by Nomad
The story of how Donald Trump lied to coal miners to win an election and continues to lie to them today.
UnBelievable Promises
All through the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump fired up his crowds with promises to revive the coal mining and restore mining jobs in places like Kentucky and West Virginia. In speech after speech, he pledged to end Obama's attack on the coal industry and in coal country, that's an idiot-proof way to get a standing ovation.In his barely-coherent oratory style, the New York millionaire told miners in Virginia in August 2016:
"Miners are amazing people. So, so I, I really — and I say it, it’s up to you. You got to get out and vote. You just don’t vote. You know? I don’t know why. And I think it’s because you’ve been beaten so badly as an industry. Just beaten up so badly. … And I can understand. You gotta do it. You gotta give it one shot. You know? Takes you 25 minutes or two minutes or 10 minutes. You have nothing to lose. You have absolutely nothing to lose. Believe me. You will be happy. You will be happy. You will be absolutely happy."
You've got nothing to lose. Believe me. Happy. Absolutely happy.
“We’re going to get those miners back to work ... the miners of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, which was so great to me last week, Ohio and all over are going to start to work again, believe me. They are going to be proud again to be miners.”Believe me, he said, And they did. With all their hearts because they wanted it to be true.
Clinton's Classic Blunder
Meanwhile, Trump (and Fox News) portrayed his opponent as the enemy of coal. Over and over the message was: Hillary Clinton, as president, was going to be a disaster for hard-working coal miners. For angry miners searching for a savior, Clinton was just another job killer.
Hillary's main problem was that she dared to do something no smart politician should do. She told the miners and their families things they didn't want to hear. As she explained at one town hall meeting, many coal mining operations would be going out of business in the near future. Why? It was a result of the US moving toward renewable energy sources. The other side, the darker side of progress.
The good news?
Spurred on by clean energy development, new economic opportunities for current coal workers would be created. But that would require focusing on retraining, not clinging onto wishful thinking and false promises. It would require honest leadership and hard work and yes, government support of workers, and not bail-outs for corporations.
The good news?
Spurred on by clean energy development, new economic opportunities for current coal workers would be created. But that would require focusing on retraining, not clinging onto wishful thinking and false promises. It would require honest leadership and hard work and yes, government support of workers, and not bail-outs for corporations.
Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories.But who wants to hear hard truths like that when a huckster is selling a bottle of absolute happiness?
Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on.
When Trump's staff appropriated her comments out of context to paint her as the enemy of the coal miner, she tried to back-peddle. Still worse, Clinton later apologized.. for telling the truth!
Spoiler alert: they don't.
Coal miners wanted fantasy, not reality. And so, they punished her for it in November 2016 and banked all their hopes on a shyster named Trump.
So what else has Trump done to help coal miners? According to one industry source, the president ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to come up with some way to stem closures of coal power plants.
It shouldn't surprise anybody. A year earlier, officials at Trump's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) began reviewing regulations that were aimed at protecting underground miners from breathing coal and rock dust — the cause of black lung — and diesel exhaust, which can cause cancer.
As attorney Tony Oppegard, who represents miners in safety cases, said:
"It was a misstatement because what I was saying is the way things are going now, they will continue to lose jobs. It didn't mean that we were going to do it. What I said is that is going to happen unless we take action to help and prevent it."She had made the classic political mistake of thinking that desperate people want to hear the truth.
Spoiler alert: they don't.
Coal miners wanted fantasy, not reality. And so, they punished her for it in November 2016 and banked all their hopes on a shyster named Trump.
Blame Market Forces, Blame Capitalism
So, Trump's flimsy lies won the day.
Nobody told the miners that Hillary was only repeating what industry experts have been saying for a long time. Nothing was going to bring back coal to its glory days. Market forces, flagship of the conservative capitalists had made coal mining obsolete.
(It is something clear-headed Americans ought to be rejoicing over.)
Nobody told the miners that Hillary was only repeating what industry experts have been saying for a long time. Nothing was going to bring back coal to its glory days. Market forces, flagship of the conservative capitalists had made coal mining obsolete.
(It is something clear-headed Americans ought to be rejoicing over.)
Coal mining jobs will continue to be lost not because people hate coal miners, but because power plant owners are turning to natural gas. On top of that, drilling techniques such as fracking have sparked a boom in gas production, driving down prices and prompting utilities to switch from coal. The reality is there will always be some industries that cannot and should not be resuscitated.
And none of this was some kind of dark secret that coal miners hadn't heard before. Well before the election, in May 2016, AP fact-checked Trump's campaign pledges and noted that, when it came to concrete plans for the coal industry, Trump came up short.
Except for rolling back Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency emission standards, it was unclear what candidate Trump actually planned to do to fix what experts said couldn't be fixed. When Trump talked about "clean coal," energy experts struggled to understand what he was talking about.
Even if you skip over the whole debate about climate change and CO2 emissions, there are plenty of other issues with coal. When you burn coal, mercury, nitrous oxides, sulfur oxides, and various other potentially harmful gases are released into the air. Nasty stuff. Such pollutants cause smog, acid rain, respiratory problems, and a host of other issues.
Studies have shown that people living close to coal power plants have an increased risk of asthma, lung cancer, laryngeal cancer and other respiratory diseases. Pollution from the burning of coal for electricity generation is shown to have quantitatively important and nonlinear effects on county-level infant mortality rates. Or to put it another way: Coal kills babies. Except for rolling back Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency emission standards, it was unclear what candidate Trump actually planned to do to fix what experts said couldn't be fixed. When Trump talked about "clean coal," energy experts struggled to understand what he was talking about.
Dirty Lies about Clean Coal
No matter what Trump said, there's no such thing as clean coal. Clean energy- yes. Clean coal- nope. Coal is actually our dirtiest energy source.Even if you skip over the whole debate about climate change and CO2 emissions, there are plenty of other issues with coal. When you burn coal, mercury, nitrous oxides, sulfur oxides, and various other potentially harmful gases are released into the air. Nasty stuff. Such pollutants cause smog, acid rain, respiratory problems, and a host of other issues.
Apart from burning coal, the process of coal extraction is also environmentally damaging, both in the short- and long-term. Coal mines discharge large amounts of sulfuric acid, copper, lead, and mercury, which often enter the water supply,
This decimates plant and animal life. It also poses a threat to communities along the streams and rivers and lakes. It has been estimated that in the US, some 9,000 miles of our waterways have been polluted by coal mining.
The bottom line is: Clean coal doesn't exist and never has. It is what a grammarian would call an oxymoron. It's like saying "sweet salt," "wise stupidity" or "Republican honesty."
And like your average con artist, Trump invented a clever phrase and then convinced people in coal country that this non-existent thing was going to save their jobs.
Flim-Flam Man and the Coal Miner
As president, Trump continued to make the same false promises.
In August of this year, Bloomberg reported that the industry rebounded slightly in Trump's first year but the long-term trends continued just as predicted, despite Trump's rhetoric.
A senior analyst at Bloomberg pointed out that :
A senior analyst at Bloomberg pointed out that :
“[Coal-based] power plant retirements are still happening and set to continue looking out through the end of his term.”Even government analysts have noted the continuing declines in the US coal industry. Coal production, consumption and exports are all projected to decrease in 2019, according to the Energy Information Administration.
So what else has Trump done to help coal miners? According to one industry source, the president ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to come up with some way to stem closures of coal power plants.
But how?
The draft plan invoked national security to justify dramatic steps, such as mandating electricity purchases from the plants. In other words, precisely the kind of government interference that Reaganite conservatives once so strongly preached against.
Even so, these measures, phony as they are, will only benefit coal mining companies. The actual numbers of employed miners is not likely to increase.
The potential effort to subsidize coal.. power plants wouldn’t reverse the gains in automation that have caused most job losses in coal mining, as computerized longwall machines edge out miners swinging pickaxes.Even though Trump once portrayed himself the friend of the coal miner but the reality is very different. Just before his term of office ended in August, Robert F. Cohen, a member of the independent federal commission overseeing mine safety, sent a scathing indictment of the Trump administration's policies when it came to miner safety.
He alleged that Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta had undertaken an illegal move cutting back on a worker safety rule that threatens to undermine the "most powerful tool for protecting the lives of the nation's miners."
As attorney Tony Oppegard, who represents miners in safety cases, said:
"I think it's a very bad signal for coal miners that MSHA is wanting to revisit the issue of coal dust and rock dust as well as diesel exhaust."In a rather stunning understatement, Oppegard added:
"I don't think the Trump administration has coal miners' best interests at heart. They're aligned with coal mine operators as opposed to miners, and the only reasons they would want to reopen these rules or revisit these rules are to weaken them."
* * *
Meanwhile, Fox News, the flim-flam president's chief conspirator, is still broadcasting Trump testimonials. Only last month, unemployed surface mine foreman Bo Copley popped up, lavishing praise on Trump for "ending Obama's war on coal."
Actually, Copley was the man who got famous for confronting Hillary Clinton about "putting coal miners out of business." Something she never actually said.
In the interview, Bo seems to be just an average coal miner who still believes in Trump's promises.
As an everyday worker in the industry, I don't have any idea exactly what's coming but like I said: anything that can be done to roll back the kind of restrictions on these power plants that hinders our product from being used is going to be a step in the right direction.Joe the Plumber, meet Bo the Miner. Bo wasn't a miner in the usual sense. He was actually a surface mine foreman, and as such, a part of the management of Coal-Mac Inc. In 2015, Coal-Mac, coincidentally enough, was accused in lawsuits filed by local citizen and clean water groups of violating the Clean Water Act.
To nobody's surprise, Bo Copley, has disposed of his average Bo coal miner costume and is now a Republican candidate for the US Senate in West Virginia. In other words, he plans to continue the political hoodwinking of coal miners that Trump made into an art form.
Out of the Darkness
Fifth-generation coal miner from Appalachia, Nick Mullins has been called a voice
"for coal miners everywhere, each of whom have taken time to understand the bigger picture, and who seek justice for their communities."Since 2010, Mullins has run a blog called The Thoughtful Coal Miner which is his attempt "to untangle the messes created between environmental activists and profiteering coal companies."
He explains. in the video below, why Trump's plan to loosen environmental regulations on coal-fired plants not only is harmful to the environment but also bad for the future of the region.