In Maga country, Trump supporters want to get even - no matter the cost

[Dulcinea]

(The Telegraph) McDowell County, West Virginia, can be a brutal place.

In February, massive floods killed three people including a two-year-old boy who was found 10 miles downriver from the truck he was travelling in with his grandparents and sisters.

The remains of a bridge are still violently twisted across the river by the road into Welch, the county seat. Some places became so inaccessible that – in the richest country in the world – emergency services had to use pack mules to deliver supplies.

Sandi and Tony Blankenship’s kitchen table is stacked high with paperwork for families Sandi is helping to get flood recovery money to repair their wrecked homes.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/maga-country-trump-supporters-want-050000541.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&segment_id=DY_VTO_CORE&ncid=crm_19908-1475736-20250420-0-&bt_user_id=1vZUyYX9IKu08XvZmvlYRBHSpQQZaKpTLoxPiUaXwfsdN90a71L7FymD7%2B%2FB9uFw&bt_ts=1745146601027

[displacedvermoter]

1. If the Blankenships think Trump's business model

is impeccable, and can't be argued with, then the Blankenships are idiots and just the sort of folks the media seek out to stick microphones in the faces of to get the vox populi they seek.

They never tire of seeking out the most ill informed, hateful, and just plain stupid to put on the front page.

Are there no liberals at all in West Virginia
-- at a Unitarian Church rummage sale or a Green Up Day gathering, say -- they could have spoken to? No Harris voters anywhere in the United States they could have visited?

Every fucking week or so it is the same hateful and ignorant rant trotted out, I don't know that it ever changes.

[Mike 03]

2. I saw that quote.

Unfortunately, I couldn't really get this article to load but I really wanted to read it.

One of the biggest risks Trump is taking is he seems to know that his base is okay with him destroying every agency and mechanism that keeps Americans safe or helps them recover from calamities--from NOAA weather alerts to FEMA and that volunteer corps.

They would literally rather die than miss this opportunity to watch Trump go after the same people they hate.

I am interested in the thought process behind this on both sides--Why Trump is shredding all the things that keep us alive, and the MAGA dumbshits being totally okay with that. This is a degree of nihilism I thought would be possible in later-stage global warming.

[Dulcinea]

3. In my unscientific opinion...

...they want everyone to be as angry, poor, & miserable as they are. Misery loves company.

The world has moved on & left them behind.

Why they cling to the past rather than try for a better future, I don't know.

[dutch777]

7. "The world has moved on and left them behind". Or they were too ignorant or set in their ways to keep up?

The world, natural and man made, is ever changing and always has been. From ancient times if your region was drought struck you either moved on and adapted in a new locale or you starved. Maybe some tribes always stayed on and perished and were lost to history and what we know is only from survivors who were willing to change. Somehow I don't get this set in your ways even if it kills you or your way of life and be unwilling to adapt mindset. I especially don't get it in America where it was the difficult enterprise to get here and learn new ways and better our opportunities that built the country. Suppose then it is not really ironic that the "change" these folks voted for in large numbers will probably serve to disenfranchise them even more as rural aid, FEMA, extra education and food subsidies and other former government services they may need way more than average will be cut. Hard to feel sorry for the adults, but pity the children.

[Scrivener7]

4. Civics and basic economics should be required high school courses. Because that's some screaming ignorance there.

Also: "Coal went out and opioids came in." Uh, no. Coal went out and PEOPLE TOOK opioids.

I am so sick of hearing about how terrible life is for West Virginia coal country. Coal employs fewer people than Wendy's. How about we hear about how difficult life is for retail workers, where we lost 800,000 jobs in about 5 years? I'll tell you why we don't: because those WOMEN (because retail is mostly women) DIDN'T as a culture decide that Oxy was the way to go. They went out and looked for other jobs.

Hillary had hundreds of companies lined up and pledging to move offices and plants into coal country, including a lot of companies in clean energy. Coal country could have been the new clean energy region, and it would have transformed those areas.

Instead they voted for trump. And no. It's not because his "plan is impeccable," like the moron in the article said. It was because he told them their racism and sexism are just fine.

[LymphocyteLover]

5. want to get "even" how and for what?

[tanyev]

6. Oh, FFS.

“We’ve had enough politicians to destroy this country and we needed a businessman,” says Sandi. “And his business model is wonderful, impeccable. It cannot be argued with.”

Yeah, it’s hard to argue with 6 bankruptcies.

[Aristus]

8. And yet, people bristle at the stereotype of the shit-for-brains,

Shovel-headed, ass-scratching, in-bred, counts on their fingers hillbilly.

Is it our fault that they live up to the image?

[Old Testament Libera]

9. I was able to read the whole article, it is depressing

I would not want to be in these people's shoes. However coal mining ceased to be a significant employer long ago. They can blame their politicians including Joe Manchin for failing to address their plight, but it is beyond belief that Trump ever could or ever wanted to do anything to actually help them. Frankly, no politician since Lyndon Johnson has ever done much to help them.