Why these Kentucky Democrats still love President Trump

Earl Kinner Jr. chuckles, imagining what his father would say.

His father, Earl Kinner Sr., bought the Licking Valley Courier in the mid-1940s to cover local news in West Liberty, a town of fewer than 4,000 on the banks of the Licking River. Mr. Kinner Sr. was clear that his paper would lean left. No one was surprised. West Liberty had been a Democratic town for as long as anyone could remember.

In some important ways it still is. Like land, accents, and professions, political identity is passed down through generations here. Eastern Kentuckians like Mr. Kinner Jr. call themselves Democrats to this day because their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers were Democrats: the party of the workingman.

But in recent years this tradition has confronted a new political reality. As the economy got worse for Kentucky Democrats (as they call themselves) over the last two decades, it seems like Washington Democrats (as they call them) just got louder about guns and abortion – two issues that already put Kentucky Democrats on the fringe of the party.

So prior to the 2016 presidential

Trump DemocratsPolitics from another eraReligion and votes‘We respect horse traders’