Thread by @charles_gaba

Obama: "The coal industry is dead, but I'll help them retrain/relocate."
Coal Country: "NO!"

Clinton: "The coal industry is dead, but I'll help them retrain/relocate."
Coal Country: "NO!"

Trump: "I'm gonna lie about bringing back the coal industry!"
Coal Country: "YAY!"

https://twitter.com/JRubinBlogger/status/1327993900036984833

Now fill in this blank:

Biden: "The coal industry is dead, but I'll help them retrain/relocate."
Coal Country: "______!"

Of course not everyone can relocate, so retraining does no good if there's no jobs available in the new field in your area.

Obama/Clinton/Biden: "We'll also invest in infrastructure to attract jobs in other fields TO COAL COUNTRY!"
GOP: "NO!"

This raises another question: Let's suppose that for whatever reason, the *entire* population of, say, Wyoming, were to pack up & move out of the state. Literally all 578,000 of them.

Would WY remain a state? Would they still get 3 EVs, 2 Senators & 1 Representative?

I'm not picking on Wyoming here, btw...this hypothetical could apply to any state--let's say everyone moves out of Florida due to climate change submerging the entire state. Would FL still keep their Electoral College, House and Senate representation?

The Constitution lays out how to *add* states to the U.S. but I don't think it has any method of *removing* one. I think that would require a new amendment.

Of course in either scenario, it's more likely that there'd still be a small number of residents--say, 10,000 people still living in Cheyenne or Tallahassee, which are near the borders--which would be even *worse*: They'd still get 2 Senators and at least 1 House member.

As an aside, the excellent film "October Sky" does a great job on exactly this issue with the strained relationship between Homer and his father (it's a much better movie than the trailer makes it seem like):