It's hard to believe that Joe Biden can be so many things all at one time.  He is the acknowledged leader on the clown tour in stupid utterances.  He's the leader in denying that one of his relatives is a crook.  And now he has taken what appears to be an insurmountable lead in driving away votes from whoever the Democratic candidate may be.

This is a report from my little corner of the world in Southwest Pennsylvania, where the Republican Party would like to make Joe Biden our Republican Campaigner of the Year.  How so, you may ask?

This small part of the state is the second largest gas-producing region in the nation.  Pennsylvania is also the third largest coal-producing state in the nation and much of that coal is mined in this region.  The economy of Southwest Pennsylvania is heavily dependent on fossil fuels and its related supply chain.  Washington County, where much of this mining and drilling occurs, had been Democratic since 1930, although it has been moving in a conservative Republican direction, voting for Republican presidents since 2008.

In 2016, when Hillary Clinton said she would shut down the coal industry, this area went wild.  Republican registration boomed, and Democrats lost voters.  This Democrat-majority county voted for President Trump by 60% with a 75% turnout.  A month ago, for the first time in 90 years, Republicans swept the county row offices and took control of the County Commissioner's office.  You bet we are now Republican, and you bet we can thank Hillary and the idiotic impeachment process in part.  Mostly we thank President Trump for doing a great job delivering on his promises.

The president's job performance is just what these blue-collar, hardworking men and woman wanted to see.  It's what our local economy wanted to see.  People are working, making more money, feeling good about the future, and they are more solidly for Trump than ever.

Then along comes Joe.  First, he pledged to "end America's use of fossil fuels if elected president."  Then he followed up by saying, "We would make sure it is eliminated, and no more subsidies for either one of those [oil or gas], period."

Then, if anyone had any doubts that Joe Biden was living at the low end of the intelligence curve, he recently suggested that all the coal miners and other blue-collar workers who lose their jobs could learn to write computer programs.  "Anybody who can go down 3,000 feet in a mine can sure as hell learn to program as well," Biden told an audience in Derry, N.H.  "Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God's sake!"  You can't make up stuff this stupid.

What Joe has done in Southwest Pennsylvania is to assure that President Trump's 60% margin in 2016 may be 70% in 2020 and that Pennsylvania will most certainly be in the Republican column whether Biden is the candidate or not.  He has probably done the same thing for West Virginia and Ohio.  It doesn't end there.  The automobile industry would be similarly devastated by such a proposal, as would other Midwest manufacturing states.

Talking about high-tech and unworkable "clean energy" solutions only makes the snowflake states happy, and they are in the Democratic column already.

So take heed, anyone in the energy industry, the energy supply chain, the automotive industry, the airline industry, the logistics industry, or the plastics and chemical industries.  The Democrats, whoever the candidate is, are coming after you.  Joe Biden was just the one stupid enough to clearly state it ten months before the election.

Dave Ball is the author of conservative political commentary, a guest on political talk shows, an elected official and a county party official.

Image: Marc Nozell via Flickr.