Did Appalachians vote their economic interests?

[Wazza [INACTIVE]]

I think they voted for the candidate who they believed respected them, their family and their communities MUCH more.  Whether or not you agree with that is another thing, but I think many of these people didn't have to infer all that much to come to the conclusion that Hillary Clinton and many other Democrats in other areas of the country thought VERY little of them (I mean, just look at a lot of the posts here), and they felt the only dignified thing to do was not vote for them ... kind of like a New York Republican who might have liked Ted Cruz's views refusing to vote for him after the "New York values" thing.

This is to say nothing *better* about the GOP platform for Appalachia, but it IS my opinion that Trump signaled a bit more dignity their way than Clinton or any past Republican or Democrat of the past twenty years.  So, they didn't "vote their economic interests," but I think a lot of them would readily admit that.

Because Donald Trump is nothing else if not all about dignity.

it would be much more accurate to say that trumps campaign wasn't so much about extending dignity or respect towards such voters, but rather demonizing their perceived enemies and "the other".

I was trying to analyze what I thought to be these peoples' rationale for their vote - not internet posters' opinion of why they voted that way.  I DO believe most Trump voters in this region saw things in a similar way to what I typed, and I don't think most thought of themselves as going to the polls to stop "the other," even if YOU think they did.

Except they absolutely did. And that's not just my opinion, or his opinion, or anyone else's. It is a fact. Study after study has shown strong links between racial resentment, right-wing authoritarianism, and voting for Trump. The TL;DR of it is "More prejudiced views make you more likely to vote for Trump." Shocking, I know. And it applies to Appalachia at least as well as anywhere else.

The main reason these places voted Democratic in the past, longer than the Deep South, are that Democrats were not yet seen as anti-coal and the unions were more powerful. These economic concerns were more important than social issues, which also weren't as significant a part of party platforms then, to many Appalachian voters. That's how you get Walter Mondale winning a number of Appalachian counties even as he was blown out nationwide.

However, once the Democrats turned on coal and the unions were diminished, that went away. Now all that's left to them are social issues, and the Democrats have gone farther left socially while the culture wars have blown up. Meanwhile, the Republicans have been fear-mongering to them by not only playing on their fears of "the other" (just why do you think Trump's xenophobic rhetoric was so effective exactly?) but also making them think both Democrats and immigrants are going to "take their jobs." Hillary didn't help with her talk of "putting a lot of coal miners out of business." But if they actually listened to her in context, she wanted job retraining programs for them that would phase out coal -- a dangerous, dirty job that has wrecked many of their lungs and killed many of them for generations while they've been screwed over and stuck economically -- and implement safer, higher-paying clean energy jobs. While also protecting their healthcare and economic aid.

I'm going to have to say that their failure to listen to that nuance because they'd rather listen to a con artist who s--ts on a golden toilet tell them fairy tales about how coal is going to last forever and he's going to build a wall keeping the scary brown people out makes them... ignorant, at best. Howard Stern has it right:

https://www.newsweek.com/howard-stern-tells-trump-supporters-he-hates-you-so-do-i-1503621

It's not all their fault. The education system in these areas is abysmal. They've basically been brainwashed by right-wing media. And the Democrats haven't exactly been great at messaging in these areas in recent years. But still, there is an element of bigotry there that is impossible to ignore. I've lived in this state long enough to know that. Some of the things you hear when there are no minorities around and they assume you're "one of them" can be quite shocking.

Obviously this does not apply to all people in Appalachia. Many are truly great people. And others are not bigoted but simply misguided. But it would be naive to pretend there aren't a number of genuine bigots there, who DO want to stick it to "the other" (remember the Trump supporter who said "He's not hurting the right people?"), and that doesn't play a significant role in Trump's appeal to them. There is a reason only socially conservative Democrats have a chance to compete in these areas. It's not really the economy, stupid, anymore. Coal is obviously a major factor, but these days I'd say social issues are perhaps even bigger factors and certainly contributed to how Trump was able to run up the score so much. Race is also a major reason why many of these counties didn't sharply turn on Democrats until they nominated a black man.

You know, I see you come in here and claim again and again that “study after study finds appalachians vote Trump because they hate minorities.” (which you interestingly lever cite) but that’s not what the data Harvard’s project implicit shows us:


This is negative bias against Black people amongst white Americans by US state. As you can see, WV and KY don’t score particularly high. They show as much prejudice against blacks as people in NY and MD and less than whites in PA, CT, DE and NJ. In fact the data shows little correlation with education, income or voting patterns, rather it seems to correlate most with the ratio of blacks and whites within a state. WaPo did and article on it here: https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/19/the-troubling-reason-why-whites-in-some-states-may-show-more-hidden-racial-bias/%3foutputType=amp

As to why bias correlated with the white-black ratio in a state is a whole other topic, but what the data does show is that the narrative pushed by many American Liberals that Appalachia is “A region filled with crypto-klansmen who spend their time seething about minorities because they’re stupid and uneducated and all the info they have on blacks is dictated to them by Grand Wizard Rush Limbaugh” is clearly inaccurate.

[Wazza [INACTIVE]]

It’s also worth mentioning that for parts of Appalachia, voting overwhelmingly Republican has been the norm since the Civil War. Owsley County which appeared in many Democratic memes as a prime example of “stupid poor hicks voting against their own interests” has voted GOP since the civil war and has only given 2 Democrats (LBJ and Bubba Bill) more than 30% of the vote.