I know you're angry, New Yorkers, but don't punish Kentucky for Mitch McConnell — he isn't our fault

The left generally, and the Democratic Party specifically, needs to be better than this false fight between two states over coronavirus

Rather than send federal aid, Mitch McConnell suggested struggling states like New York should just file for bankruptcy (REUTERS)

At the outbreak of the Civil War, my home state of Kentucky was torn. Sitting on the southern banks of the Ohio River, not quite southern but not quite northern, we tried to remain neutral. That, of course, was an untenable position, morally and practically. As Abraham Lincoln is rumored to have said, “I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky.”

Meanwhile, the Confederates invaded. Most Kentuckians backed the Union, but a sizeable minority set up a Confederate government in Bowling Green. And thus Kentucky became “a house divided.” Yet Kentucky learned a valuable lesson from the War Between the States, one we emblazoned on our state flag and made our state motto: “United we stand, divided we fall.”

I had these words in my mind last night as Preet Bharara, the US Attorney who famously and commendably refused Trump’s order to resign (and so was sacked), tweeted that he is “sick and tired of subsidizing Kentucky.” When I pointed out that without federal subsidies people in my home state would suffer, Bharara doubled down, insisting that unless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is defeated “there needs to be a severe calibration” against our commonwealth.

Bharara, and many of his followers who chimed in, are rightfully enraged at Mitch McConnell’s refusal to help states like New York as they take on the brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic. Rather than send federal aid, the Senate Majority Leader suggested states declare bankruptcy. This shows a callous and grotesque disregard for the suffering of our fellow Americans, and the righteous anger is understandable. New York is dying, and the federal government — led by Donald Trump, a New Yorker, and Mitch McConnell, a Kentuckian — has abdicated its responsibility.

The problem is the Republican Party, though, not poor Kentuckians who rely on federal assistance to get by. While at this moment I can empathize with angry New Yorkers pointing out that Kentucky takes far more from the federal government than blue states — and certainly more than it puts into the federal coffers — Kentuckians aren’t their enemy; Mitch McConnell is.

Unlike McConnell, I am not indifferent to their suffering. My heart breaks for New York City. We can’t allow these divisions to come between us, though. Leaving aside the fact that only seven states have completely Democratic congressional delegations (and New York isn’t one of them), dividing the states against one another is precisely what McConnell and Trump want to do. It’s how Republicans stay in power, stoking cultural divisions between “the coastal elites” and “real Americans” in the middle of the country.

The left generally — and the Democratic Party specifically — must be better than this. We must stand for solidarity among the working class and the poor. Here in the hollows of Appalachia, the coal industry — the lifeblood of our economy — has been in decline for 40 years and the opioid crisis has raged since the 1990s. The poor in Kentucky struggle just as the poor in New York do. Yet there is a general sense that the only time the rest of the country pays us any mind is through poverty porn, sneering at us as a bunch of gun-toting, pill-popping, snake-handling bigots.

Yet, Kentucky has a rich heritage of progressive activism, from the Harlan County War in the 1930s (in which coal miners fought for the right to organize) to the environmental actions around the Martin County coal slurry of 2000 and protests against mountaintop removal. Kentucky has a popular Democratic governor, and Mitch McConnell is up for re-election in what looks like might be a tight race. Ditching Mitch would help us all. On that, at least, Bharara and I agree.

But for a people who are skeptical of outsiders after generations of being exploited by capital and then left to starve when the mines closed, a wealthy New York lawyer wanting to “calibrate” against them is exactly what they fear, because it’s what has happened for over a century. It is, crucially, also what is happening in New York now. The system is failing New York City — a political and economic system designed to enrich and ensconce the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the rest of us.

Working class Kentuckians and working class New Yorkers will have to join with the working class across the country in order to ensure that we are not even more devastated by this pandemic than we presently are. Lashing out at voters, rather than helping to defeat the entrenched interests of capital, is to fight the wrong enemy, for we are in this together. At this crucial moment in our nation’s history, united is the only way we will stand. Divided, we don’t just fall — we die.