A number of leftists on Twitter have let it be known that residents of eastern Kentucky who’ve been devastated by recent flooding more or less “had it coming” for voting Republican.
Some examples:
- “This is heartbreaking, but at the same time, this is what they voted for, this is what voting for science deniers, corporate whores to the fossil fuel industry has gotten us,” one user wrote. “And the sad thing is I think they will continue to vote for the same people over and over.”
- “The entire country might be more sympathetic if Kentucky residents stopped voting for politicians who vote against their interests. Remember, climate change impacts every living entity on the planet, even your family. No one likes to see suffering,” another user declared. “This is what they voted for.”
- “@GOP Kentucky had It coming for being despicable garbage Trumpies,” another user noted. “YEA I SAID IT! WHAT MF?!”
- “I’m getting a secret twisted pleasure out of the Kentucky floods,” another user admitted. “I don’t want to seen people & pets hurt, but these backwater Republican turds should know how to float. Don’t they sort of deserve it? I’m bad, sorry.”
Given leftists’ track record for brutal discourse, such reactions sadly aren’t very surprising. But what has been quite eye-opening is the pushback from other Democrats against such takes.
‘If you’re that callous, just enjoy hell’
The Lexington Herald-Leader reported that a number of folks not typically aligned with Republicans just weren’t having any of the left’s poison on this matter.
The paper noted that east Tennessee native Skylar Baker-Jordan wrote an article for the United Kingdom-based publication The Independent titled “Liberals saying Kentucky deserves these floods need to take a hard look at themselves.”
“Blame the people in power, by all means,” Baker-Jordan wrote, according to the Herald-Leader. “But don’t blame some of the poorest, most neglected, most mocked and marginalized people in our nation.”
The paper noted that five Kentucky counties confirmed to have lost lives in the flooding — Knott, Perry, Breathitt, Letcher, and Clay — average a median household income of $32,464, and up to 37% of their residents live in poverty.
Baker-Jordan added in her piece that as “an Appalachian Democrat, I can barely believe what I’m seeing from people who should be on the same side as me,” the Herald-Leader reported.
In addition, Kentucky Democratic Party Chair Colmon Elridge got pointedly profane with those piling on the suffering residents in the eastern part of the state.
“If your take on the devastation in eastern Kentucky is to say folks ‘deserve it’ for how they vote, you’re an asshole,” Elridge tweeted. “I don’t give two s**ts about how we might otherwise agree on issues. KY is our home, these are our people, & if you’re that callous, just enjoy hell.”
Silas House — an author, a Democrat, and an eastern Kentucky native — took no prisoners among the left, either:
House also tweeted: “So many on here lecturing me about how my people live off them. No. Appalachia has fueled this country since the beginning. With timber, coal, gas, our children, our lives. We keep getting pushed down and we keep getting back up.”
He added: “We’ve fueled America with our music, our literature, our hearts and souls. Children are dead. People have lost everything. Stop the ignorant and malicious rhetoric.”