Fundamentally, you're talking about people who did what they were told for 30 years and are now fucked.

See, this is the narrative that I don't agree with: that your "rednecks" are fucked.

I'm 40 minutes, tops, from Trumpistan. And you know what I see when I get out there?

Brand new $60k trucks in the driveway.

Huge multi-acre pieces of land.

A pole barn workshop with an extra-tall door on one side so the 35-foot RV with three pop-outs can be parked out of the elements.

I have a very good friend who is an honest-to-god Iowa corn farmer. Gun-toting, Republican-supporting, get the gummint outta my business... but give me my corn subsidy, or I'm going broke, real-life American farmer.

And these people are being told day in and day out, by their own personal wing of the nutjob right-wing media, that they have it HARD. And they are suffering. And other people in America have it better than they do.

And, for all intents and purposes, I do NOT have it "better" than they do. In fact, being reliant on the city for things like power and water makes me distinctly more susceptible to shakeups in the system.

I understand coal mining is down, but it has been down ever since machines were brought in to do the majority of the work that they'd previously relied on dumb muscle to do. Same with auto manufacturing. Same for the majority of the physical labor jobs out there... that work is going away.

And that's got nothing to do with the liberal left-coasties like me.

That's because Bill Walton decided he could make more money if he bought cheapass chinese-made shit, and sold it back to the people who just lost their jobs to... cheap chinese manufacturing.

Are there people who are screwed out there, and have a right to be pissed? Sure.

But it sure as fuck isn't the people who painted "TRUMP" on the side of their $40k pole barn, that covers their $250k RV, and $30k of shop equipment.