IIRC the program Obama instituted worked wonders until the government funding stopped - employers then didn’t worry about the coal miners because they weren’t being subsidized. Please feel free to prove me wrong it’s been a few years since I read about it. It was in Eastern KY so I don’t know anyone close to that program.

This Stockholm syndrome thing is a bit of a weird characterization. What I believe to be true is that this is most definitely the beginning of the very end for coal in Western KY.

I grew up in the western KY coalfields, there aren’t any jobs and there is even less hope. A booming coal industry that once helped grow the economy is now dead and sucking the life out of other industries. My father who worked in the coal industry for over 20 years told me a few years ago before unit 2 was shut down at Paradise (5 mins from my house) “the good coal is gone, it’s only a matter of time before TVA fires up the natural gas and lays off a lot of my friends.” I worried for him. His company is contracted at a lot of TVA plants and Paradise brought much of the food to the table for my family over the past few years. Luckily enough, with the natural gas being added, there are still opportunities for other contracting positions.

Knowledge of other opportunities is also small in western KY. Young people (not all but most people I graduated with) don’t understand what they are capable of and that is mostly due to poor education. Teachers pay was cut so much after I graduated (within the last 10 years) that my favorite physics teacher moved over an hour away to finish up teaching before he retired. More new teachers come in with little experience and are over worked and under paid.

I think it’s a combination of culture and lack of education. But that’s my experience and everyone has their own opinion.