VA-09 candidate Justin Santopietro on Appalachia's future

Hopping Mad with Will McLeod & Arliss Bunny

12/11/2017 - This week we were happy to welcome VA-09 Democratic Primary candidate Justin Santopietro (@JS4VA) to the show to discuss his ideas for Southwest Virginia and the country as a whole. At the top of the show we discussed the Hurricane, and in Will's section, we discussed Brexit, or did our best to do so considering how many developments have occurred in the past few weeks. Will discussed the Brexit situation, which seems like it has no workable solutions. At least, no solutions that won't lead to the destabilization of May's government. It doesn't seem possible to satisfy the various factions of the Tory party while also keeping the DUP on board. May's government is having some internal conflicts and scandals that are also threatening to bring her down, and the recent agreement she reached with the DUP doesn't seem like it actually fixes any of these problems. Our discussion with Justin Santopietro was broad ranging. Justin told us that environmental issues really are bread and butter issues, and the solutions to many of the problems we face can employ a lot of Americans in rural spaces. We discussed the necessity to bring real change to Appalachia, the Virginia 9th Districts history in support of things like the civil rights act, and the potential to rebuild our progressive coalition to include Appalachians once again. We talked about how to speak to folks in Appalachia, and talked about the hope we have for the future of our rural spaces. Happy Holidays everyone! -Will