I wonder...he said over and over and over again that he'd work to bring back coal jobs. The rust belt largely elected him and a big reason for it is that promise. You WANT it to be the case that Trump is doing it to benefit his evil rich friends, but maybe just maybe he's doing it to, you know, bring back jobs like he said he would. I'm sure the border wall is benefiting his evil rich friends too, huh?


Oh please. He's a politician (or at least he's playing one, for the time being)...he exaggerated the job reality to get votes? Give me a break, have you not heard a politician speak before? I despise the practice, it's impossible to take a politician at their word, and that's even when they give enough policy detail to know what they're thinking. But he's hardly alone in that regard, welcome to the world of politics I guess.

Listen, Trump can do very little for the coal industry, I think everyone in this thread has admitted as much. What he CAN do, however, is roll back EPA regulations and work with coal companies to stem the bleeding, maybe bring back a few thousand jobs in the process. Then hopefully in the longer term some retraining programs can be brought on board and maybe some programs for clean energy that will provide work in the rust belt.

What you're missing in all this - and Barry's comments reflect the same blindspot - is that the treatment of coal jobs is much of why Trump was elected. No time or energy was spent figuring out how to help spawn industry in these regions where coal is vital and in fact EPA regulations escalated the decline. It's fine to say that we need to focus on clean energy, I totally agree with that, but the means should NOT be through killing an industry that thousands rely on for their livelihoods. That was done, and those people were rightly pissed. Maybe Trump can't 'bring back coal', but he sure as hell try to prop it up for a time, so these regions can slowly adjust to a new reality.