My parents grew up in West Virginia. My Dad was a chemical worker, a union member and both he and my mother belonged to the Democratic party and would never have dreamed of voting for a Republican. I can remember conversations he had with other relatives and friends when Arch Moore ran for governor, not understanding how a state full of working class people, many of them coal miners subjected to poor working conditions, low wages and few benefits, would elect a governor who was supported by the corporate interests that were keeping wages in the state low, especially the mining and transportation interests.
And for most working class West Virginians, nothing changed under Arch Moore. West Virginia continues to be the state that has the largest per-capita population decline in the nation. And as a result of that continued loss of population, it has lost a seat in the house of representatives. Not that much has happened with the representation they do have. Shelley Moore-Capito, the daughter of corporate energy's best friend Arch, is now one of the state's senators. And people are still leaving.
There's a major opioid and prescription drug crisis going on in many of the rural areas of the state. The decline in population has created a crisis involving access to health care as doctors fold up shop and move, and hospitals and their emergency rooms close. Such was the case in the coal mining town of Williamson, the seat of Mingo County in a very poor, rural, mountainous area of southwestern West Virginia, along the Kentucky border. Two years ago, as job and population loss plagued the area in a county that has lost a third of its residence in less than a generation, the Williamson Memorial Hospital, the only one in Mingo County, closed its doors.
And the state's Republican leadership didn't lift a finger to help. It's not likely that they even knew about it, as several hospitals in small communities have either closed or downsized in recent years. I'd say that a closed hospital ranks a lot higher on the priority list than the fantasy of election fraud for the people who live there and must now either incur the added expense of visiting a hospital across the river in Kentucky, or driving 70 miles to Huntington for emergency care.
The state does have a Democrat in the senate. And at the prodding and prompting of the Biden Administration, he helped land federal funding in the amount of $2 million for necessary renovations to open the hospital back up, which it will do later this year. That's what Democrats do, and while I'm disappointed that Senator Manchin hasn't consistently showed interest in this kind of thing to help people, I'm glad to note that he has helped get this accomplished, along with some other health access issues for West Virginians. Williamson is in West Virginia's third congressional district, represented by Carol Miller, a Republican who has had nothing to do with any of the federal dollars now coming into these rural areas because of Biden Administration legislation. But since the state is losing this district, and will have only two, it will be in the 2nd district, which is currently represented by Alex Mooney, who also has nothing to do with any of the help coming into the district from the Biden Administration.
In fact, West Virginia's congressional delegation, made up of individuals who are tightly connected to corporate interests, including the energy business, has no interest in helping the working poor in their state. None. Yet they keep getting elected, mainly on social issues and on the political rhetoric of right wing liars.
Fear Tactics
Job loss for rural communities in West Virginia is a regular occurrence. Coal mines run out of coal and shut down, and now, as cheaper, cleaner alternatives are being developed, even productive facilities are being shut down for lack of markets. Democrats have proposed some solutions which will create jobs in other fields, bringing in and growing different industries which would add jobs and improve the local economy. The infrastructure bill and "Build Back Better" both carried immense potential to create jobs in the state. But its politicians followed a party line and voted no.
Voter turnout in West Virginia is not great, and when there is a decent turnout, it's because there's a pervasive fear that corporate employers will "pull out" if they don't like the outcome. In 2016, campaign ads run by Republican PACS had voters convinced that if the state were carried by Clinton, coal companies would shut down mines in protest. A few years further back, a water crisis caused by chemical contamination of a good portion of the water supply of the town of Parkersburg, by DuPont Chemical, scared a lot of voters into believing that DuPont would close down, leaving more than a thousand workers out of jobs. In spite of the increased rates of cancer, birth defects and other issues suffered by residents, politicians were reluctant to get involved and voters, fearing the plant would close as a result of political pressure, were reluctant to elect those who would advocate for them.
This is a common theme in West Virginia. In the state's northern panhandle, during the 1980's, the steel mill in Weirton avoided closure when the local union negotiated a deal with the former ownership to allow the company to be bought by another owner who basically raised the money to pay for it by selling shares of the company to the workers. The union saved 3,000 jobs, for about two decades, and made the company profitable and competitive at a time when mills were closing all over the country. But, lacking political support, when the corporate ownership decided to sell out to a foreign competitor, Arcelor Mittal, the new owners shut the steel production down and laid off 2,000 workers, keeping only a raw materials operation open. And they've since sold out to yet another company with further job loss. West Virginia's GOP dominated legislature yawns.
A Hand Up, Not a Hand Out, From the Biden Administration
Remember Thomas Frank's book, from 2004, What's the Matter With Kansas?. Well, the second edition could well be titled "What's the Matter With West Virginia?" Trump made a lot of noise about helping coal, not because he really cared about the coal industry, or the workers, but because he needed votes to carry the state against Hillary Clinton in 2016, who, of course, was a clean energy advocate. Coal isn't going to make a comeback, Trump knew that, and once elected, did nothing that would benefit the coal industry. West Virginia lost jobs and population all through the Trump administration.
Senator Bernie Sanders, who won the Democratic primary in West Virginia in 2016, went back with MSNBC's Chris Hayes for a town hall in Welch, in the far southern part of the state, deep in the mountains, to address the opioid crisis, prescription drug addiction and the health care issues plaguing the rural areas. It was a rare opportunity for West Virginians to be heard, and they were, by Democrats. Once Trump was gone, what the Biden administration offered to West Virginia was a hand up, and they've benefitted tremendously from the infrastructure bill. Williamson and Mingo County are not the only place that will have an operational hospital due to Biden administration assistance. Welch, where Sanders and Hayes held their town hall, also got assistance to keep their medical facility open, as did several other rural health operations across the state.
Senator Manchin has been mentioned in some of the news coverage as having lent a hand to help direct this assistance, but it doesn't seem he's taken as active a role in promoting this as Senator Sanders. The Vermont Senator's message resonates in those mountains, and a lot of voters who supported him in the 2016 primary stayed home or voted for Trump in the general election. And that's part of the problem. There's something wrong politically when people turn out to vote for a liberal Senator from Vermont in the primaries, then, when he's not the party nominee, stay home or vote for the Republican in the general election. There's something in the political water there that has to be filtered out and changed. West Virginia is a working class state, and Democrats need to figure out how to get it back.
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