Funny how I've been hearing about the high crime rate and corruption and poverty in "Democrat Controlled Cities" but I have never once heard anyone point out the absolute desolation, despair and hopelessness that has consumed a state that is absolutely dominated from top to bottom by the Republican Party.
The entire state looks like this video. West Virginia is well above the national average in Unemployment, Crime, Drug Addiction (especially Meth,) and Poverty. West Virginians are also heavy users of the Affordable Care Act (but hate Obamacare, of course, and repeatedly elect legislators who reject the Medicaid Family Planning Program. Can't have fewer children living in poverty. Wouldn't be American.)
West Virginia gave 70 percent of its vote to the GOP candidate for President in 2024 while electing two Republican Congressmen, a new Republican Senator, and a new Republican Governor to work with the overwhelmingly Republican Legislature. Those people will continue to feed at the trough of government subsidies while flying American flags from their porches, Trump flags from their trucks, and proclaiming their independence from the Big Bad Government and it's Liberal Big Spenders who apparently still have all the power despite the Republicans controlling every branch. Did I mention that West Virginia gutted its public school funding decades ago?
The second largest industry in West Virginia (after coal, which is rapidly dying) is Tourism (which is rapidly dying.) It's getting harder and harder to get people to see Ignorant Self-Sabotaging Hicksville USA as a great place to explore nature when the few mining companies that remain are busy carving down the last of the state's once-beautiful mountains. The problem is that there are still plenty of stunning hikes to be had in the Appalachians of Pennsylvania and New York and North Carolina- you know, where there are still reasonable regulations preventing the total destruction of the wilderness for quick $$$.
West Virginia is doomed to go down with a whimper, not a bang. Heck, it's there already. Harper's Ferry is still worth a day with the kids. But that's about it.
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