Reading the article, I can tell two things right off - the first is that the author is about as partisanly anti-Trump as they get, and the second is that the author is not from Breathitt County, or indeed anywhere in the Appalachians.
The questions postulated are, for the most part, easily explained by a native of the area. For example, an 18% approval rating (i.e. McConnell) can pretty easily translate into a landslide win provided the voters trust the competing candidate even less. Kentucky in general, and the eastern, Appalachian portions in particular, have had about enough of Democrat Socialist policies driving their state into the mud.
While many of the counties around here were, 40 years ago, reliably Democrat-voting, that has changed over the years. The last time my county voted for a Democrat for President was Jimmy Carter - they learned a hard lesson during his tenure, and have never gone back. Neither have they forgotten the LBJ promises of a "war on poverty" that were first uttered just across the state line in Ashland, KY. That's been 50 years ago or so, and we've not heard the first shot in that war yet. As a matter of fact, Democrat policies have driven it entorely the other way, into MORE pverty rather than less, by ending coal mining and tobacco growing, which were the only two pillars holding our economy up here. Our economy has since crashed and burned, resulting in higher poverty rather than lower.
Just across the county line, Trump won a handy victory, yet the sheriff was elected as a Democrat. Knowing the people there, I have no doubt that the Trump victory was real - it was hard to find someone there who disparaged Trump or praised Biden. I know of exactly two people in that category, out of the hundreds I know there. The sheriff, BTW, promptly changed his affiliation from D to R after he was elected. The Democrat Party raised hell when he did - they have so few already - but he stood his ground, citing the Democrat calls to defund police, which, as you might imagine, would have a direct impact on his livelihood. He could not, in a clear conscience, maintain his lifelong affiliation with a party that only wants to end him. The electorate voted for his character, not his party affiliation.
So, things are changing, demographics are changing, and people some times split their votes in the own perceived interests. It seems the partisan pundits may be unable to keep up with trends, especially when those trends involved laughed-at outsiders and outcasts like us hillbillies. We register as "R", "D" or "I", but we don't vote that way. We vote, instead, to maintain our freedom, and for whomever we think will best accomplish that.
For all the good that does us in the face of overbearing, authoritarian urbanites and unabashed vote thieves. They can certainly attempt to vote our freedom away, but problems are going to arise when they try to come and take it.
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The questions postulated are, for the most part, easily explained by a native of the area. For example, an 18% approval rating (i.e. McConnell) can pretty easily translate into a landslide win provided the voters trust the competing candidate even less. Kentucky in general, and the eastern, Appalachian portions in particular, have had about enough of Democrat Socialist policies driving their state into the mud.
While many of the counties around here were, 40 years ago, reliably Democrat-voting, that has changed over the years. The last time my county voted for a Democrat for President was Jimmy Carter - they learned a hard lesson during his tenure, and have never gone back. Neither have they forgotten the LBJ promises of a "war on poverty" that were first uttered just across the state line in Ashland, KY. That's been 50 years ago or so, and we've not heard the first shot in that war yet. As a matter of fact, Democrat policies have driven it entorely the other way, into MORE pverty rather than less, by ending coal mining and tobacco growing, which were the only two pillars holding our economy up here. Our economy has since crashed and burned, resulting in higher poverty rather than lower.
Just across the county line, Trump won a handy victory, yet the sheriff was elected as a Democrat. Knowing the people there, I have no doubt that the Trump victory was real - it was hard to find someone there who disparaged Trump or praised Biden. I know of exactly two people in that category, out of the hundreds I know there. The sheriff, BTW, promptly changed his affiliation from D to R after he was elected. The Democrat Party raised hell when he did - they have so few already - but he stood his ground, citing the Democrat calls to defund police, which, as you might imagine, would have a direct impact on his livelihood. He could not, in a clear conscience, maintain his lifelong affiliation with a party that only wants to end him. The electorate voted for his character, not his party affiliation.
So, things are changing, demographics are changing, and people some times split their votes in the own perceived interests. It seems the partisan pundits may be unable to keep up with trends, especially when those trends involved laughed-at outsiders and outcasts like us hillbillies. We register as "R", "D" or "I", but we don't vote that way. We vote, instead, to maintain our freedom, and for whomever we think will best accomplish that.
For all the good that does us in the face of overbearing, authoritarian urbanites and unabashed vote thieves. They can certainly attempt to vote our freedom away, but problems are going to arise when they try to come and take it.
.
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’