Yeah, its population has been largely farming for generations and Big Ag is buying up land and pushing them off. It doesn't help that the people who live there are only able to make a living from government subsidized crop prices, and they actively vote against all those liberal policies, like said crop price subsidies, that have greatly benefitted them since the great depression and dust bowl. Too many think they do it all by themselves. Rather we are all in this together in spite of the assholes.

OK, fine, but the article was talking about manufacturing. Well, in as much as it talked about anything - it was mostly just conservative political posturing.

Interestingly, the piece brings up West Virginia, but doesn’t mention the battery manufacturing brought there by the Inflation Reduction Act nor the mining union agreement with the corporate owner of the battery manufacturer to train and hire coal miners. As you said, conservative political posturing.