Coal Miners With Black Lung Say They Are ‘Cast Aside to Die’ Under Trump
nytimes.com
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
Some of you will die. That's a sacrifice Trump is willing to make.
Well duh. The fuck did you expect?
Trump has been a cheerleader for coal mine OWNERS. He doesn’t give a shit about the people in the mines. Never has.
Given the number of "coal miners for Trump" stickers I see driving around in coal country, good. Fuck em.
I thought that's what they voted for?
They voted for their kids to work in those mines too.
Sort of the joke of the industry.
You bring in some soulless billionaire despot in blue jeans to tell Bari Weis's CBS that wind farms took our freedom.
Then a village full of miners get shoved down a big hole when one of them asks about their three month delinquent back pay. This goes completely without mention, except in some Trotsky magazine that your average liberal wouldn't wipe their ass with.
The people who get to vote aren't the ones complaining
These coal miners didn't read the fine print: the administration is a cheerleader for coal mining BUSINESSES, not for coal miners. Coal miners, especially sick ones, are just a sunk cost to them.
As the son of a 30-year coal miner, not reading the fine print is a prerequisite to mining. If they were worried about the finer details the majority of them wouldn't be there to begin with.
Print fine like the silica dust
I won't stand for this coal miner slander, they used to be militant unionists agitating for workers' rights. They were thoroughly crushed and defeated, but not before making major material gains. Efforts have since been made by those in power to make the Appalachian people forget their history, and all that remains of that movement are traumatized and chronically ill elderly folk.
Ay, I am so sorry, but you are so right.
CLEAN BEAUTIFUL COAL
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?
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.
Simple answer, (many) people are uneducated/dumb and these people love a showman who tells them what they want to hear.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!)
Actual deal with the Devil?
The coal miners have served their purpose.....why would Trump care?
What, the anti-worker leader of the anti-worker party is anti-worker? Who would have guessed?
West Virginia voted for DJT. DJT fucked them over on this. They got exactly what they voted for.
HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BLACKEN OTHER PEOPLE'S LUNGS!! 😢
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.
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
They actually consider working the mines to be their cultural heritage. The number these mining companies have done on these families’ heads is astounding.
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.
Meanwhile, I know the goal of companies is to fully automate all of mining.
They didn’t want re-training.
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...
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.
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.
Not with that attitude!
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.
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.
Can someone explain to me why in 2025 people are still ending up with black lung? Don’t they wear respirators on the job to prevent inhalation of silica dust?
Over the past few years, mine owners cut on safety while Republicans blocked regulatory enforcement funding.
The head of Health and Safety at my previous job used to work at a mine, and he said that gains in PPE were basically a victim of their own success, in his opinion. Wearing your respirator and other PPE will go a long way towards mitigating these risks, but they're not the most pleasant things to wear for hours on end. He told me that lots of younger guys would come in, start working and see all the old guys at it with their respirators on, but they'd opt not to wear them whenever they thought they could get away with it, since they didn't personally know people who developed black lung in the field. That's just what he had told me, so I couldn't say how accurate it really is, but given the attitudes I've seen from guys in other fields towards wearing all their PPE, it wouldn't really surprise me if it were largely true.
The head of Health and Safety at my previous job used to work at a mine, and he said that gains in PPE were basically a victim of their own success, in his opinion.
Sounds a lot like the general population when it comes to vaccine efficacy, too. I cannot tell you how many people have told me, since about the 90s, when the denialism really started to get underway, that "I didn't vaccinate my kids and they never got sick!"
/facepalm
I remember talking to my retired grandmother, who worked her entire life as a nurse, about these experiences while she was still alive, and she had zero fucking patience for that shit, since she was of a generation that saw the effects of many of these diseases. It positively enraged her, if you want to be honest. And she was very right to be mad.
This PPE thing is rather exasperating to hear about, too, but at least people are not putting others, including their own children, at risk, I guess...
Coal miners voted for Trump so you get what you voted for there guys.
I guess this is one way to fix stupid.
It blows my mind that there are people that think they wouldn’t also be victims of his greed.
Correct
That face eating leopard be looking like Mr Creosote right about now.
So glad we got rid of the illegals so our kids can share in the proud tradition of getting black lung and being forgotten. /s
So... It's ok if non-citizens get black lung and forgotten?
Also no, but I think a lot and of MAGAts would change their tune on immigration if they really realized not only how much they contribute but how much quality of life for Americans would suffer.
What's with this oppositionally defiant bullshit you're spreading here, take a look inward and realize you might be a tool for Russia
The plan is to cast everyone aside to die once their capital has been extracted. The ones who survive must still have some capital left to extract.
Its a lot worse than it was several years back. Mine owners cut safety, Trump stopped the regulatory effort to do something about it, and cut treatment funding.
The regulatory effort created by and championed by
and how many of them voted for trump?
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...
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?
other than I told you so, who the fuck grows up and decides... "there's some black rock I could go dig out of dirt and other rock, risking my health obviously, for 12 an hour" ?
You really don't understand brainwashing do you?
my brain dirty as hell.
I could use a washin'
If that's the only job that pays bills, anyone.
Hmm, yes it's probably a "choice." Why didn't they just "choose" to live in New York City, go to NYU, and join the board of a Non-Profit? Are they stupid?
When 12 an hour is good money where you live...
As are we all. Trump cares about no one but himself.
Surprise! Everyone is cast aside to die under Trump!
What fucking year is it again?
1825
Unfortunately dying is the only thing that will keep them from voting Republican.
It's just like the COVID-deniers during the pandemic who cried and begged for the vaccine as their lungs filled with fluids, flailing and gasping air like a fish. The tiny few of them who survived the ventilators went right back to voting for anti-vax politicians.