Holding back the tide

King Canute demonstrating his inability to hold back the tide

Repeat after me, kiddoes: You get what you vote for.

What Michigan will probably get after voting for Abdul el-Sayed is a GOP MAGA senator. El-Sayed ran a scorched-earth campaign, labeling anyone who disagreed with him a Zionist AIPAC stooge and Islamophobe. And his acolytes trashed Black Michiganders with the usual slur of being "low information". After his very narrow primary victory, he called for unity. But why would anyone trust someone who views the majority of his party—because remember, Mallory McMorrow pulled in 4% of the vote before she dropped out—as impediments to his dream of Marxist revolution and beneath him? And that's before his alliance with Hasan Piker, Mr. "America Deserved 9/11". Hasan's formulation might carry weight among the Marxist tendencies of the Democratic Socialists of America, but I wager that the majority of Michiganders, liberals, moderates, and conservatives, view such statements with a horror which should scupper anyone associated with them. But, the great Democratic primary voters of Michigan decided to go with the not-doctor el-Sayed. Good luck. The environment may be so toxic for the GOP that Abdul sneaks in. And then when he's in the Senate, he will be as popular as John Fetterman, or Bernie Sanders. Oh well. 

You get what you vote for.

West Virginia hasn't voted for a Democrat since 1996 for Bill Clinton. In each of Donald Trump's three campaigns, the state gave him almost 70% of the vote. West Virginia is Trump Country. And what has that gotten them? This:

Respiratory therapist Marcy Freeman doesn't need a research study to confirm for her a return to the dark days of coal mining. She finds evidence in a stack of more than 150 funeral programs, all for former patients at her pulmonary rehabilitation clinic in Norton, Virginia.

"Each one of these represents a life that's gone because of black lung," Freeman explained as she flipped through the programs, recognizing names and images.

"These are husbands. These are brothers. … These men were just hardworking men, and the only thing they did was go to work and provide for their families. And it cost them everything. … This is the aftermath of black lung."

[snip] 

Public Health Watch, Kentucky Public Radio and NPR obtained a draft of the NIOSH research letter before publication.

NIOSH researchers found that working veteran underground coal miners in central Appalachia are suffering from the incurable and fatal lung disease at the highest rates in nearly 50 years.

 Of course, a tragedy. But one with a source:

And the Trump administration is trying to boost coal mining. In early June, Trump announced close to $700 million in federal spending to sustain coal-burning power plants and to support exports of coal.

"Coal's a great business," Trump said at the time. "In terms of power, there's nothing like it."

Monforton said the administration seems to have "a love affair with the black rock, and not a love affair or compassion or concern for coal miners."

Then-candidate Hillary Clinton had a plan to transition off of coal, and to transition miners to good, clean, high-paying jobs. But, amazingly, miners don't want to be retrained.

In communications with the press, Mined Minds placed the blame for its unconvincing results on students. Josh McNett, a graduate of the program who subsequently became a trainer, told KDKA-Pittsburgh that, “the problem is, miners don’t want to come to class because they think the coal mines are coming back. They don’t want retraining.” According to Mined Mines co-founder Amanda Laucher, many enrollees simply had unreasonable expectations for the program, which did not charge students for training. “The vast majority of Americans pay for their education. We are shocked and saddened that [the plaintiffs] would believe they deserve compensation in addition to retraining,” she said.

In Trump they saw a man who would "bring back coal". But this is the problem, going back to the NPR piece:

"The thickness of the coal is not there," explained Tim Balthis, a former miner and mine foreman in Kentucky and Virginia. It's not like the days when the "grandpas" mined the big coal seams, he said. "So you're having to take more rock, which in turn creates silica dust."

It's getting harder to mine coal, as is the case with any depleted mineral. Therefore, miners are exposed to greater and greater amounts of toxins. Yes, Trump is trying to be King Canute holding back the green energy tide and "roll coal". And the miners want to roll coal. And they are dying at rates unseen in half a century.

I just turned 57. I was, for most of my conscious, political life, a bleeding-heart liberal. I believed in the best of people. That if you simply laid out the facts, showed them reason and logic, they would see the validity of your arguments and accept that there was a better way to go about things.

I'm still a liberal. But I'm no longer a bleeding-heart. 

What I've seen is that people constantly choose to harm themselves, their families, and their communities. Whether it's the Muslims of Dearborn or the miners of West Virginia, they cut off their noses to spite their faces. They can't see themselves as part of a larger community, but are instead insular and clinging to things which are dying and will be gone in short order. Coal is not coming back. Israel is not going to be destroyed. Anyone telling you that your dearest-held bigotries are going to come to fruition in a rapidly-changing world is selling you a bill of goods for their own benefit. And yet humans, again and again, fall for these comforting nostrums, rather than face the realities and come to an accommodation with them.

I am simply quite tired of telling people: "No, this is not feasible, it's not in the realm of possibility," only to be confronted with cries to just believe to bring Tinkerbell back to life. 

So, bring on consequences. They may or may not clarify things. But I'm done. I'm protecting my peace. I'm tending to my own garden.

Postscript

Just to make clear: The famous story of Canute (or "Cnut", if you want to be all accurate) trying to hold back the tide was a parable about the limits of humanity and that even the most powerful of rulers cannot contravene God. In the story, Canute's sycophantic courtiers declared that someone as mighty as he could do anything he wanted, including controlling the tides. Canute commanded the tides to cease; they did not. He turned to his entourage to remonstrate with them. He was a king, but just a man. Assigning such powers to him was the height of blasphemy.

Of course, Trump thinks he's God. And if told the story, would call Canute a loser.