Unfortunately, in the recent gubernatorial election in Kentucky, voters (at least a majority of the 30% who managed to get off the sofa and vote) opted for ultra- right Tea Party Republican Matt Bevin, including this guy, Dennis Blackburn:
The 56-year-old mechanic hasn’t worked in 18 months, since he lost his job at a tire company that supplies a diminishing number of local coal mines. [snip]
He has a hereditary liver disorder, numbness in his hands and legs, back pain from folding his 6-foot-1-inch frame into 29-inch mine shafts as a young man, plus an abnormal heart rhythm — the likely vestige of having been struck by lightning 15 years ago in his tin-roofed farmhouse.
Blackburn was making small payments on an MRI he’d gotten at Pikeville Medical Center, the only hospital in a 150-mile radius, when he heard about Big Sandy’s Shelby Valley Clinic. There he met Fleming, who helped him sign up for one of the managed-care Medicaid plans available in Kentucky.
On Election Day, Blackburn voted for Bevin because he is tired of career politicians and thought a businessman would be more apt to create the jobs that Pike County so needs. (our emphasis)Of course, now Blackburn, and possibly many of the 55 percent of voters in impoverished Pike County who voted for Bevin, are worried he'll actually end the Medicaid expansion program -- what he promised to do throughout the election campaign!! (It raises the issue of a simple test that could be administered before voting: give the voter a piece of paper with two dots and if the person can't connect them, send them home.)
If this guy isn't the perfect future Trump voter ("he's a businessman" not a "career politician" after all!), we don't know who is. As Charles Pierce said so well to those simple- minded voters who consistently vote against their self- interest (as well as those who can't be bothered to vote at all), "good luck and enjoy your freedom!"
