Reply #111: Most of them didn't -- look at the county by county voting maps in KY, VA, WV [View All]

[Leopolds Ghost]

The traditional Hillbilly areas are still bedrock Democratic counties.

As are, of course, the Eastern European mining towns.

However, there is a lot of Xenophobia in Hillbilly community resulting
in racism and the like directed against "liberal interest groups" --

although I wouldn't venture to say most Hillbillys are anywhere near
as racist as people down in Cotton country.

And the Eastern Europeans in places like PA and WV are big on gun ownership and the flag, they've been told that liberals are dirty commie hippies who want to take away our hunting weapons. Even those areas
haven't really abandoned the New Deal coalition though.

I'd say the Dems abandoned Appalachia to focus on other problems,
under the misguided notion that they were unenlightened rural white
racists who didn't belong in the Democratic party... not the other way
round. Attempts have not been made to bridge the gap without relying
on stereotypical southern conservatism, as if every Southerner is a
Reaganite. They don't try to appeal to native populist tendencies.
Of course I could be wrong.