Coal Country’s Suffering Is Nothing New

Coal and the people who mine it have exploded onto the public consciousness since the election of President Donald Trump last fall. Trump promised to end what he described as an Obama-era "war on coal." On the campaign trail and on Thursday he said that the rough conditions coal miners face would be turned around by a new era of American “energy dominance.”

“You’ve gone through eight years of hell,” Trump said. But “we have finally ended the war on coal.