Like other Rangers, the Hibbing resident is fiercely proud of her home in the North Woods. Generations of families have gutted it out here through recessions, steel busts, long stretches of bitter cold and the lure of job offers in distant cities.
“We Support Mining,” read signs in the shop windows. “Mining Supports Us.”
That loyalty to the land extends to their neighbors, their unions and the industry that drew their great-grandparents to this region 200 miles north of the Twin Cities.
Loyalty to the land? Where's any kind of "loyalty" in an attitude of fuck it if we can find a buck in it?
That's their attitude to the land; and it is selfish as much as Trump billionaires are selfish; just with less money but with an equal measure of attitude. Tom Bakk, poster child; David Tommasoni, fellow-traveler. The mine owners mirror the attitude. As a relative noted, during the last taconite boom a lot of widows were forced out of their rentals. More was charged incoming wage seekers than the widows could afford. That being loyalty to one another.