Why Did Trump Win West Virginia By 40%?

Paul Krugman and I are a lot alike.  We both analyzed Trump's budget; his tax policy; his healthcare plan and we concluded that Trump's  populism was a scam.  He has taken traditional Republican policies further to the right.  They will be good the kind of people who he put on his cabinet, and who play golf at one of the clubs that he owns.  They will be terrible for the majority of people in West Virginia who voted for him.  We both believe that they voted against their economic interest.  The question is whether  they would vote for him again if they read this article.  The answer is probably yes.   The comments that follow Krugman's article provide many of the reasons why they would vote for Trump again.  Taken together they define the appeals that have worked for demagogues throughout history.  Trump used most of them to perfection.  He was also assisted by an extensive communication network that has been developed to inform exactly the kind of people that voted for Trump.  We no longer live in a world in which the folks in West Virginia get their information from one of the three major news networks.  Few of them read the New York Times either.  Moreover, people tend to vote against candidates, and for candidates for very personal reasons.  Clinton campaigned against Trump's qualifications for the presidency.  Trump portrayed himself as powerful change agent "who told it like it is".  He could be considered one the guys that you might meet in a bar.  The folks in West Virginia never see anyone like Clinton in a bar.  Trump also took advantage of the extensive efforts that have turned liberal into a bad word over the last few decades.  It was easy to run against Clinton's liberalism.  She ran as  a classic liberal.  That did not work in most of the red states or in some of the economically distressed blue states.