When we set out to look at far-right extremism in Upstate New York, we had a few basic questions. First, we wanted to know the status of the far-right movement here. What do people believe in? What groups and militias have been active? We found that all...
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The problem with this statement is that liberal/left/environmentalist forces have been waging a war on coal for decades now, and winning. This is the root of the rural working class turn against the Democrats. We had nearly 200k coal workers in the 80s, and now it’s down to under 50k. That’s people directly employed in coal, not to mention those employed in the thriving rural economies they supported. Millions of people have been impacted by the decline of coal, and right or wrong, they perceive Democrats as responsible for both the decline, and the failure to support the people who were impacted.
At this point you have generational poverty as a result of the closure of coal mines and plants, and you have kids growing up who don’t know what it used to be like, they only know the abandoned buildings and drug addiction they grow up surrounded by. I’m not saying we have to tolerate the negative attitudes that fester in these situations, but we do have to understand where they come from, and we certainly shouldn’t let it stop us from trying to make things better. If people have positive, productive things to do, they won’t spend all their time on the internet finding reasons to hate their neighbors, and that facet of the problem will solve itself over time.
a. Coal sucks. It was never going to last forever. It’s horrible for the environment at like every stage.
b. 200k people is nothing. There are almost that many people living in my neighborhood of Brooklyn alone. I’m not keen on them having so much more political power than here.
Mining for coal again is just a non starter. There’s only so much in the ground to begin with, and a lot of people don’t want the environment to be damaged that badly.
There are things we could do as a society to make things better. Probably none of the good ideas come from the right wing. Basic income or government work programs would probably help. Letting the free market decide will just lead to people being exploited and the environment savaged.
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There’s a vast political center in the post-industrial east, northeast and midwest willing to be pursuaded. The Democrats have certainly attempted to do the right thing for the climate… sort of… but have utterly failed to consider the effects on industrial communities as the industry leaves. Then they add insult to injury by saying things like “learn to code”… but then not doing anything about the spiraling cost of education. This has been going on for decades, and the result is generations of impoverished people losing trust in the political process and falling victim to narratives of fear and hate.
Understanding this is step zero in beginning to steer this ship left again.
What a horrible, neoliberal thing to say.
It’s not just 200k people, it’s hundreds of thousands more that lost their livelihoods when the main economic driver in their area shut down.
I’m not arguing for coal (it’s 2024, why are we still using it at all?), I’m arguing against abandoning an entire population of people who made their livings off of it and its cascading economic effects.
As they say: Adapt or die. For the rural folk, they’ve been failing to adapt, nows the time for the follow-up.
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You seem to be arguing with me, but I agree with almost everything you say. In particular stuff like:
Corporate merger? How about we start with nationalize both companies, guillotine the executives, and hand it all over to unions?
We shouldn’t compromise on getting rid of coal, but we should make sure the people and communities affected are taken care of in the aftermath. Or should have, anyway, that ship has basically sailed. It’s the same neoliberal psychopathy that turned the post-industrial northeast and midwest into a war zone in the 60s-80s.