I suspect it has to do with Calvinism essentially and the religious fixation of work as righteous and a guarantee such that anything going wrong is "bad things happening to good people" and a fundamental sign that things Aren't Right and Someone is to blame.
There's no doubt coal miners have been used nihilistically as a political tool to conjure the aesthetic of being attached to the honest, hard-working underclass. Still they (and other workers who have been displaced) deserve support. It is very easy to diversify investments. Extremely difficult to diversify skills needed for a career.
Coal miners, to switch careers, probably have to uproot their lives, move to another state, and take a much lower paying job. It seems obvious why they'd resent being told to do that. Lucky for me software is going pretty good, but if you told me I had to go install solar panels on a roof in Scottsdale tomorrow I might be upset.