How Trump became eastern Kentucky’s ‘bully’

This story is part of our series Asking Appalachia: Coal, Trump and the politics of eastern Kentucky. Don't miss part one and part two. 

The American political map has shifted dramatically in the past generation. Once solid Republican states now pick Democrats, and vice versa.

Kentucky went from blue to distinctly red in a generation. To explain what happened here, Republican activist Roger Ford takes us around eastern Kentucky to give his version.

Ford heads a pro-Trump political group, the Conservative Caucus of Kentucky. He blames the economic hollowing out here on Democrats — former President Barack Obama and President Biden. Ford says former President Donald Trump speaks to the hope and pride of voters here.

First stop on Ford’s tour: the courthouse in the city of Pikeville.

“From the late ’60s to the early 2000s, so for about 40, 45 years, every elected official in this courthouse was Democratic,” Ford says.

Democrats in Kentucky have always been centrist or conservative on social issues, the 2nd Amendment and abortion.

Kentucky went from blue to purple in the ‘90s. And by the 2008 election, Pike County picked Republican John McCain over Obama by nearly 30 points. This courthouse is now solid red.

“We have two Democrats, the rest Republicans,” Ford says. “Let's see: sheriff, jailer, county clerk, circuit clerk, commonwealth's attorney … ”

You get the idea. To explain why this happened, Ford drives us up and down the winding hills of central Appalachia. We pass beautiful green hills and valleys — or hollers as they call them.

As many say, the political shift here has to do with people who feel looked down on and shamed by urban, wealthy elites. The congressional district surrounding Pike County is among the poorest in the country.

At first, it’s hard to tell because there are signs of the economic engine here: coal mining, coal cleaning facilitates, coal trains.

The thing is, it’s a fraction of what it used to be. The vast majority of coal mines have shut down, something Ford blames squarely on Democratic presidents.

That brings us to our next stop: the once-proud coal town of Phelps, Kentucky.

One place still standing here is the Hornet’s Diner, a lunch spot that was once teeming with miners every day.

Business is still reasonable here. What’s gone is all the small businesses that were once here serving mining companies and families: hardware stores, shops, movie theaters.

“It's all gone. It's all gone,” Ford says. “So as the mining has declined, obviously the customer base declines and those businesses evaporate.”

The collapse in coal has many reasons: domestic competition, price, air pollution rules. But the dominant narrative is of a war waged by the left.

“There was and continues to be a war on coal. I mean it partly were market forces, but part of it was an overreach by the federal government that targeted surface mining in particular,” Ford says. “You could stop 10 people on the street and ask them, and nine of them would say, war on coal, Barack Obama, Joe Biden.”

People who are or were in the mining business know the reasons are complex. But the idea of being in a war, maybe it’s too powerful a story, as is the power of the draw of Trump, who pledged to bring coal jobs back to Appalachia.

Thing is, his term saw Kentucky coal production fall, as well as coal jobs.

So for Ford, why support Trump, a convicted felon, liable for sexual assault and a serial liar? Ford, a lifelong churchgoer, gives a scripture answer.

“The main characters in the Bible, whether that's Noah, Abraham, David, Solomon, they were drunks. They were adulterers. They were liars. They were this, they were that,” Ford says. “God can use even the worst people in significant positive ways. I think Donald Trump falls in that category. Can he do better? Yeah.”

“I think God chose Trump,” Ford says. “I think God has a hand in everything that goes on on planet Earth. That's not to say God didn't choose Barack Obama for some reason. We can't question any of that.”

So that’s a faith-based rationale. There’s also a social science way to think about it.

Award-winning sociologist Arlie Hochschild of the University of California, Berkeley spent seven years here on and off studying social and political change. And turned it into a new book: “Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame and the Rise of the Right.”

Hochschild describes local Trump supporters with a metaphor.

“They felt they were waiting in line for the American dream and their feet were getting tired. And they felt that people were cutting in line ahead of them,” Hochschild says. “But that there was a bully in line, and that bully was the EPA under Obama. People felt like something had been taken away from them. Tremendous loss.”

Again, they feel bullied by elites, city folks, Obama and Biden.

Who is their bully? Hochschild says it’s Trump.

“That counter bully wasn't perfect. He had a lot of flaws,”  Hochschild says. “But at least he was, as they saw it, our bully.”

Our last Ketucky stop is back to downtown Pikeville, where there are signs everywhere advertising drug addiction recovery. Appalachia remains the country’s epicenter of the opioid crisis.

The rate of overdose deaths per 100,000 people is 70% higher than outside Appalachia. And Republican Ford blames the flow of fentanyl on a failed border — under Biden. Ford believes a wall would help.

“We have to have a tough border policy coupled with a tougher, more practical response to the drug problem,” Ford says. “If that’s the game, and if we’re in a war and that’s what it appears to be, we need to prosecute it like it’s an actual war.”

Put it all together, and Ford, like many in eastern Kentucky, sees a Democratic party that’s failed this place and a Republican candidate who speaks to a wounded pride.

It’s serious stuff. But as we head out, Ford leaves me with a lighter, self-deprecating joke about Kentucky and its place in the country.  He attributes it to Mark Twain, even though there’s no proof that Twain said it.

“Mark Twain said he wanted to live in Kentucky when the world ended, because everything in Kentucky happens 20 years after the fact,” Ford says. “So the end of time will come and Kentucky will still be around. They will not have got the memo.”

The political memo is that Appalachian Kentucky — once blue — is MAGA red for a long time to come. Perhaps ‘til kingdom come.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to more accurately characterize the quote attributed to Mark Twain. 

Find part four here.

Scott Tong produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Catherine Welch. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.