Former Democratic Senate nominee claims "Ketchup packets are not available in rural areas."

[Benjamin Frank]

Even if it were true, the fact that this was the best response she could come up with shows how below-average she is.

That people are commenting here by laughing against her as being out of touch and had no idea of food deserts, the 'great ketchup shortage' that was caused by the need to ramp up supply chains with Covid and other related issues, which have been discussed here in multiple threads, or the general poverty in rural areas that might make it far less likely for these places to even get packages of ketchup, and to respond after mocking her mercilessly as 'stupid' or 'out of touch' with "oh, maybe it is true after all" shows how below-average many of the commenters in this thread have been.

Smug arrogance based on ignorance only shows the stupidity of the commenter.  Obviously there is no point in apologizing to Swearingin, but, as a suggestion, how about actually learning about the facts of the situation before making stupid and ignorant comments?

I'm sorry for the minor insults in these comments, but there are few things that anger me more than smug and stupid cynicism.

It's a nonsense poverty fetishism comment.

West Virginia isn't some sprawling wasteland.  Even in the rural parts, there are many little towns, which have grocery stores and diners, which have ketchup packets.  Unless you live in a ski resort, there's nowhere in West Virginia where you're not <20 minutes from the nearest McDonalds, of which there are also dozens in the state.

People think West Virginia is just a bunch of hillbillies living up in the Appalachian mountains.  The Appalachians don't even go through WV.  They're primarily in western Virginia and WV only has the western foothills.

In West Virginia, 14.9 percent of  households were food insecure between 2014 and 2016, on average. This is flat from 2011-2013 but higher than 2004-2006 averages.


https://www.chn.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/West-Virginia-state-report-draft-10.13.17.pdf

Between 2017 and 2018, West Virginia’s poverty rate increased by over a percentage point to 19.1 percent

https://catalyst.independent.org/2019/10/30/the-struggles-of-west-virginia/

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Even if it were true, the fact that this was the best response she could come up with shows how below-average she is.

That people are commenting here by laughing against her as being out of touch and had no idea of food deserts, the 'great ketchup shortage' that was caused by the need to ramp up supply chains with Covid and other related issues, which have been discussed here in multiple threads, or the general poverty in rural areas that might make it far less likely for these places to even get packages of ketchup, and to respond after mocking her mercilessly as 'stupid' or 'out of touch' with "oh, maybe it is true after all" shows how below-average many of the commenters in this thread have been.

Smug arrogance based on ignorance only shows the stupidity of the commenter.  Obviously there is no point in apologizing to Swearingin, but, as a suggestion, how about actually learning about the facts of the situation before making stupid and ignorant comments?

I'm sorry for the minor insults in these comments, but there are few things that anger me more than smug and stupid cynicism.

It's a nonsense poverty fetishism comment.

West Virginia isn't some sprawling wasteland.  Even in the rural parts, there are many little towns, which have grocery stores and diners, which have ketchup packets.  Unless you live in a ski resort, there's nowhere in West Virginia where you're not <20 minutes from the nearest McDonalds, of which there are also dozens in the state.

People think West Virginia is just a bunch of hillbillies living up in the Appalachian mountains.  The Appalachians don't even go through WV.  They're primarily in western Virginia and WV only has the western foothills.

Don't libsplain WV to us.

[GeneralMacArthur]

In West Virginia, 14.9 percent of  households were food insecure between 2014 and 2016, on average. This is flat from 2011-2013 but higher than 2004-2006 averages.


https://www.chn.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/West-Virginia-state-report-draft-10.13.17.pdf

Between 2017 and 2018, West Virginia’s poverty rate increased by over a percentage point to 19.1 percent

https://catalyst.independent.org/2019/10/30/the-struggles-of-west-virginia/

This is the same thing people did with Trump where they try to take some absurd, outlandish comment and water it down to something reasonable.

The quote is "ketchup packets are not available in rural areas."  It's not "rural areas struggle with poverty and food security."  That would be a reasonable claim and totally uninteresting.  The claim that rural WV is such a barren desert that it's impossible to find the most basic American condiment is just laughable.  Just like virtually everything else she says.

By the way, she's been on a tear.  There are a couple other gems in her recent Twitter history, and she also dramatically "left" the Democratic Party a few days ago.

[KaiserDave]

In West Virginia, 14.9 percent of  households were food insecure between 2014 and 2016, on average. This is flat from 2011-2013 but higher than 2004-2006 averages.


https://www.chn.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/West-Virginia-state-report-draft-10.13.17.pdf

Between 2017 and 2018, West Virginia’s poverty rate increased by over a percentage point to 19.1 percent

https://catalyst.independent.org/2019/10/30/the-struggles-of-west-virginia/

This is the same thing people did with Trump where they try to take some absurd, outlandish comment and water it down to something reasonable.

The quote is "ketchup packets are not available in rural areas."  It's not "rural areas struggle with poverty and food security."  That would be a reasonable claim and totally uninteresting.  The claim that rural WV is such a barren desert that it's impossible to find the most basic American condiment is just laughable.  Just like virtually everything else she says.

By the way, she's been on a tear.  There are a couple other gems in her recent Twitter history, and she also dramatically "left" the Democratic Party a few days ago.

Not to mention joining the "People's" Party, which is of course a complete joke.

[jimrtex]

https://twitter.com/paulajean2020/status/1416952748134731779
I'm starting to understand why she underperformed Biden.

Do people in rural areas depend on catsup in plastic packets? I think you would buy it in squeeze bottles or even gallon jugs or cans. It would be easier to water down that way and probably quite a lot cheaper.

[Adam Griffin]

Unless you live in a ski resort, there's nowhere in West Virginia where you're not <20 minutes from the nearest McDonalds, of which there are also dozens in the state.

This is just flat out wrong - and if you knew anything about the Appalachian Plateau, you'd know simply looking at a map and trying to gauge time/distance based on linear miles couldn't be more inaccurate.

People think West Virginia is just a bunch of hillbillies living up in the Appalachian mountains.  The Appalachians don't even go through WV.  They're primarily in western Virginia and WV only has the western foothills.

...

Again, completely wrong - and again, looking at a simple map doesn't tell you anything. I'm sure you noticed the long stringy mountain chains and assumed that's all that comprises the Appalachians. What runs through VA/NC/GA etc is the Blue Ridge Mountains/R&V segment of the Appalachians. The part that runs through KY/WV etc is the Appalachian Plateau: devoid of all the neat, straight ridge & valley formations that exist through the aforementioned region and at a higher elevation for the most part. It's why a lot of places in WV can take upwards of an hour to navigate to/from despite only being 10 linear miles apart.

[Adam Griffin]

At any rate, there is maybe some semblance of truth to this. It's still a dumb comment to make in absolute terms, though.

First, many towns in the poor, rural segments of WV are devoid of many eating options; many of them will be locally-owned restaurants (yes, in some places, the only restaurant remaining will be a fast-food chain, but this is less common than people think). It's not too much of a stretch to assume local diners and the like deal with bottles as opposed to packets, as much about these entities are stuck in the past and not flush with cash.

Additionally, America as a whole got stingy with ketchup packets and condiments as a whole as soon as the Great Recession began. For those of us who were alive and aware pre-Recession, it's easy to recall drive-thru workers tossing in a handful of condiments whether asked for or not. Once the Recession happens, they started hoarding those things like gold - something I don't believe ever really reversed sans asking for them specifically (and even then, being given a tiny portion). As someone who hasn't eaten out much since COVID began, I'm not sure if things have gotten even worse in this regard, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[Benjamin Frank]

In West Virginia, 14.9 percent of  households were food insecure between 2014 and 2016, on average. This is flat from 2011-2013 but higher than 2004-2006 averages.


https://www.chn.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/West-Virginia-state-report-draft-10.13.17.pdf

Between 2017 and 2018, West Virginia’s poverty rate increased by over a percentage point to 19.1 percent

https://catalyst.independent.org/2019/10/30/the-struggles-of-west-virginia/

This is the same thing people did with Trump where they try to take some absurd, outlandish comment and water it down to something reasonable.

The quote is "ketchup packets are not available in rural areas."  It's not "rural areas struggle with poverty and food security."  That would be a reasonable claim and totally uninteresting.  The claim that rural WV is such a barren desert that it's impossible to find the most basic American condiment is just laughable.  Just like virtually everything else she says.

By the way, she's been on a tear.  There are a couple other gems in her recent Twitter history, and she also dramatically "left" the Democratic Party a few days ago.

I commented on this in a previous post.  She is -or was anyway - almost certainly correct due to the Covid pandemic and the decline of supply chains.  In late April there was the 'great Ketchup shortage of 2021.'  As I said in that post, it's not a surprise that poor rural areas would be the last to get back stocked with these things (poorer and less people.)

I think she was combining something that almost certainly really did happen where she lived - an inability to get packets of ketchup along with a bit of hyperbole (I agree it's not that people in West Virginia are going to die for lack of ketchup packages.) This is far from outlandish, especially in the context of the tweet she was replying to.

The article I posted also mentioned the other part of the problem - restaurant condiment containers had become germ infested due to the restaurants having been shown down for sometime so they weren't clean or safe. It was easier for awhile to ship some areas ketchup packages while these restaurants received new condiment containers, however, it resulted in ketchup package shortages in other areas.

It's not exactly the easiest to disinfect plastic food containers. It can't be heat treated and it probably can't be safely disinfected with bleach or anything either.

Again, it would help to actually learn about situations before making arrogant, snarky and ultimately factually wrong comments.

[DrScholl]

McDonald's isn't even a healthy choice for regular meals, so even if one is nearby it doesn't solve nutritional needs. West Virginia has had more deaths than births as of late so fast food is not the answer. Republicans and even some Democrats are too busy trying to fight "wokeness" to actually tackle real issues like food deserts. It wold be more productive to come up with plan to fight this than to argue about social issues and trying to police entertainment constantly.

[jimrtex]

Unless you live in a ski resort, there's nowhere in West Virginia where you're not <20 minutes from the nearest McDonalds, of which there are also dozens in the state.

This is just flat out wrong - and if you knew anything about the Appalachian Plateau, you'd know simply looking at a map and trying to gauge time/distance based on linear miles couldn't be more inaccurate.

People think West Virginia is just a bunch of hillbillies living up in the Appalachian mountains.  The Appalachians don't even go through WV.  They're primarily in western Virginia and WV only has the western foothills.

...

Again, completely wrong - and again, looking at a simple map doesn't tell you anything. I'm sure you noticed the long stringy mountain chains and assumed that's all that comprises the Appalachians. What runs through VA/NC/GA etc is the Blue Ridge Mountains/R&V segment of the Appalachians. The part that runs through KY/WV etc is the Appalachian Plateau: devoid of all the neat, straight ridge & valley formations that exist through the aforementioned region and at a higher elevation for the most part. It's why a lot of places in WV can take upwards of an hour to navigate to/from despite only being 10 linear miles apart.

There is a McDonalds in Madison, WV which is 25 minutes from both Lake and Barrett.

If you lived in either Lake or Barrett you will have a way to get to Madison (your truck or a friends) or you grow your own food, raise chickens, and hunt squirrel. If you grow your own food, you will can your own catsup.

There are two grocery stores in Madison, including a Krogers, and several restaurants, serving Mexican, Pizza, Spaghetti, KFC, and McDonalds. If you are doing groceries once a week, you can drive on into Charleston.

[Adam Griffin]

Unless you live in a ski resort, there's nowhere in West Virginia where you're not <20 minutes from the nearest McDonalds, of which there are also dozens in the state.

This is just flat out wrong - and if you knew anything about the Appalachian Plateau, you'd know simply looking at a map and trying to gauge time/distance based on linear miles couldn't be more inaccurate.

People think West Virginia is just a bunch of hillbillies living up in the Appalachian mountains.  The Appalachians don't even go through WV.  They're primarily in western Virginia and WV only has the western foothills.

...

Again, completely wrong - and again, looking at a simple map doesn't tell you anything. I'm sure you noticed the long stringy mountain chains and assumed that's all that comprises the Appalachians. What runs through VA/NC/GA etc is the Blue Ridge Mountains/R&V segment of the Appalachians. The part that runs through KY/WV etc is the Appalachian Plateau: devoid of all the neat, straight ridge & valley formations that exist through the aforementioned region and at a higher elevation for the most part. It's why a lot of places in WV can take upwards of an hour to navigate to/from despite only being 10 linear miles apart.

There is a McDonalds in Madison, WV which is 25 minutes from both Lake and Barrett.

If you lived in either Lake or Barrett you will have a way to get to Madison (your truck or a friends) or you grow your own food, raise chickens, and hunt squirrel. If you grow your own food, you will can your own catsup.

There are two grocery stores in Madison, including a Krogers, and several restaurants, serving Mexican, Pizza, Spaghetti, KFC, and McDonalds. If you are doing groceries once a week, you can drive on into Charleston.

Please don't be pedantic here. I zoomed in randomly and picked a random route where ~10 linear miles = close to an hour of travel by car: not a route that's very far from a McDonald's specifically. There are hundreds of examples throughout the state (particularly the further east you go) such as the above that may (or may not) be far from any national fast-food chain. The broader point is that there are plenty of areas that are extremely isolated from any meaningful form of civilization relative to most areas regardless of linear miles (which given OP's simplistic interpretation about how WV isn't in "Appalachia", is relevant to the level of detail he used).

[Benjamin Frank]

McDonald's isn't even a healthy choice for regular meals, so even if one is nearby it doesn't solve nutritional needs. West Virginia has had more deaths than births as of late so fast food is not the answer. Republicans and even some Democrats are too busy trying to fight "wokeness" to actually tackle real issues like food deserts. It wold be more productive to come up with plan to fight this than to argue about social issues and trying to police entertainment constantly.

It is interesting that you focus on the Democrats to be the responsible party (and I don't necessarily agree that the issues behind 'wokeness' aren't serious) rather than telling the Republicans to be responsible and stop focusing on voter suppression and endless virtue signaling on abortion.  After all, in West Virginia anyway these are mostly all Republican voters.

[Kingpoleon]

It is interesting that you focus on the Democrats to be the responsible party (and I don't necessarily agree that the issues behind 'wokeness' aren't serious) rather than telling the Republicans to be responsible and stop focusing on voter suppression and endless virtue signaling on abortion.  After all, in West Virginia anyway these are mostly all Republican voters.

The liberal nonsense about virtue signaling on abortion indicates a fundamental inability to grasp why so many rural and poor people oppose abortion. It is not because they are idiots, but because they see through the veneer of a certain cosmopolitan bipartisan neoliberalism which refuses to understand that judging humans on the basis of development is evil social Darwinism.

[John Dule]

It is interesting that you focus on the Democrats to be the responsible party (and I don't necessarily agree that the issues behind 'wokeness' aren't serious) rather than telling the Republicans to be responsible and stop focusing on voter suppression and endless virtue signaling on abortion.  After all, in West Virginia anyway these are mostly all Republican voters.

The liberal nonsense about virtue signaling on abortion indicates a fundamental inability to grasp why so many rural and poor people oppose abortion. It is not because they are idiots, but because they see through the veneer of a certain cosmopolitan bipartisan neoliberalism which refuses to understand that judging humans on the basis of development is evil social Darwinism.

We've been over this before, and I explained to you quite clearly that development is not the only reason why a fetus doesn't qualify as human. You can stop kicking the strawman now.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Last week a friend and I had occasion to drive for about two hours through a remote area of the Catskills. In those two hours we passed:

1. A Sunoco station that was already closed at 8 pm
2. A ritzy resort restaurant that not even we, two middle-class people, would have been able to afford
3. Finally, at the end of the second hour, a Subway.

And this was in New York!

"Ketchup packets are not available in rural areas" is a very strange way to frame this and I still don't think Swearengin should have said this the way she did, but the idea that there isn't anywhere in West Virginia where food options might be genuinely difficult to get to is absurd and complacent.

Also, does this thread really need to be about abortion? I really, really, really don't think that it does.

[Kingpoleon]

We've been over this before, and I explained to you quite clearly that development is not the only reason why a fetus doesn't qualify as human. You can stop kicking the strawman now.

I apologize, but post liberal communitarians and eccentric classical liberals are almost certainly incapable of even sharing a moral language, in no small part due to the latter’s rejection of The Good.

Nevertheless, as I recall you brought up two points: the first is dependency, in which humanity and dependency are exclusive. The ontology of the two are such that I fail to grasp how they can be exclusive unless by human we mean an independent human, and unfortunately for liberals, there is no such thing. “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” (Dr. King) If this were true, those farmers you are dependent upon for life could logically kill you as you are dependent upon them. At the very least, parents could kill an infant which is utterly dependent upon them.

The second was something such as self awareness and a sense of pain, which develop over time in degree but not in kind. This does not save you, either, from being able to justify why we should not kill a baby born at 20 weeks but it should be legal to kill a baby unborn at 24 weeks.

[If my soul was made of stone]

It's embarrassing and enlightening how quickly this thread has devolved into culture-war sectarianism in response to the notion that good policy and activism should transcend it. Food deserts are just as much a problem in the Black Belt, on Native reservations, and in cities such as mine as they are in white rural areas, and the political response to it should be blind to the partisanship of poverty. Blaming people for "voting against their interests" ignores the decades political agitation that have resulted in realignment. One of LBJ's first visits to promote the "War on Poverty" was to one of the most Republican counties in Kentucky, but there was at least in public none of the "kick them while they're down" scorn that the allegedly cosmopolitan have for those with different experiences and sets of values. Obesity, hunger, and "Mountain Dew mouth" are symptoms of deprivation, as much as smug suburbanites of all stripes cling to their neo-Victorian interpretation of poverty as a sign of moral failure.

Also, does this thread really need to be about abortion? I really, really, really don't think that it does.

I'll be very pleasantly surprised if I ever see Kingpoleon and Dule in the same thread without being at loggerheads over the entire foundation of their moral philosophies.

[Adam Griffin]

WRT abortion: that isn't anywhere close to being the most salient cultural issue that has pushed rural America away from the Democrats. If you want the honest answer as to what has led to and is contributing to the largest number of rural voters who are actually open to voting Democratic abandoning the party, then know that it's "guns" (or more specifically, the inability for an increasingly coastal & urban party to message properly on the issue). It's literally the only cultural issue that directly impacts a very sizable segment of the rural population directly in their day-to-day lives in terms of D vs R framing (unlike "abortion", "immigration", "gay marriage", etc).

Reminds me a lot of those Joey Lucas episodes from The West Wing. Sure, ask 100 rural Americans why they don't vote Democratic and the plurality will probably say "abortion", but this doesn't tell you that virtually all of them either have been lifelong Republicans, inherent social conservatives or individuals who would have found themselves voting R at some point for any 1 of numerous social/cultural reasons.

[Hammy]

The Appalachians don't even go through WV.  They're primarily in western Virginia and WV only has the western foothills.

Actual geography begs to differ:

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Talk about an abortion of a thread...

Nice to see that Atlas cares about poor rural whites. Just three, four, five years ago we were making fun of West Virginia - and one poster did instigate the majority of it - but it was all so charming and fun!

Anyway, Adam hit the nail on the head.

West Virginia demographically is simply the opposite of the kind of coalition national Democrats need to win on now. Since the rise of Fox, Democrats have successfully been painted as the party of coastal elites and big government. They're more conservative on abortion than the national average, but overall, rural whites don't care. Atlas has this perception that abortion is costing Democrats in states like West Virginia because West Virginia is rural and rural means religious.

When in actuality, upper-class Southern suburban whites are more likely to be going to those tacky megachurches than poor hillbillies. And West Virginia still voted Democratic pretty reliably up until 2000, and the 2010s downballot - long after the Moral Majority had started.

The fundamentals working against Democrats in the state are as follows: the decline of coal, weak unions, scarce higher education opportunities, people leaving the state, and Democrats getting blamed as the elites responsible for all of it.

It's just not possible to win as an anti-coal or pro-renewables progressive statewide there, especially with a dying state party, a national party unable to communicate issues like coal and guns with rural whites, and dying union infrastructure, so my guess is West Virginia only starts voting Democratic again if hippies and gentrifiers move in en masse. But in order for that to happen, you need jobs other than what you can get from the pork your congressman and/or senators can get you (two perfect examples of said congresscritters, by the way - Mitch McConnell and Hal Rogers, who represents eastern KY, plus the ancestrally Republican counties to the south, which is one of the poorest congressional districts in the country).

Republicans won there on culture issues and perception, and Trumpian economic populism is keeping those states in Republican hands for the foreseeable future, but pinning everything on abortion and gay marriage in these states is total bubble-thinking.

[Continential]

Even if it were true, the fact that this was the best response she could come up with shows how below-average she is.

That people are commenting here by laughing against her as being out of touch and had no idea of food deserts, the 'great ketchup shortage' that was caused by the need to ramp up supply chains with Covid and other related issues, which have been discussed here in multiple threads, or the general poverty in rural areas that might make it far less likely for these places to even get packages of ketchup, and to respond after mocking her mercilessly as 'stupid' or 'out of touch' with "oh, maybe it is true after all" shows how below-average many of the commenters in this thread have been.

Smug arrogance based on ignorance only shows the stupidity of the commenter.  Obviously there is no point in apologizing to Swearingin, but, as a suggestion, how about actually learning about the facts of the situation before making stupid and ignorant comments?

I'm sorry for the minor insults in these comments, but there are few things that anger me more than smug and stupid cynicism.

It's a nonsense poverty fetishism comment.

West Virginia isn't some sprawling wasteland.  Even in the rural parts, there are many little towns, which have grocery stores and diners, which have ketchup packets.  Unless you live in a ski resort, there's nowhere in West Virginia where you're not <20 minutes from the nearest McDonalds, of which there are also dozens in the state.

People think West Virginia is just a bunch of hillbillies living up in the Appalachian mountains.  The Appalachians don't even go through WV.  They're primarily in western Virginia and WV only has the western foothills.

Have you ever been to West Virginia before?

[Kingpoleon]

I'll be very pleasantly surprised if I ever see Kingpoleon and Dule in the same thread without being at loggerheads over the entire foundation of their moral philosophies.

1. We began our frenemyship about Fuzzy, on which we agreed.

2. Classical liberalism may be a philosophy, but it can hardly be called a moral one.

[jimrtex]

Unless you live in a ski resort, there's nowhere in West Virginia where you're not <20 minutes from the nearest McDonalds, of which there are also dozens in the state.

This is just flat out wrong - and if you knew anything about the Appalachian Plateau, you'd know simply looking at a map and trying to gauge time/distance based on linear miles couldn't be more inaccurate.

People think West Virginia is just a bunch of hillbillies living up in the Appalachian mountains.  The Appalachians don't even go through WV.  They're primarily in western Virginia and WV only has the western foothills.

...

Again, completely wrong - and again, looking at a simple map doesn't tell you anything. I'm sure you noticed the long stringy mountain chains and assumed that's all that comprises the Appalachians. What runs through VA/NC/GA etc is the Blue Ridge Mountains/R&V segment of the Appalachians. The part that runs through KY/WV etc is the Appalachian Plateau: devoid of all the neat, straight ridge & valley formations that exist through the aforementioned region and at a higher elevation for the most part. It's why a lot of places in WV can take upwards of an hour to navigate to/from despite only being 10 linear miles apart.

There is a McDonalds in Madison, WV which is 25 minutes from both Lake and Barrett.

If you lived in either Lake or Barrett you will have a way to get to Madison (your truck or a friends) or you grow your own food, raise chickens, and hunt squirrel. If you grow your own food, you will can your own catsup.

There are two grocery stores in Madison, including a Krogers, and several restaurants, serving Mexican, Pizza, Spaghetti, KFC, and McDonalds. If you are doing groceries once a week, you can drive on into Charleston.

Please don't be pedantic here. I zoomed in randomly and picked a random route where ~10 linear miles = close to an hour of travel by car: not a route that's very far from a McDonald's specifically. There are hundreds of examples throughout the state (particularly the further east you go) such as the above that may (or may not) be far from any national fast-food chain. The broader point is that there are plenty of areas that are extremely isolated from any meaningful form of civilization relative to most areas regardless of linear miles (which given OP's simplistic interpretation about how WV isn't in "Appalachia", is relevant to the level of detail he used).

The argument was made that most persons in West Virginia lived within 20 minutes of a McDonalds.

Your contrary illustration was that it was hard to travel between two remote hollows, neither of which are large enough to have any restaurants or stores of any kind - unless someone has a small store in a converted porch. They may sell crackers, but any ketchup will be in larger containers or cans.

But these two random hollows share a common location that does have a McDonald's.

And if you are in Barrett, WV it is even closer to Van, WV where the schools are, and which has a dollar store, which surely has crackers and catsup. And the High School serves breakfast. For that matter, a school is a surer sign of civilization than McDonald's isn't it?

Nobody lives in eastern West Virginia. I don't know whether the Greenbriar has ketchup. You may have to make do with cocktail sauce.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

It’s good that this argument has mostly focused on inane specifics like the precise distance certain people are from a McDonald’s, because I couldn’t stand any more sweeping statements about what West Virginia is like from people who don’t think West Virginia is in Appalachia.

[GeneralMacArthur]

FWIW my experience with West Virginia comes from driving through it to get from DC to St. Louis.  It was hilly and rural, but doesn't compare to the Appalachians, which I had to drive through to get to West Virginia.  Apparently there are some parts of the mountain range that do go into West Virginia so I was wrong about that.  In terms of amenities and population it didn't seem that different from Kentucky or Western Pennsylvania.  I'm sure there are locations in West Virginia that are completely isolated, but that's true of almost any state.

But whether it takes 20 or 45 minutes to get to McDonalds from the remotest location in WV, this is all just pettifogging the point, which is, while life sucks for poor people in rural WV, they're not so devastated that it's impossible for them to get ketchup.  That's just misery porn, pandering to what leftists on Twitter want to believe.  In another tweet she wrote that poor people never throw parties.

Also this thread title is a little misleading, yes she's a former Dem Senate nominee but she was basically the Alvin Greene of the race; we didn't run anyone because it was a hopeless contest, so she was on the ballot by default because she was the only one delusional enough to try.  It's not like the party endorses her or anything.  She's not even part of the Democratic Party anymore.