don’t have enough scary stuff in real time to worry about that you have to swing for the conspiracy land fences?
Butch
@Gindy51: I’m getting “we should be giving him a chance” e-mails from a friend who is a lesbian and I truly don’t know how to respond. Give him a chance because his behavior is going to be different suddenly? Because he isn’t actually going to do all the things he said he would do on the campaign trail? Because all the anti-gay people he’s naming to his administration will have a change of heart?
Major Major Major Major
@SatanicPanic: He said “identity politics”. Drink. And ignore.
Central Planning
Speaking of trumpkins, I just read this RawStory article about fundamentalist rural America.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
FTFY.
ET
I would say that I feel bad for them but considering that there is a good chance most of them voted for him I don’t.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: Not catching my reference? :P
Emma
@Gavin: Wonderful. Here we go again. Let’s ignore the social issues so we can keep the WWC happy!
Roger Moore
@WereBear:
And given the choice, they’ll go with everyone being hungry rather than everyone fed. That’s the part that bothers me the most.
Betty Cracker
@Gavin: The DLC ceased to exist several years ago. Try to keep up.
germy
@Botsplainer:
so there’ll be a place for him in the new administration for minority outreach?
Major Major Major Major
@Emma: Bouie has a great piece on how the siloization of identity politics as separate from economic concerns is bullshit.
Ruckus
@germy:
I’m going with none for $5000, Alex.
“It’s Ruckus, For the Win!”
piratedan
@Central Planning: that’s it in a nutshell. What makes this worse is all of these bleeping stories and sites that are out there pushing this whole alt-universe crap. They’re anti-science, praying for Jesus to let them win the lottery types of news sourcing that is all using the Faux News reality model to shape people. So you can’t even tell them that the truth is out there, you got to use a crap-free search engine to even point them to something that has a kernel of the truth in it, then you have to hope that they’ll read it, and hope that they’ll understand it. They can’t be bothered because there’s this really cute fella on The Voice and they want to hear him sing.
Kyle
Admittedly, I’m still bitter and angry from the election, but West Virginia voted for Trump by a huge margin. Let them have what they voted for, and suffer for it. True too about the seniors. They were all in for Trump, let them have what they voted for and see what life’s gonna be like without Medicare.
Major Major Major Major
@Kyle: If there was a way to separate it out like that, we wouldn’t be a democracy any more. And a parliament-like way to force the will of a bare majority (or in this case not even that) onto everybody is… bad for minorities, to say the least.
Ruckus
@Gindy51:
I do the same.
You support that shithead, you are not my friend.
Elections have consequences.
EBT
@Gavin: Anyone who says “Identity Politics” is either a fool or really angry non white males have rights.
Lizzy L
@Kyle: Gotta push back against this. Some people over 65 voted for T. Some of us didn’t. Why should those of us who tried hard to get HRC elected be punished because you’re pissed at the old people who voted for T? Fuck off.
Gravenstone
@Barbara:
Which would be darkly humorous, if not for the serious health consequences, given the bald faced lies about how innocuous their product was that big tobacco peddled for decade upon decade amongst the same groups of peoples.
trollhattan
@Emma:
Gonna be a long four years.
Roger Moore
@EBT:
Slavery was the original identity politics, and Jim Crow was more of the same. The people who whine the most about identity politics are people who don’t want to admit that whiteness is an identity.
Facebones
If it wasn’t for the colossal clusterfuck that a Trump presidency will cause this country, I’d be more than happy to sit back and watch these idiots realize that they got conned and conned hard. Unfortunately, their idiot vote is going to hurt millions of people in this country now and for decades to come once the supreme court is stacked. So I cannot feast on schadenfreude today.
pamelabrown53
@Butch: #54
You might start with telling your lesbian friend all about the extreme homophobe VP-elect: Mike Pence. From there you remind lesbian friend that we people of decency, sanity, reality with a moral core will not be party to normalizing him or his hateful rhetoric.Too much normalizing occurring in the MSM, we need to resist.
janeform
@The Truffle: Good question. I’m going to raise it at the county party level (we have a great one) and with my representatives. Also the new head of the DNC, Schumer, and Pelosi.
@Barbara: Messaging on the black lung provision should definitely tie it to ACA repeal. It can’t be complicated. Needs work, but something like: Donald Trump and [insert Republican representative] want to take away your black lung compensation. Say no to ACA repeal.
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: Not buying, sorry. I’ve been at the receiving end of “sit down, we’ll get to you as soon as we take care of (man’s name)” a little too often. I understand that it should be a coordinated effort to try an deal with all the problems, but in these situations, a little too often, it’s the white men who get their problems dealt with first.
(added to for clarity)
...now I try to be amused
Part of their country back — the part that doesn’t pay black lung benefits. Funny how they want back a country that didn’t treat them all that well.
Bill
All my life people have called me a cynic and a pessimist. Truthfully, they’re right. (Although I prefer to think of myself as a realist.) I’m coming to the realization that part of what’s so horribly upsetting to me about this election is that fact that Americans are actually worse/dumber than I imagined. I didn’t think it was possible, yet here we are.
Fuck coal country. They voted for this shit. They own it.
Major Major Major Major
@Emma: Is that in response to Bouie’s piece? I’m not tracking.
pamelabrown53
@Major Major Major Major: #64
Thanks for the link; well worth reading. I particularly like the term “siloization”.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@germy: Not to mention that Bridgegate ended Christi’s polical career.
Barbara
@Emma: Did you read it? I think it’s pie in the sky, towards the end because, among other reasons, Jackson’s vision was not all that successful. Bouie does identify the main problem, however, which is the number of people who think that life is a zero sum gain and any advantage to someone not like them comes at their direct expense. I also agree with Bouie that Sanders’ olive branch to Trump is likely to end up being used as a poison pen against him. There is no doubt in my mind that Trump is going to wink at overtly discriminatory hiring practices in whatever infrastructure related funding gets passed.
EBT
@Roger Moore: Well I wasn’t going to just come out and say that Gavin is likely a bigot but he is likely a bigot yes.
VOR
This quote from “Animal House” gets a lot of use: “…you can’t spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! You fucked up… you trusted us!”
germy
Mnemosyne
@Gavin:
The DLC doesn’t exist anymore. It disbanded at least 10 years ago. And the Blue Dogs got wrecked in the 2010 midterms.
You’re arguing against a party that doesn’t actually exist anymore.
Major Major Major Major
@Barbara: A lot of Obama’s rhetoric was very reminiscent of things like Jackson’s quilt metaphor, though; just a couple decades later and “less black”.
pamelabrown53
@germy: #88
germy, what did Conway say about Trump that supposedly has him steamed?
Thanx.
Major Major Major Major
@pamelabrown53: She said nasty things about Romney.
germy
@pamelabrown53: The only time Conway said anything bad about drumpf was when she was being paid by Cruz to do so.
She knows upon which side her bread is buttered.
Emma
@Barbara: I did. And I am in agreement with some of the same things you discuss. BUT I am not sure that the approach can work and I would hate to feel that nobody is looking after social issues in the rush to capture the WWC.
Emma
@Major Major Major Major: Yes. And it was a bit intemperate, but I do not trust that the political process will work as he describes it. Now if Obama wanted a job….
Darkrose
@Gravenstone: Don’t forget that the new VP argued for years that tobacco doesn’t cause cancer.
Jeffro
@Facebones:
Amen.
Made my calls to VA’s Senators and my Rep: NO CHANGES to Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare.
Also made my plea to some notable columnists and bloggers: ramp UP on pressuring the Electors to vote their conscience and not elect Donald. Will post that here later this evening.
Major Major Major Major
@Emma: I’ve found him to be appropriately shrill since the election, but YMMV. He’s hitting many of the same notes as Ellison, who I’m liking more and more as he runs for DNC chair but he’s still unfortunately a sitting congressman. Good figurehead but can he organize?
Barbara
@Emma: Well, I think Bouie is disavowing Sanders because of his rush to embrace the specifically white working class while at the same time he is overtly criticizing what he calls identity or diversity politics. I read Bouie as specifically rejecting the direct appeal to white voters that disregards other people and other issues.
Chris
@Central Planning:
That’s a great article. One of my raised-in-the-poor-white-South friends approvingly posted it on Facebook recently.
What really makes me want to slap all those “but you arrogant liberals have to try to understand the white rural Trump voters!” is that what they’re actually asking isn’t for us to understand them! They’re asking us to do exactly the opposite: craft a narrative out of pure bullshit that conforms to their beloved Noble Savage view of white rural America, no matter how much it contradicts everything observable about their politics, their worldview, and their behavior WRT economics, politics, and identity.
Barbara
@Jeffro: Are you in Beyer’s district or Comstock’s? Someone should be calling her every day and asking about what’s going to happen to property values in No Va when Trump starts axing federal workers and what she plans to do about it. God, I wish that district could field a more credible Democratic candidate.
Chris
@piratedan:
Yeah. As several have pointed out since this election, it’s white rural America that lives in a bubble. Unfortunately, the system (going all the way back to the electoral college) is designed to allow them to continue living in that bubble and be as sheltered as possible from outside events if they choose.
Major Major Major Major
@Chris:
Basically they’re asking us to treat them like the Neocons treat foreigners in countries they want to invade and install a liberal capitalist democracy in.
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
Never thought of it quite that way. But yeah.
(Remember when liberals were all racists for not believing that Iraqis wanted American style democracy? Boy, that meme died a quick death).
PIGL
@Kyle: Yup. A million times yup. People are going to suffer dearly because of Trump’s election, and the Senate and House and State-level wins that went with it. Natural Justice demands that the ranks of the suffering include those who brought it about.
Jeffro
@Barbara:
Connolly’s. I’m calling him, Warner, and Kaine once a week to make sure they know NO CHANGES to Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare. (I was thinking about 3x/week but that’s a bit much…will find some other way to get the point across. I wonder how much an ad in the WaPo costs…)
I talked so much trash about Comstock this past fall that even my kids know what a wackaloon she is….negative advertising: it works! LOL
sunny raines
as trump shafts the trumptilians over and over and over again, each time I’m going to find it exceedingly hard to have one bit of sympathy for them.
sunny raines
@SatanicPanic:
profile of a trumptilian: miserable loser that blames everyone except themselves for their misery.
Greg in PDX
@Butch: I lived in Louisville and I donated a lot of time working to help people in Eastern Kentucky get better services via the people that I helped to elect to state and federal offices. Louisville basically supports Eastern Kentucky financially where 75% of the eastern counties’ residents are on some form of public assistance. And how did they show their gratitude? By electing Bevin who in just a few months undid it all, because he stood up for horrible Kim Davis and vowed to defend “religious liberty” ( AKA “Special Rights For Evangelical Christians”). I also no longer care about them. Obama was spot on with his “bitter clingers” remark. Now I live in Oregon where our rednecks are outnumbered by a factor of 20 or so, which means we can ignore them.
NW Phil
Some folks in this country just don’t want to admit there are actual social classes in this country and they are the bottom of the pile. Being whitish only gets you so far anywhere in the world.
The Truffle
How do you distinguish between the dead enders and the people who voted for Obama and then Trump (i.e., people who maybe, maybe, maybe can be reached)?
BTW, Bevin is up for re-election in 2018, right? And Kentucky elected a Dem governor a few years back.
I still think governor races are the way out of the woods for Dems.