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In reply to the discussion: Why do coal miners want to continue working such a horrible, dirty job? [View all]Blanks
(4,835 posts)In the logging industry (Pacific Northwest). In fact, I had two cousins that were killed in logging accidents when they were 19 and 20 years old. Another friend from high school died in the woods shortly after his wife (my cousin) had her third child.
Those who remain are all huuuuge Trump supporters. I don't know that he's even visited Idaho and talked about logging, but they just KNOW that he's gonna bring back the logging.
The sad thing is that there is still logging, but it's done by big companies, and they don't hire locals (I am told). The local mill closed down during the Reagan administration and the logs are transported 70 miles away and loaded on ships to be processed elsewhere.
Even when there was a mill in town, they made 2x4s and other lumber, but there weren't follow on industries to optimize the wealth of the extracted natural resource.
Small town folk are scared and angry. They are that way because they are uneducated.
If you ever expect to see this change, it will require entrepreneurial education and available markets for locally produced products. In places where cottage industries spring up on their own, such attitudes exist, but if your plan (anyone's plan) requires people to leave their community to better their lives, too many folks will reject it out of fear.
Trump doesn't have a solution, but they believe that the system is the problem, and he is from outside the system. It will be tough to convince them otherwise and when Trump gets trounced in November, they will be even angrier.