> Do you think those blue collar coal workers are going to be amenable to switching careers so they can service wealthy ski resort visitors? All while making much less money?
The value of their time is determined by the market, whether and how in demand their skills are. They can make themselves amenable to whatever other career options are available, or else make themselves amenable to starve waiting for the resurgence of a dying industry.
The days of lifetime employment in a single career are rapidly coming to an end - globalism and automation are constantly reducing the value of employment in many professions, or making human employment obsolete. Those industries which haven't been gutted by these trends yet will be, inevitably. Nearly everyone is going to have to learn to take what little they can get when they can get it, in time.
And instead of pandering to blue collar workers, Republicans should actually be trying to help them prepare for the future, rather than yearn for the past. But they can't, because what would help would be subsidizing education and healthcare to reduce the crippling burdens of debt on the lower and middle class and make it easier for people to find other jobs, and possibly institute some sort of basic income so that a lack of employment won't be devastating, as lack of employment becomes the norm for more and more people.