Karen Tumulty has piece in the Washington Post on why West Virginia has moved from a solidly Democratic state to an increasingly Republican state (at least, on the national level). She’s starts out with an anecdote about Pineville, where Jack Kennedy made a famous speech two weeks before winning the West Virginia primary in 1960.
In late June of this year, another expression of Pineville’s values appeared on the terraced lawn of the old courthouse. There was no fanfare around the installation of the new stone monument, but like that Kennedy rally more than half a century ago, it was a way of saying how the town felt about where the nation is headed.
The stone is engraved with the Ten Commandments, and it instructs: “They are to be used as a historical reference and model to enrich the knowledge of our citizens to an early origin of law from past generations so that they will serve as a historical guide for future generations to come.”
The American Civil Liberties Union has complained that this is an encroachment of church on state, and an affront to religious minorities. A headline on the front page of the Charleston Gazette on July 4 asked: “Constitutional showdown in the making?”
But most here seem to agree with Melissa Mitchell, a stay-at-home mom who was getting things organized for a midsummer church picnic at a park near the courthouse.
“We love it, and we will fight for it,” she said of the stone marker.
Why? “Honestly, because everybody in this county hates Barack Obama. That is the biggest reason,” Mitchell said.
Animosity toward President Obama runs high here. He lost Wyoming County by nearly 56 percentage points last year, despite the fact that registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 3 to 1.
One wonders why everybody hates Barack Obama.
Democrats, and some Republicans, say the right kind of Democrat could still win West Virginia in a presidential election.
“Bill Clinton would still carry the state, and Hillary Clinton will, if she’s the nominee,” said John Doyle, a Democrat who for two decades represented Harpers Ferry and Shepherdstown in the House of Delegates.
What makes Bill and Hillary “the right kind of Democrat”?
According to the article, fully 27% of West Virginians receive some form of government aid, the highest rate in the country. They rank 47th in terms of overall health, which is why only one health insurer has agreed to offer plans in the state’s exchange. Despite this, they profess to dislike the federal government.
In April, Shawn Penwarden, having lost his job hauling coal, opened an ATV repair shop in Northfork. He has been busy enough to need a few more employees. But he said he’s having difficulty hiring because people want to be paid in cash. They fear working on the books might risk their government benefits.
“People only do two things here. They either work in coal for $100,000 a year or they get a check from the government,” Penwarden said. “It’s a way of life. So do we blame the people or the government?”
“I would blame the government,” he added, “but I don’t have any ideas how to reverse the trend.”
Isn’t this rich? You’ve got people for whom welfare and food stamps are “a way of life” to the point that they won’t take good work even if it is offered unless the pay comes under the table, and they think the Kenyan Muslim president is a socialist who is trying to take their hard-earned money and give it to undeserving blacks. President Obama is trying to screw them, but Hillary would be just fine.
All these folks are going to be getting another big government benefit in the form of subsidies that will help them get health insurance so that they can maybe stop being just about the most unhealthy place in America, but they’re still going to be paying too much for it for a while because no one wants to insure diabetics who have black lung.
If I sound angry, it’s because I don’t appreciate the hypocrisy and racism I see every time someone goes into these communities and asks the people what they think about politics. If these folks had their act together, they’d be at the forefront of making their state’s biggest employer, Wal-Mart, pay a living wage. They’d be clamoring for more choices on the health care exchanges and blasting away at the party that wants to slash food stamps and cut off unemployment insurance.
And they better figure out that coal isn’t the future and stop bitching about it. The jobs were always dangerous and never offered good pay, so get on with figuring out to make a living that doesn’t turn the oceans into a roiling vat of acid.
