Conservative Republican Consultant Rick Wilson should have been making these statements before the election to folks in coal country. They should have heard the truth he is now telling them then.
Natural gas killed coal
Donald Trump played games with the residents of coal country. What will they do when they realize they were used and will get hurt by his policies?
“You know there are five times more solar workers than coal miners,” Maher asked Tomi Lahren. “Do you know that?”
“Tell this to the coal miners,” Lahren replied. “They are out of business in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.”
“Why do we have to cling to the worst job ever?” Bill Maher asked.
Lahren responded that coal is all they know. Maher suggested retraining. But Rick Wilson had the best response that coal country should have been told years ago.
“This is out of a hazy nostalgia,” Rick Wilson said. “for things like when Trump says things about ironworks and shipyards and coal miners. These are things, we might as well get our buggy whip industry back together again. It’s this retrospective fake past that doesn’t even exist anymore. And these guys, God bless them. They worked their asses off for generations. And you know what? natural gas took their jobs, not Barack Obama. Tell them the truth. Everyone has been in favor of natural gas for a very long time, left and right because it is awesome.”
Donald Trump played on these people’s fears. He abused their trust. The problem he does not have a solution. The Progressive solution that included retraining and subsidizing these families given the current economic disruption is the answer. Nobody wants to live on the dole. But a helping hand up to is humane, good for families, and good for the country. We must reach out to those who voted against their own interest and detail our policies in a manner for them to see how it materially affect their lives.