What Trump’s executive orders will do is enable more polluting forms of surface mining, specifically mountaintop removal, to replace underground mines and mining in areas that require “return to contour” reclamation. The reason that’s important to mining companies is that mountaintop removal is the cheapest way to mine in the Appalachians. And the reason it’s the cheapest is that it takes fewer people. By enabling MTR, Trump allows producers that use it to undercut producers working with methods that both employ more people and are less harmful to the environment. In effect, his orders force mining companies to use more polluting methods or get out of the business.

Sad as the results of these orders are, even more heartbreaking is that people are still hoping it will help.

It came as little surprise that Mr. Trump, who was flanked by coal miners as he signed the executive order in Washington, won Appalachia by huge margins in November. Hope that he can reverse the fortunes of coal country still runs high …

But now that they have the order that gives them more dollars for fewer people, mine owners are starting to admit the truth.

“The market’s going to be what the market is, and that’s what’s going to set the demand,” said Robert Stinson, who operates a small coal mine in the city of War, in southern West Virginia, a few miles from the Virginia state line. Regulations certainly played a part in coal’s downturn, Mr. Stinson said. But only a part.

A tiny part. Low cost natural gas is driving coal out of the market across the country, and renewables are starting to edge in on gas.

There are zero new coal power plants under construction. There are zero in the planning stages. There are zero being proposed.

The coal industry can’t make a comeback, because there’s simply nowhere else to sell any coal. In fact, even with Trump in office signing away environmental laws left and right, more coal-fired plants are closing. The shrinking market that remains will be dominated not by coal from the Ohio and West Virginia miners that flanked Trump, but from Wyoming, where thick seams, high automation, and economies of scale make coal much less costly to produce.

Robert Murray, who lined his miners up to serve as props for both Trump and Mitt Romney, was careful to insinuate a rebirth of the industry if they could just shake off Obama. But now…

Robert E. Murray, an outspoken mining executive, recently suggested tempered expectations for a coal rebound. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, cautioned in November that the potential impact of a regulatory rollback would be “hard to tell.”

It’s likely there will be some bounce in the market this year as power plants reduce large on-site inventories and drive a temporary increase in demand, but that effect is expected to be minor and short-lived—especially since another record warm winter reduced electrical demands.

Coal mining will continue … at a smaller scale, and mostly in the west. But those towns in the mountains that were once bolstered by large mining operations are simply not coming back. Lying to people about it is beyond cruel.