Harlan County, Ky., has a long history with two dirty businesses: coal and the Democratic party. As with much of Appalachia, Kentucky’s politics are more complicated than often is understood. There are many dividing lines in Kentucky, some of them familiar: Donald Trump won the state in the 2016 presidential election, but Hillary Rodham Clinton won the state’s two most populous and urban counties, which together account for about a quarter of the state’s population.
But other political borders are more Appalachia-specific, and one of those is the distinction between areas where coal is mined and those where it isn’t.
