We often wonder why people vote against their own interests. Could nostalgia be one of the reasons?
Paul Krugman MARCH 31,
A coal miner at a campaign rally for Donald Trump last year in Charleston, W.Va. Credit Ty Wright for The New York Times
West Virginia went overwhelmingly for Donald Trump .. http://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/donald-trump?inline=nyt-per .. in November — in fact, he beat Hillary Clinton by almost a three-to-one majority .. https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/west-virginia . And it may seem obvious why: The state is the heart of coal country, and Mr. Trump promised to bring coal jobs back by eliminating Obama-era environmental regulations. So at first glance the 2016 election looks like a political realignment reflecting differences in regional interests.
But that simple story breaks down when you look at the realities of the situation — and not just because environmentalism is a minor factor in coal’s decline. For coal country isn’t really coal country anymore, and hasn’t been for a long time.
Why does an industry that is no longer a major employer even in West Virginia retain such a hold on the region’s imagination, and lead its residents to vote overwhelmingly against their own interests?
Coal powered the Industrial Revolution, and once upon a time it did indeed employ a lot of people. But the number of miners began a steep decline .. https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/coal-is-a-state-of-mind/ .. after World War II, and especially after 1980, even though coal production continued to rise. This was mainly because modern extraction techniques — like blowing the tops off mountains — require far less labor than old-fashioned pick-and-shovel mining. The decline accelerated about a decade ago as the rise of fracking led to competition from cheap natural gas.
So coal-mining jobs have been disappearing for a long time. Even in West Virginia, the most coal-oriented state, it has been a quarter century since they accounted for as much as 5 percent of total employment.
What, then, do West Virginians actually do for a living these days? Well, many of them work in health care: Almost one in six workers is employed in the category “health care and social assistance.”
Oh, and where does the money for those health care jobs come from? Actually, a lot of it comes from Washington.
It’s true that the nation as a whole pays for these health care programs with taxes. But an older, poorer state like West Virginia receives much more than it pays in — and it would have received virtually none of the tax cuts Trumpcare would have lavished on the wealthy.
Now think about what Trumpism means for a state like this. Killing environmental rules might bring back a few mining jobs, but not many, and mining isn’t really central to the economy in any case. Meanwhile, the Trump administration and its allies just tried to replace the Affordable Care Act. If they had succeeded, the effect would have been catastrophic for West Virginia, slashing Medicaid and sending insurance premiums for lower-income, older residents soaring.
Also, don’t forget that Paul Ryan has long pushed for the conversion of Medicare into an underfunded voucher scheme, which would be another body blow to retiree-heavy states.
And aside from the devastating effect on coverage, think about how the Republican assault on Obamacare would have affected the health sector that now employs so many West Virginians. It’s almost certain that the job losses from Trumpcare cuts would have greatly exceeded any possible gains in coal.
So West Virginia voted overwhelmingly against its own interests. And it wasn’t just because its citizens failed to understand the numbers, the reality of the trade-off between coal and health care jobs.
For the striking thing, as I said, is that coal isn’t even the state’s dominant industry these days. “Coal country” residents weren’t voting to preserve what they have, or had until recently; they were voting on behalf of a story their region tells about itself, a story that hasn’t been true for a generation or more.
Their Trump votes weren’t even about the region’s interests; they were about cultural symbolism.
Now, regional cultures that invoke a long-gone past are hardly unique to Appalachia; think of Texans wearing 10-gallon hats and cowboy boots as they stroll through air-conditioned malls. And there’s nothing wrong with that!
But when it comes to energy and environmental policy, we’re not talking about mere cultural affectations. Going backward on the environment will sicken and kill thousands in the near future; over the longer term, failing to act on climate change could, all too plausibly, lead to civilizational collapse.
So it’s incredible, and terrifying, to think that we may really be about to do all of that because Donald Trump successfully pandered to cultural nostalgia, to a longing for a vanished past when men were men and miners dug deep.
Despite President Trump's vow to put coal miners back to work, coal plants keep closing. We visit a Texas town where one is slated to shut down soon.
Transcript
NOEL KING, HOST:
President Trump has promised again and again to bring coal jobs back. But coal-fired power plants keep closing. Since Trump took office, at least 17 plants have said they'll be shutting down. One of them is in Rockdale, Texas where Mose Buchele of member station KUT paid a visit.
MOSE BUCHELE, BYLINE: Michael Morgan (ph) was off the day they announced the plant was closing, so he heard about it from a friend.
MICHAEL MORGAN: I was really in shock.
BUCHELE: The news came on Friday the 13. At first, he thought it was some kind of joke.
MORGAN: Very difficult going home on Friday the 13 and telling my wife and kids that I was done.
BUCHELE: About 450 people are going to lose their jobs at the Sandow Power Plant and nearby mine. That's not counting expected losses at over 30 subcontracting companies like the one Morgan worked for. And that's likely just the start of trouble for this small town outside of Austin.
REBECCA VASQUEZ: We're really nervous about the trickle-down effect.
BUCHELE: That's Rebecca Vasquez. She runs Lone Star Guns & Goods on Main Street. She also heads the local Chamber of Commerce. She was surprised the closures came at all, considering the coal-friendly administration in the White House.
VASQUEZ: You know, when Trump ran for president, one of his key things was keeping the coal industry going. And I really feel like if he knew this was happening, he might do something about it.
BUCHELE: The thing is, he's tried. The administration's move to roll back regulations and rejected environmental commitments harmful to coal, none of that helped save coal in Rockdale, where parts of the power plant were under 10 years old. Luminant, the company that owned the plant, blames cheap competition for the shutdown, what they call an oversupply of renewable power and low natural gas prices.
JULIA CARDONA: It's just not very efficient to make electricity from coal.
BUCHELE: Julia Cardona works at the local unemployment office down the street from the gun store. She says none of her clients expect coal jobs to come back to Rockdale.
CARDONA: You know, we don't see any more rotary phones or even plan on them coming back so I kind of look at that in the same way.
BUCHELE: The big question, what can replace these jobs?
DOUG WILLIAMS: It's the talk of the town, as you can tell.
BUCHELE: I walked into Lee's Landing restaurant looking for lunch and found myself sitting at a corner table with Planning Commissioner Doug Williams and City Council member Joyce Dalley. Williams said they were surprised by the news, especially with Trump in office.
WILLIAMS: It's hard to figure out a direction to go right now at this time, but we're working on it.
BUCHELE: Any ideas?
JOYCE DALLEY: No, I can't say I have any ideas.
BUCHELE: Though some have been put out there. This rural county's applied to host the new Amazon headquarters, something people here say is a long shot but good marketing.
DALLEY: We do have a great deal to offer.
BUCHELE: Whatever happens, everyone agrees Rockdale needs to attract more industry and employers. Michael Morgan, the worker you heard at the start of this story, says he's been looking for new jobs online and the pickings are pretty slim. He says if more jobs don't arrive, a lot of the people who worked here in coal will have to move away, including him.
MORGAN: I will have to pick up and leave if it comes to that, but I don't want to. This is my home.
BUCHELE: The Sandow Coal Power Plant shuts its doors on January 11. For NPR News, I'm Mose Buchele in Rockdale, Texas.
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