Biden takes on Democrats' 'Mission Impossible': Revitalizing coal country
After years of watching their standing erode in energy-producing states, Democrats under President Joe Biden have accepted the challenge that’s vexed them for a decade: convincing fossil fuel workers that they will still be okay even if their current jobs evaporate as the nation embraces a climate change-friendly economy.
Democrats have a term for their vision — “Just Transition” — and hope it might succeed in the same places where previous attempts to focus on economic transition have failed. In 2016, Hillary Clinton tried to tout a transition economy in West Virginia, only to produce the most toxic sound bite of her ill-fated campaign, when she appeared to gloat at the notion of Democratic policies taking away coal miners’ jobs.
But even as Biden’s infrastructure bill touches on many policies that energy states say they will need to withstand job losses — including retooling defunct factories — they have yet to show much progress in winning the hearts and minds of people in places it would directly affect. Even some key allies acknowledge that Democrats haven’t yet landed on a coherent, persuasive message.
“They’ve got a long way to go to convince people that what could happen will actually be positive for them,” said Phil Smith, spokesman for the United Mine Workers Association, a labor group for coal miners. “Because right now, they don’t believe that.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-takes-on-democrats-mission-impossible-revitalizing-coal-country/ar-BB1fMaEr
= new reply since forum marked as read
