I am sorry but this is bullshit. I live in this area and Boone may not be a hotbed of leftist activity in the mountains of WNC but t is not what this article is making it out to be. Boone was gerrymander away out of the 11th district for a reason. Its voting black was large enough when paired with Asheville to sway WNC Democratic. Outside of Asheville and Boone WNC is a sea of uneducated MAGA and fundamentalist Christians that either do not vote or are violently MAGA. Do not get me wrong. There are a lot of non-Trumpers here but not enough to make a difference. Honestly, outside of Boone the locals are perfectly fine with what is going on.

Truthfully, after reading the article I even wonder if the author has even been to Boone. One section talks about blood in the hills and the ending of mining. Mining never happened in WNC. Logging was the thing here. The article even talks about Blair Mountain which is nowhere near Boone. In the end this article not nothing but hopeium.

I find articles like this inspiring but it’s also a misrepresentation

The actions are no surprise to anyone who knows the area. Appalachia has a long history of fighting authority in any century against any government , and being fair minded. Like any place it is a mix of people both good and bad.

Articles like this will selectively point out inspiring actions, who others can talk about and say “look! their actions mean something different and new”.

But here, this is not new, not really, and nothing can change yet, no matter how many inspiring people are talked about.

Yeah but they aren’t doing much about it, so they can spin around in their chairs for all it matters