Digging for the coal miner vote

Re “Coal country is Trump country,” Feb. 22

I am a descendant of coal miners, and your article on the unwavering support of President Trump by those men willing to go underground for a paycheck hits close to home.

When I was growing up in Fayette County, Pa., many of my high school classmates were anxiously waiting for the chance to earn high wages. But those who chose not to follow their fathers into the mines knew of the underground hell and chose not to breathe coal dust for a paycheck.

The 28-year-old miner in your article who never voted before and supports Trump knows nothing of politics or the history of the Republican Party in America. These are the voters who may swing the election because of the electoral college, and they could not care less about air and water quality in the rest of the country.

The real Republicans who run the party live far away from the coal mines in Greene County.

Kevin Park

Mission Hills

What coal miners need to hear is not that Democrats want to shut down their mines and end their livelihood, it’s how Democrats will help educate them for other jobs once coal is phased out.

If you’re making more than $100,000 as a miner, of course you hope coal won’t be phased out. But since it must be for the sake of the environment, Democrats have to do what smart companies have been doing for years: offering workers reeducation.

My cousin’s husband was working in a mill in western Pennsylvania. When it closed, he was offered an education in heating and air conditioning. Now, he lives more comfortably than most people struggling to get by in Los Angeles.

Fran Tunno

Glendale