Coal Miners Say They Are 'Cast Aside to Die' Under Trump

[applegrove]

Coal Miners Say They Are ‘Cast Aside to Die’ Under Trump

October 13, 2025 at 9:58 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 85 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2025/10/13/coal-miners-say-they-are-cast-aside-to-die-under-trump/

“When coal miners came to Washington in April, they posed behind President Trump at the White House, wearing their hard hats and thanking him for trying to reinvigorate their struggling industry,” the New York Times reports.

“But on Tuesday dozens of miners and their families will be in a more unusual position: protesting the Trump administration outside the Labor Department building, arguing it has failed to protect them from black lung disease, an incurable illness caused by inhaling coal and silica dust.”

[RandySF]

1. And they'd vote for him a third time.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

7. Fourth, if he is on a ballot again.

[Turbineguy]

2. Yup.

But then he does that with everybody.

[58Sunliner]

3. Who would have guessed?

[durablend]

4. *Shocking*

If only they could've been warned beforehand......

[Klarkashton]

5. He got their votes now GTFO.

[larwdem]

6. What a fucking surprise

[House of Roberts]

8. Something to do with leopards and faces?

They never heard Alan Grayson's wholly accurate explanation of Republican healthcare: Don't get sick, but if you do, DIE QUICKLY!

[RockRaven]

9. If you didn't want that, why did you vote for that?

It isn't like there wasn't a first term to judge him on either. He destroyed health and safety mechanisms the first time around, and then most of you voted for him twice more.

We can't fix stupid.

[tanyev]

10. Are they not reinvigorated?

[Baitball Blogger]

11. Suckas!

[GreenWave]

32. And losahs! How that bastard mocks all things not Trump.

[Solly Mack]

12. Boggles the mind.

That they believed it would be any other way.

[UTUSN]

13. Well... uh...

[peggysue2]

14. Trump promised to save the industry

Not the workers.

There's a difference. It's the 'special' way cons work.

I have no animus against miners. Mining has always been a hard, back-breaking, dirty job, a job that enriches only the owners.

But Geeze Louise, this is the second time Agent Orange has lied to mining communities.

Well past time to remove the blinkers!

[littlemissmartypants]

26. I think you might have meant blinders, forgive me if I'm wrong, peggysue2. ❤️

[peggysue2]

33. No problem

Blinkers is an alternative to the word blinders. Both words mean the same in this context.

[littlemissmartypants]

35. I've never heard that before. But there's no accounting for colloquialisms. ...

So, I learned something new today.

[GenThePerservering]

15. The whole industry is dying nt

[Botany]

16. Besides a shift to renewable energy such as solar and wind the utility companies have spent billions ...

… switching their electric generator stations from coal to natural gas and the miners know that too.
Many of them worked on the conversions or had family and or friends that did that work. Gas is
much easier to use for electrical generation than coal.

Fuck them coal miners. They voted for Trump.



Now coal was a way of life for many in Appalachia but coal also kills the environment,
the miners, and our atmosphere too.

[Crunchy Frog]

17. They're upset because they got what they voted for?

[paleotn]

18. He isn't protecting their industry either. That ain't up to him.

From an operating cost standpoint, generating electricity from gas, even with volatile gas prices, is cheaper. The transition has been in full swing for years now. Coal is dead. Let it lie.

[erronis]

39. That was my immediate reaction also. The (r)epuglicons and trump are in bed with oil, not coal

[JustAnotherGen]

19. Again

Self-Inflicted wound. Rubes.

[nycbos]

20. Who did they vote for?

My sympathy is limited

[Scrivener7]

21. Coal miners need to get over themselves. There are fewer people working in coal

than work at Wendy's. For generations, coal country has been diving farther and farther into poverty while insisting the rest of us prop up the coal industry. The writing was on the wall when their grandfathers were laid off.

It's time for them to learn a new skill.

(Just saying: Hillary had 400 clean energy companies committed to opening branches and operations in coal country. Too bad they voted for their bigotry rather than their self-interest.)

[OnionPatch]

30. As a person who grew up in coal country, I agree.

Coal was dying when I was a teenager there, and I'm 66 now. A few of my ancestors were coal miners and they lived in poverty and died young. Learn a new trade already! A lot of them even turned down government programs for re-training.....

[Scrivener7]

34. I have family there. It's just ridiculous.

I often like to compare the response to the coal industry collapsing to the response to the retail industry collapsing.

Retail lost hundreds of thousands more jobs than coal in the last 10 years. Retail lost those jobs all at once while coal reached it's peak employment numbers in 1923 and has been falling steadily since. But which one are we still hearing about?

And what's the most obvious difference that makes one group think they are entitled to be propped up even as their industry ruins the environment unnecessarily, while the other group just picked themselves up and got on with retraining?

Retail is mostly women. Coal is mostly men.

[DBoon]

40. coal is mostly white men

[FakeNoose]

31. Yes I came here to say the same thing

Hillary Clinton was ready, willing and able to help the coal miners but they would have NONE of it. They wouldn't even listen to her.
What fools they are. And they were even bigger fools to listen to Chump and actually believe anything he told them.

We're supposed to feel sorry for these people?

[Gimpyknee]

22. FAFO

[popsdenver]

25. Tell them all to call a

Wahhhhhmbulance........The Trumphumper Voters are already being thrown under the bus, as having out grown their usefulness.....

Hey: You Grew It, You Chew It......munch, munch, munch.........

[Demobrat]

23. Look on the bright side.

The uppity black woman got put in her place.

Let’s not forget the important stuff, kay?

[littlemissmartypants]

24. Welcome to the club. If you're not a billionaire you are foolish...

To think you're going to make it out of this mess unscathed in one way or another.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

27. Are these the same miners?

Logic and economics say replace mining with green energy. Biden began the transition. Some miners though want no part of green energy.

[Raven123]

28. They should call their Senators and Congressman. Oh wait. They aren't in

Government is closed for the business of the people.

[Cirsium]

29. Theater

Don't fall for Trump's theatrical stunts, like posing with various people who are supposedly representative of some important voting bloc. It is all bullshit. There are something like 40,000 coal miners in the US now. That is nothing. There are ten times more people than that working in alternative energy jobs.

As is the case with the Republicans posing with farmers, ranchers, cowboys, lumberjacks, truckers, et al, it is all for show - Reagan on horseback, Bush's phony ranch, Trump's photo ops. That crap appeals to Walter Mitty types who fantasize about being some sort of pioneer rugged individualists, git along little dogies, yippee ki yay, circle the wagons.

These FAFO threads are predicated on accepting Republican propaganda about "real Americans" at face value.

Walter Mitty - "an ordinary, timid person who is given to adventurous and self-aggrandizing daydreams or secret plans as a way of glamorizing a humdrum life."

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/walter-mitty

[erronis]

43. Great post. Thanks for the reality check - especially about people unable to think critically.

[Champp]

36. G.O.P. likes to SUCKER people

so ignoble

[sakabatou]

37. If any of the miners voted for Dump, there's a face-eating leopard with their name on it

[MLWR]

38. I guess they chose not to believe him when he said,

"I don't care about you; I just want your vote."

[Bettie]

41. You'd think they'd be happy

this is literally what they voted for.

Who and what he and everyone around him are is not a secret, it isn't hidden in any way.

So, if this is what they wanted, why are they crying about it?

[synni]

42. Cast stupid votes, win stupid prizes