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A few weeks after my “gaffe,” I went to Appalachia to apologize directly to people I had offended. I knew it was unlikely to change the outcome of the upcoming West Virginia primary or the general election in November, but I wanted to show my respect. I wanted to make it clear that I would be a President for all Americans, not just the ones who voted for me.

Prominent Democrats in West Virginia suggested I fly in and out of Charleston and make a speech in front of a friendly audience. My team on the ground liked that—it would take the least amount of time away from my packed campaign schedule and would mean a warmer reception than I was likely to receive in more rural parts of the state. But that wasn’t what I had in mind. I wanted to go deep into the southern coalfields to communities facing the biggest challenges, where Trump was most popular and my coal-miner gaffe was getting the most attention. As one of my advisors put it, that would be like Trump holding a rally in downtown Berkeley, California. That’s pretty much what I was going for.

We designed a trip that would take me from eastern Kentucky to southern West Virginia to southeastern Ohio, concluding with an economic policy speech in Athens, Ohio, with my friend Senator Sherrod Brown, who was also on my list of potential choices for Vice President.

We started in Ashland, Kentucky, where I met with a dozen steelworkers who’d lost their jobs when the factory where they’d worked for decades closed. I also talked with men who worked on the railroads and watched as the decline of coal and steel production led to reductions in rail service, which in turn cost more jobs and further isolated the region.

I had known going into the campaign that many communities still hadn’t recovered from the Great Recession, and a lot of working-class Americans were hurting and frustrated. Unemployment was down and the economy was growing, but most people hadn’t had a raise in fifteen years. The average family income was $4,000 less than when my husband left office in 2001. I knew this backward and forward.

When I got out there and heard the deep despair, those numbers became ever more real. I listened to people talk about how worried they were about their kids’ futures. A lot of men were embarrassed that they depended on disability checks to pay the bills and that the jobs they could find didn’t pay enough to support a real middle-class life. They were furious that after all they’d done to power our economy, fight our wars, and pay their taxes, no one in Washington seemed to care, much less be trying to do anything about it.

Usually when I meet people who are frustrated and angry, my instinctive response is to talk about how we can fix things. That’s why I spent so much time and energy coming up with new policies to create jobs and raise wages. But in 2016 a lot of people didn’t really want to hear about plans and policies. They wanted a candidate to be as angry as they were, and they wanted someone to blame. For too many, it was primarily a resentment election. That didn’t come naturally to me. I get angry about injustice and inequality, abuse of power, lying, and bullying. But I’ve always thought it’s better for leaders to offer solutions instead of just more anger. That’s certainly what I want from my leaders. Unfortunately, when the resentment level is through the roof your answers may never get a hearing from the people you want to help most.

We left Kentucky and crossed into West Virginia. Just as I remembered from 2008, there was very spotty cell phone coverage as we drove into the Mountain State. That drove the traveling team nuts, but I was thinking more about the bigger problem of how the lack of connectivity hamstrung businesses and schools and held back economic development. Nearly 40 percent of people in rural America don’t have access to broadband, and research shows those communities have lower incomes and higher unemployment. That’s a solvable problem, and one I was eager to take on.

I thought back to how much I loved campaigning in West Virginia during the 2008 primary, when I won the state by 40 points. My favorite memory was celebrating Mother’s Day with my mom and daughter in the small town of Grafton, West Virginia, where the holiday was invented a hundred years earlier. It was one of the last Mother’s Days I ever had with my mom, and it was a great one.

We drove into Mingo County, arguably Ground Zero for the coal crisis. In 2011 there had been more than 1,400 miners in the county. By 2016, there were just 438. Our destination was the town of Williamson, home to a promising public-private partnership similar to Reconnecting McDowell that was trying desperately to marshal the resources and the political will needed to expand and diversify the local economy, as well as improve public health.

After about three hours, we arrived at the Williamson Health and Wellness Center. It was drizzling, but outside on the street was a crowd of several hundred angry protestors chanting “We want Trump!” and “Go home Hillary!” Many held up signs about the so-called war on coal. One woman explained to a reporter why she was supporting Trump: “We’re tired of all the darn handouts; nobody takes care of us.” Another had painted her hands red to look like blood and kept yelling about Benghazi. Standing with them was Don Blankenship, the multimillionaire former CEO of a large coal company who was convicted for conspiring to violate mine safety regulations after the Upper Big Branch mine explosion killed twenty-nine workers in 2010. He was due to report to prison just days later, but he made time to come protest me first.

I knew I wouldn’t get a warm welcome in West Virginia. That was the point of my visit, after all. But this level of anger took me aback. This wasn’t just about my comments in one town hall. This was something deeper.