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They will not accept that they are just as poor as the urban underclass. They're on welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, disability, etc. They live in filth surrounded by trash. There is garbage strewn all over their backyards. Drug addiction is rampant as is drug related crime.
Yet, they truly think they're better than people living in crime ridden inner cities.
They vote against their best interests because they don't want to be lumped together with "those other people".
They have been like that for a long, long time.
It is terribly sad really.
How is it that they truly believe that they are entitled to have jobs come to them while at the same time insisting that those who live in the inner cities need to get up and out and find work?
How does one develop this mindset?
And, are they really so different from the poor saps who believed that Obama was going to pay their rent, etc.?
Magic thinking at its finest.
It is terribly sad really.
How is it that they truly believe that they are entitled to have jobs come to them while at the same time insisting that those who live in the inner cities need to get up and out and find work?
Yeah, the stereotype is all Trump voters are either Brietbart racists or the type of right wing nuts you see on here. Truth is most of them either voted for him hoping for some kind of anti-corruption change in Washington (obviously not happening with Trump) or out of desperation because of lost jobs and drug addiction in their communities and throwing in with someone who gave them some form of hope.
Yep. The same people who voted Obama in for two terms, now that it didn't work...change it up again. Our classic cycle.
There are black people in those mountains too. Benham and Lynch near that area used to have a considerable black population. I always wondered if that's how "Black Mountain" got its name historically. A guy point to the mountain and told me that at one time 3000 blacks lived up there. Today they account for around 20% of the population in Lynch. I think blacks migrated out of those areas and whites didn't. Many black people have extended relatives in the cities who began the migration process long ago. Therein lies the problem with poverty, people won't leave dying and dead towns and cities.
It is terribly sad really.
How is it that they truly believe that they are entitled to have jobs come to them while at the same time insisting that those who live in the inner cities need to get up and out and find work?
How does one develop this mindset?
And, are they really so different from the poor saps who believed that Obama was going to pay their rent, etc.?
Magic thinking at its finest.
Urban poor are closer to the job opportunities without having to uproot their whole lives, homes, families, community. They can take a bus or subway to work. Big difference. In rural areas employment has to be somewhere in the vicinity at least in order to commute, it doesn't seem like entitlement to want to work some place accessible. If jobs are concentrated in the cities, why are still so many unemployed there? Forcing entire communities to move is asking to kill their way of life, compassionate people should be all about helping to maintain these communities or at least have some empathy for them.
Urban poor are closer to the job opportunities without having to uproot their whole lives, homes, families, community. They can take a bus or subway to work. Big difference. In rural areas employment has to be somewhere in the vicinity at least in order to commute, it doesn't seem like entitlement to want to work some place accessible. If jobs are concentrated in the cities, why are still so many unemployed there? Forcing entire communities to move is asking to kill their way of life, compassionate people should be all about helping to maintain these communities or at least have some empathy for them.
Urban poor also frequently leave their cities where their job opportunities are low.
I love my hometown but I left it 20 years ago due to the lack of economic opportunities.
Appalachia was a Democrat stronghold for many years but its all changed with coal industry being wiped out and loss of steel and energy industry jobs.
West Virginia only voted for a Republican presidential candidate twice from 1960 to 2000 (it went red in 1972 and 1984, elections where the Republican candidate carried 49 out of 50 states). The state has also voted for a Democratic Senator every year since 1960, and consistently elected Democratic House members until 2010.
Pennsylvania and Ohio were also Democrat states but you had over 240,000 people in Pennsylvania who signed up or switched to Republican last year.
The article says people want jobs and dont want welfare, I think trump may carry Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and West Virginia for a long time if he brings back steel and coal jobs, we will see.
The enormous amount of inner cities controlled by democrats for decades is not going to be as easy because they are one party rule controlled by Democrats. Obama didnt really do anything for the inner cities and he won them all by a huge margin
Urban poor also frequently leave their cities where their job opportunities are low.
I love my hometown but I left it 20 years ago due to the lack of economic opportunities.
It can also become a trap. When jobs disappear in rural areas one is not cut off from the land. Urban poverty always eventually ends up being the worst.
Of course minimum wage laws specifically cause rural blight more than the market would actually create.
Thank you for sharing this article. I don't understand how people can just stay in a cesspool of poverty. Waiting for someone to provide something for you is not the way to live this life. Like I tell my students, "You better do the hard work and get out your comfort zones." Life is a struggle for some, but sometimes you got to leave Egypt to get to your Israel. I am glad the young people are leaving and making a better life for themselves.
It's tough to abandon your community. I've upped stakes a few times in my life, and it gets harder the older you get.
But small-town America is dying. The days of graduating high school, getting a job at the mill for six-and-fourpence a week, staying for 25 years and painting your white picket fence on weekends are gone. The shopkeepers have been annihilated by big-box stores 20 miles away, the hotel is now a Motel 6 that employs at minimum wage, the greasy spoon is a chain restaurant, the mill moved production to China and the hum of the freeway is a constant reminder of the young people leaving.
It's a rotten deal for those with houses dropping in value and roots they don't feel like abandoning. If they purchased a lottery ticket in voting for Trump, they're about to see how wise of a strategy that is.
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