Biden would not have saved anything in coal country. Not a town, not a community, not a way of life. Throwing billions at solar and wind projects does not translate into lasting prosperity for places like Appalachia. What it actually means is that cheap construction crews from elsewhere roll in, install whatever needs installing, collect the subsidies, and then move on to the next project. The locals might make a few bucks servicing them along the way, but that’s where the economic miracle ends.
What remains are the contraptions themselves—panels, towers, access roads, cables—slowly degrading under weather and time. They break down. They fall apart. And because there are almost never serious decommissioning bonds attached, nobody is responsible for cleaning up the wreckage. The ruins just sit there. Rusting. Crumbling. Leaching. Not only an eyesore, but often a quiet source of pollution for local flora and fauna.
Appalachia is better off without these projects.
If local coal cannot compete with coal from other sources, then reality applies its usual pressure. Either the region finds something the market actually needs, or it preserves what it still has—its land, its hills, its rivers—and tries to become something else. A place people want to visit, not a place they want to extract one last subsidy from. That path isn’t perfect. Nothing is. But it beats becoming an industrial wasteland decorated with decaying green symbols of virtue.
That is what the green blob would have delivered: temporary activity, permanent scars, and lectures about progress.
But when you are poor, any narrative that promises salvation—no matter how implausible—is welcome. Hope is cheap. Subsidies sound like purpose. And distant elites selling green dreams never have to live with the aftermath.
