President Trump has been a cheerleader for coal miners. But these miners say his administration is failing to enforce limits on a lethal workplace hazard

  • Bizzle@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    That’s fucked up that guys are still digging coal and getting black lung, there’s no way that shit is cheaper than solar or wind

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I remember all the alt-right asshats trolling journalists that lost their jobs to “learn to code”. I think that originated in the idea of trying to retrain miners…

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I had a great-grandfather that died of black lung. I thought that was wild to hear about when I was a kid, and I’m Gen X. The fact that it’s still happening is crazy.

    • yarr@feddit.nl
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      6 months ago

      Ah, but the cost of the miner with black lung is increasingly handled by that individual or their family.

      If you are a coal miner and you think that a man that lives in a gilded apartment can relate to you and has your best interests at heart you are going to be sadly disappointed.

    • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      They actually consider working the mines to be their cultural heritage. The number these mining companies have done on these families’ heads is astounding.

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        That’s not all that weird all things considered, just look at anyone named Smith, Miller, or Stewart all of them are names based on their ancestors jobs. That only really happens when your job is your heritage and I’d say that takes about 3-4 generations minimum. Mind you doesn’t make it any less fucked up that they prostate themselves to that shit work.

  • CMLVI@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I’ve said this until I was blue in the face. The closure of NIOSH in Morgantown, the place that arguably led the charge for discovering black lung’s cause and combatting it, and continually working on particulate science, was the absolute biggest slap in the face to this state that could have happened. The biggest ally miners had in the the twilights of their careers is gone, and in it’s place, you get a “good job, bro” and kicked out the door by the mine barons. Any shot you have at recompense dies when they declare bankruptcy with yet another shell company; the holding ponds they’re responsible for? Not their problem. The recovery costs of the natural environment? State’s cost now. Yet all those profits go right into ol’ Jimothy Justice’s pockets. Probably amped as fuck that he gets to continue his racket, and ALSO vote on the policies that regulate the industry. How fun that is!

    Fucks sake.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Of course they are cast aside. They cost money with no benefit for Trump. Money he would like to spend on his billionaire cronies instead.

    Proper medical care for 100 normal people or one more yacht for a rich guy? Guess what he’ll choose.

    • Insekticus@aussie.zone
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      6 months ago

      1000% this. These workers are the dumbest motherfuckers who vote against their own interest and go full pikachuface.jpg when he doesnt support them. What do you expect of a tyrant? Love and support? These troglodytes are fucking cattle to be slaughtered in their eyes of the capitalist elite.

      Room temp IQs with the stupidest takes again. Need that “fell for it again” meme.

  • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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    6 months ago

    Were previous presidents shutting down mines? I mean they were talking about how somehow magically coal miners would become solar miners or something, but did they actually address any material conditions that allowed coal miners to exist in the first place?
    Apply any wealth redistribution to the companies and individual that own coal mines?

    Any non-neoliberal policy that talked about anything except “re-training” as if that is the fundamental issue with these coal-miners?

    Anything that suggests the coal miners weren’t “cast aside to die” under previous presidents?

  • ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online
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    6 months ago

    I have been saying this for nearly 10 years. How the fuck does Trump do it? Trump has had a lifetime of being a conman, of failing at business, of screwing over his partners and his employees at every turn. Yet for all this he STILL has people who crawl and cower towards him and still act like he is the pinnacle of business success when he is the pinnacle of business failure. His father, Fred Trump, was a grade A asshole (Woody Guthrie even mentioned him in one of his songs) but he actually WAS good at business. All risks that he took were calculated and he planned out his real estate plans very carefully and he absolutely took into account what advisors had to say. He was a terrible boss, yes, and an incredibly racist man, but he still consistently made money off his investments while Trump never did. Even in the 90s when Trump was increasingly becoming a joke there were still people that thought of his as highly successful when he had just gone through a string of embarrassing failures.

    Just how does he do it?

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      6 months ago

      It’s like if you think of all the ways we influence other people and show our worth to others, all of the most immoral and unethical tactics that actually work in the real world seem to come to Trump instinctively. He doesn’t even have to think about it. I think that helps him instantly jump to conclusions (linkedin filter: he’s decisive and a risk taker!) and have the unearned dunning-kruger arrogance to plow ahead (LF: he radiates confidence and stands up for his beliefs!) and wreck the country just to make some numbers go up for people who otherwise want for nothing.

      Or maybe he’s just being controlled by malicious forces. (linkedin: he has high-level connections in the international community!)

    • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      As I understand it, the public perception of Trump was distorted by how he was portrayed on The Apprentice: https://www.psypost.org/new-research-sheds-light-on-the-influence-of-the-apprentice-on-donald-trumps-political-rise/

      The producers at NBC had to jump through a lot of hoops to make Trump appear competent. Their chief marketing officer from that time is very sorry for what he did: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-16/we-created-a-tv-illusion-for-the-apprentice-but-the-real-trump-threatens-america

      Once Trump became the republican candidate, the right-wing media took up the responsibility of filtering and distorting what their audience got to see and hear about Trump.

    • fodor@lemmy.zip
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      6 months ago

      The underlying problem is that Washington Democrats are largely worthless sleazebags. When you have two parties that both screw over everyone so that billionaires can get richer, often people just throw up their hands and vote for someone, anyone, who might be different. Trump is different.

      And of course many people, tens of millions apparently, love having someone to hate. This is, of course, the underlying motto of today’s Republican party.

    • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      Trumps opponents are gormless democrats who are so out of touch that even when healthcare is the most important issue to 75+% of americans, they will proudly claim that “universal health care will never ever happen.” Or that “Healthcare isn’t their highest priority,” as if 75% of Americans were yearning for bailing out the same banks that they all hate.

      • ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online
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        6 months ago

        I was also referring to Trump before he got into politics. Even when he debuted in the 70s and early 80s there were tons of newspapers who pointed how just how full of shit the man was, but there were still others that bought the lie that he was the next Rockefeller when he was absolutely not.

    • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 months ago

      Yeah i sure as shit do not know.

      He has no redeeming qualities and seems to make the worst possible choice at every juncture but he inevitably seems to fail upwards.

      I have a few observations.

      He lies about everything all the time with no shame. As in, reality doesn’t matter it only matters what people hear you say.

      He’s always the centre of attention. He’s always doing something controversial and is constantly on everyone’s mind.

      He’s offensive. He offends the sensibilities of every rational person. Everything he says makes half the world feel exasperated and frustrated and angry, while the other half chuckles along because hes made the leftards angry.

      He thinks and talks like an uneducated boomer, and that makes other uneducated idiots feel validated rather than feeling stupid.

  • selkiesidhe@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    Coal is a dead industry being propped up by the kickbacks used to buy senators. People who work in that industry should have already been planning a move over to the clean energy sector.

    Instead you vote for an orange cancer that cuts your job, cuts your insurance, and makes sure you can’t move over to the clean industries by taking away their funding…