Bette Midler Apologizes To 'Poor, Illiterate & Strung Out' People Of WV After Joe Manchin Outburst

[appalachiablue]

- New York Daily News, Dec. 20, 2021. - Ed.

She’s sorry for dissing you — from a distance. Singer Bette Midler apologized to the people of West Virginia after firing off a frustrated tweet aimed at Democratic senator Joe Manchin, who continues to block President Biden’s infrastructure plan in Congress. What Joe Manchin, who represents a population smaller than Brooklyn, has done to the rest of America, who wants to move forward, not backward, like his state, is horrible,” the “From a Distance” singer tweeted Monday. “He sold us out. He wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia. Poor, illiterate and strung out.”

Manchin caught many progressives off-guard over the weekend when he announced he would not support the Build Back Better plan in the Senate, weeks after it been passed in the House of Representatives. “I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation,” he told Fox News on Sunday. “I can’t get there.” According to U.S News & World Report, West Virginia ranks 47th in the nation in health care, 45th in education, & dead last in infrastructure. Still, some of Midler’s fans on social media took issue with the Divine Miss M’s sweeping generalization of folks in the Mountain State.

“As a West Virginian, I can assure you we’re not all poor, illiterate, and strung out,” tweeted one user named Josh Coffield. “I’m actually a ‘healthcare hero.’ So maybe think twice before you lump everyone into one basket. In fact, come and visit. See all we have to offer.” Twitter user Bonnie Shannon, who says she’s also one of Manchin’s constituents, claims she share’s Midler’s disappointment with Machin. But she said she also can read, has money, isn’t hooked on meth, and notes that polls show that most of her neighbors want clean air and improved infrastructure.

“I’m from WV. I’m not illiterate, poor or strung out! I’m very upset with Manchin!” she tweeted. “Many are struggling and they keep voting against their own best interest. Over 68% of WV support the BBB! If more understood what is in the BBB that number would be higher.”.. Midler took back the tweet. “I apologize to the good people of WVA for my last outburst. I’m just seeing red,” she tweeted. “Joe Manchin and his whole family are a criminal enterprise. Is he really the best WV has to offer its own citizens? Surely there’s someone there who has the state’s interests at heart, not his own!”...

https://www.nydailynews.com/snyde/ny-bette-midler-joe-manchin-poor-illiterate-strung-out-20211220-os2qui2ijzdntjfnxqa5uy75fq-story.html

[Throck]

1. Poor people have suffered the worst under Covid.

Her apology is not accepted.

[Drunken Irishman]

5. Poor people of West Virginia apparently have no problem supporting policies that decimate 'em.

70% of West Virginia voted for Donald Trump last year.

[AZLD4Candidate]

14. Manchin really is Machiavellian to his core

Machiavelli said "you don't need to be virtuous. . .just appear that way."

[VarryOn]

2. What's in the well comes up in the bucket. Nt

[madaboutharry]

3. Twitter can be a dangerous place when you forget your filter.

Love Bette Midler, but stereotyping an entire state was not a good move.

[blm]

4. Maybe good can come from this.

🤞🏽

[captain queeg]

6. It all makes me think that the way the senate is set up needs to be revised

I don’t have a solution but a small population gets represented equally to a vastly larger one. That just doesn’t seem right to me.

[Thomas Hurt]

7. oh no she said something stereotyping, will the christofascists protect her from cancel culture?

[babylonsister]

8. I'm happy they finally got around to telling

us about her apology...in the 4th paragraph. I think it was a great apology.

WV needs more Bonnie Shannons.

[Staph]

9. Rebuttal from WV Senate Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin (D-Greenbrier County)

Yesterday, you tweeted, 'What #JoeManchin, who represents a population smaller than Brooklyn, has done to the rest of America, who wants to move forward, not backward, like his state, is horrible. He sold us out. He wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia. Poor, illiterate and strung out.'

When I read that, I just shook my head and muttered, 'Bless your heart, Bette Midler.'

I felt sorry for you, because you obviously never kayaked the Greenbrier River. You never watched the sun rise over Dolly Sods. You never heard Bill Withers belt out, 'Lean On Me' at church on Sunday morning.

You never experienced the hospitality of a West Virginian who would literally give you the shirt off their back and the food on their plate if you came through town needing help.

Read the whole story - it's a great response, and it ends in an invitation for Bette Midler to come to West Virginia. Baldwin has a future in Democratic politics in West Virginia.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10333801/I-forgive-Bette-Midler-calling-illiterate-strung-WV-State-Senator-Stephen-Baldwin.html

[Abolishinist]

10. The only response a WV state poiltician could make...

I mean, he REALLY can't agree with her, can he.

Breaking it down, he mentions kayaking and watching a sun rise. And this has what to do with the actual people of WV? Nothing at all, merely physical aspects contained within the borders.

And OMFG, the anecdotal story of a country boy presenting his driver's license to a hotel clerk in the big city! GFC, brought actual tears to my eyes!

Of course, the hospitality of a West Virginian literally giving one the shirt off their back. Well, as long as they're a heterosexual white Christian. Otherwise?

The always go to line... famous people from the state! Let me say this, statistically speaking, over the period of say 200 years, ALL of our 50 will claim some famous people!

The FACT is, almost 70% of these ig****nt hi*******es voted for the former in 2020, and they will be first in line with their guns drawn to take down our government should he lose in 2024. The state ranks in the bottom 10% in all measures of income, wealth, education, culture, etc., yet they have NO problem taking the taxes paid by the more progressive states (socialism?) to continue their existence.

In other words, Bette was right the first time around.

[choie]

12. Agreed

I don’t give a good god damn about how wonderful it is to kayak on the river nor about whether West Virginians would give a stranger the shirt off their back. Their death wish is affecting those of us who want a better life for everybody.

[Staph]

13. Thank you so kindly for your reply.

I didn't know that West Virginians voted for Trump in 2020! I didn't know that we West Virginians were at the bottom of the list for all of those measures! I didn't know that there were famous people from other states!

You see, I'm just a poor, ignorant West Virginian. I don't read or write or know anything about the outside world.

But you, with your amazing two weeks of experience here on Democratic Underground, you have put me in my place. I bow to your overwhelming magnificence!

[choie]

11. If 68% of West Virginians support the BBB

They should get off their asses and protest the SOB (meaning Manchin)

[AZLD4Candidate]

16. I doubt will change things for Yacht Manchin

Remember, 68% of people don't have the sway of multi-national corporations and/or one billionaire against the 3B.

A million voters are drowned out by one millionaire's check.

[appalachiablue]

15. The people of WV have been disparaged and stereotyped

Last edited Wed Dec 22, 2021, 10:14 AM - Edit history (1)

for more than a hundred years, long before Manchin and it will continue long after he's gone. Count on it. I've seen it all my life.

Much of the demeaning dates to the infamous 'Hatfield-McCoy' feud of the late 19th century which was popularized by major newspapers, esp. in the North.

Reporters had a field day characterizing the state as filled with people who were 'ignorant, violent backwoods hillbillies' who 'resisted change and progress.' Progress meaning the pursuit of coal by of out of state industrialists and local businesses who saw profit in the many rich coal deposits in WV back then.

To faciliate expansion of the coal industry and haul coal out of the state, railroads were built rapidly at the turn of the century and at the cost of worker lives. Men labored under extreme and brutal conditions in the rush to break through rugged terrain, wilderness and mountains in order to lay track and install bridges. 'John Henry.'

As a boy, an ancestor used a horse and buggy to drive around a prominent, wealthy industrialist from Boston and Detroit who came to southwestern WV to speculate for coal, c. 1900. The old man greatly appreciated the boy's efforts and told him to contact him if he ever needed something. The boy followed up and benefitted. (Not a dumb hillbilly, and also a relation to the Hatfield clan).

The negative characterizations continued even with WV's support for FDR and New Deal programs in the 1930s and 1940s, and after the election of JFK who campaigned heavily in the state in 1960. West Virginia was targeted to gain protestant support for the Catholic Democratic candidate from Massachusetts. West Virginians delivered in the primary which put the senator over the top and Kennedy became the first Catholic president of the US.

Pearl Buck, John Forbes Nash of Bluefield, the Nobel- awarded economist whose life was portrayed in the film, 'A Beautiful Mind' by actor Russell Crowe and many others hail from the 'backward' mountain state. Sometime Bette should have a chat with Billy Crystal who attended Marshall University in Huntington like many other kids from New York and New Jersey who were educated there in the 1960s and 1970s.

~ The poverty and corruption will continue unless somehow there's major improvement in the political, economic and social spheres. And the trashing remains a stale but steady amusement for many who don't want to learn or understand the history. 68% of West Virginians support BBB, Bernie Sanders won all 55 counties in the Mountain State.