Echoes of Appalachia

For generations, the Appalachian region has been portrayed as a place apart from the rest of the United States, an often-forgotten landscape of mountains, coal mines, tight-knit communities, and stubborn resilience. Yet one of the lesser explored ways Appalachia suffers is not only through economic hardship or geographic isolation, but through deliberate political manipulation that weakens the very foundation of democracy in these hills. Gerrymandering, the practice of redrawing district boundaries to benefit one political party, has long eroded the power of ordinary people across America. But in Appalachia, where Republicans have built an especially strong hold for decades, its influence has been especially damaging, stripping residents of their collective voice, distorting representation, and limiting investment in infrastructure, healthcare, and other necessities.

The point of gerrymandering is not subtle. It is designed to silence oppositional voices, eliminate serious electoral competition, and make many voters feel that participating in elections is a wasted effort. In Appalachia, this manipulation deepens an already entrenched sense of political disempowerment. For many, it feels like elected officials are unresponsive to the needs of rural families working hard just to get by. District maps are not neutral lines on a page; they are political weapons, and in Appalachia, those weapons have been aimed at the very communities that need representation the most.

At the heart of this problem is the erosion of political representation caused by gerrymandering. Appalachia, like much of the country, suffers from two classic manipulative tactics: packing and cracking. In packed districts, Democratic-leaning or independent Appalachian voters are corralled into a small number of districts where they can achieve lopsided victories, but their overall influence diminishes across the political map. Cracking takes the opposite approach, scattering these voters across multiple Republican-leaning districts, ensuring that their voices are drowned out by the louder tide of partisan gerrymandering. Both strategies give Republicans an enormous advantage, one that is not necessarily earned by the strength of persuasion or policy ideas, but by political cartography that rewards technical manipulation over genuine public consent.

When districts are drawn to be “safe seats,” incumbents face little electoral threat. The general election effectively ceases to matter, because the dominant party, usually Republican in Appalachia, has already assured itself of victory through district design. What results is a breakdown in accountability. Instead of worrying about losing to a challenger who might better represent people’s needs, incumbents can afford to ignore broad swaths of their district. Their only real competition comes in primary elections, where candidates often need to appeal to the most ideologically extreme slices of their party’s base. This system naturally pushes officeholders away from moderation, making bipartisan compromise rarer, and leaving everyday people stuck in partisan gridlock with little hope their concerns will make it to the legislative floor.

That lack of accountability has had devastating consequences for Appalachia’s infrastructure. Across the region, roads crumble, bridges remain unrepaired, and internet connectivity lags behind the rest of the country. Yet many leaders whose power is secured by gerrymandered maps feel little need to address these issues because their jobs are safe regardless of whether they deliver improvements. Because Appalachian communities are politically divided without being electorally competitive, they often lose out in the allocation of resources. Legislators holding districts carved to guarantee victory do not have to court these communities with promises of new projects; they do not have to campaign for their votes. The result is systemic neglect.

The same dynamic is visible in health care. Appalachia faces some of the nation’s most severe health crises: high rates of addiction, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, combined with hospital closures and shortages of doctors. The Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion offered potential lifelines for underserved rural communities, but many states covering Appalachia, under Republican-controlled, gerrymandered legislatures, rejected the expansion or limited its reach. Thousands were left uninsured, many without access to even basic care. Here, gerrymandering shows its cruelest effect: by protecting noncompetitive incumbents, it ensures that public health needs remain secondary to partisan identity. Maps, drawn to secure power, end up costing lives.

But the damage caused by gerrymandering is not only institutional or material. It is psychological. When voters realize that lines have been drawn to blunt their influence, cynicism creeps in. They come to believe that no matter how long they stand in line at the polling place, their voice will carry no weight. Over time, this disillusionment erodes turnout. People resign themselves to the idea that the political class will never represent them, that the game is rigged, and that the safest choice is apathy. This is precisely what those drawing the lines count on. A map designed to suppress competition thrives best when voters stop showing up. It is a form of quiet disenfranchisement that relies not on legal barriers, but on hopelessness.

In places like Appalachia in Kentucky, West Virginia, Western North Carolina or eastern Tennessee, where whole communities have felt ignored by political elites and battered by economic decline, this hopelessness is palpable. People want to believe their vote matters, but they see districts so distorted that elections feel predetermined. They witness one party repeatedly winning despite their own sense that alternative voices are needed. The very geography of democracy is being used against them.

Republicans, who have maintained a cultural and political dominance in Appalachia for decades, have leaned heavily on gerrymandering to secure that dominance. By designing districts to guarantee their advantage, they reinforce a rigid partisan landscape and discourage dissent. Yet control by one party should not mean neglect or abandonment of the people. Still, gerrymandering makes it easy to dismiss the cries of those who fall outside the ruling party base. It has created a persistent imbalance where one political machine can stay entrenched, while whole communities are left wondering whether democracy lives only in name.

And yet, for all the despair gerrymandering creates, one truth remains. It only works if people stop fighting back. Maps are carefully calibrated to depress turnout and reinforce cynicism, but they cannot make a vote disappear. Even in the most gerrymandered states, elections are still decided by ballots cast or not cast. Staying home is exactly what those in power want. They hope residents of Appalachia will conclude that voting is useless, that the system is too broken, that nothing can change. This resignation cements their power more securely than any district boundary ever could.

The antidote to gerrymandering, then, is persistence. Appalachian communities cannot afford to abandon the political process, even when it feels stacked against them. Every election, every ballot, every effort at civic engagement pushes back against the machinery of disenfranchisement. Change is rarely immediate, and it rarely feels sweeping at first. But across history, power has only shifted when people, poor, working-class, and marginalized, refused to give up on their own agency. Appalachia, with its long legacy of labor strikes, grassroots organizing, and communal solidarity, is steeped in that tradition. The coal miners who fought for fair pay and safer working conditions did not win because conditions were easy. They won because they kept fighting despite overwhelming odds. The same resilience must be applied to voting today.

That does not mean the problem of gerrymandering will disappear in a single election cycle, or even a decade. It is deeply entrenched, and it requires not only voter participation but policy reform, court challenges, and greater public awareness. But none of those things can happen if hopelessness takes root. None of them can take place if Appalachian voters stay home.

So while gerrymandering hurts Appalachia by diluting voices, suppressing turnout, and diverting resources, the ultimate test is whether people will resist its intended effect: silence. The people of Appalachia are not powerless. Every step into the voting booth is an act of defiance against those who wish the region to be marginalized, ignored, or treated as expendable. By showing up, even when the map seems rigged and even when the odds look steep, Appalachians defy the narrative that their democracy has been stolen forever.

Gerrymandering is a reminder of how fragile the promise of democracy is, especially for communities far from the corridors of power. But it should also be a call to action. Unity, participation, and resilience are the only tools that have ever changed systems designed to exclude ordinary people. Appalachian voters deserve representation, investment, and leaders who truly listen. That future will not come from despair. It will come from the stubborn insistence to keep voting, to keep showing up, and to keep demanding what the people of Appalachia have always deserved: a real voice in their own government.

-Tim Carmichael