It has become a meme of sorts on the right — the power and intrusiveness and cultural imposition of those damn coastal elites — you know, those awful people who live on the East and West Coast: New Yorkers, DC Insiders, Hollywooders, Silicon Valley trash, San Franciscans, and people who went to Harvard or Princeton or Stanford or any university, not between the Appalachians and the Rockies. Those people who supposedly look down their noses at Midwestern rubes, who are coming for you and your way of life.

Let’s consider who falls into this category, whether by birth, education, or residence:

Donald Trump
Ron DeSantis
Ted Cruz
Josh Hawley
Peter Thiel
Donald Trump Jr.
Eric Trump
George Bush
George Bush II
Tom Cotton
Ben Sasse
Mike Crapo
John Hoeve
Mitt Romney
Mike Braun
Rob Portman
Pat Toomey
Dan Sullivan
Tucker Carlson
Sean Hannity
Laura Ingraham

This list includes Trump lovers, Trump enablers, and Trump antagonists. Aside from the obvious sycophancy of his sons, Cruz and Hawley’s abject boot licking and Trump groveling have nothing to do with their belief in Trump and everything to do with their winning his affection and that of his base. They care about nothing but their own careers and hopes of becoming president themselves. What they share with Trump is their unflinching commitment to their own ambitions. And the sheer wealth of so many on this list disconnects them from the day-to-day trials and tribulations of those they proport to understand and speak for.

It seems a bit disingenuous, to say the least, that Trump isn’t a member of the coastal elite. He came from money, never held what could remotely be called a blue-collar job, went to the Wharton School, and lived in pampered luxury his entire life. His stay in military high school was his only connection to having to make his own bed. His biography is one of making deals, gaming the system, letting lawsuits wear down people he shilled because he can, having more money than the poor souls seeking reparations and hoping to find justice in the courts. It’s the same thing he is doing now: hoping the pace of litigation will wear down litigants and congressional investigators and run out the judicial system’s clock till he finds himself president and in a position where legal pursuit becomes nil since he is president — too busy to attend to those he has screwed.

How a serial bankrupt, serial philanderer, and serial liar has found his way into the hearts of people he has absolutely no connection to, whose lives he has no understanding of, and who he has done nothing for — aside from inciting their grievances and anger — can only be attributed to his gift for grifting, feeling the pulse of their anger, and letting them think he will change their lives. He cannot do so, has not done so, and truly has no interest in doing so.

I was born and raised in the Midwest. I have been a citizen of Ohio my entire life. I paid for my college education by working and saving money, applying for and obtaining grants and scholarships, and working while in college. My parents couldn’t afford to help me pay for any of that. I was the lucky recipient of a system that offered me a leg up, knew I had limited means, and granted me a path open to my willingness to work and study. I was also blessed with intellectual skills — not everyone is. We all muddle along with what our genes, our history, our education, our upbringing, and our exposure to the whims of justice and place and race afford us. I knew early on, and often told my friends, that being a white boy born in 1952 was to be born on second base and then walked home. I never worried about being followed about in the store by security, being pulled over by the cops, wondering if my race had anything to do with my getting a job, or being treated suspiciously because I was a pale white kid just roaming the neighborhood after dark.

Too many of those like me — white, middle, or working class, struggling forward, working hard — continue to wonder why they are not garnering the life and ways they see all around them: better pay, better schools, better neighborhoods, better infrastructure, and better futures for their children. I want them to know that their lives are blunted by the incredible disparity in wealth in this country.

A tiny fraction of the population commands the majority of our nation’s wealth — and they will continue to keep it and pass it to their children until the rules change — and that those among us who work all day, pay our bills, and demand our fair share, whether through better wages, better working conditions, better labor practices, better tax laws, better schools, and better pay get what is coming to us. We have helped make this country a better place by working in an economy that fails to reward hard work but rewards inherited wealth, that fails to tax income fairly and gives special treatment to income earned outside of hourly wages, that fails to let the government negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies, and that incessantly provides untold breaks to those with power and wealth.

Donald Trump has given voice to the aggrieved but has done NOTHING for them. His signature legislative achievement, the tax law, enriched the wealthy and did nothing for working families. He has said I hear you but what has he done for you?

He is nothing but an ambitious, selfish, and coastal elitist that he claims to deplore. May God, the one he pretends to believe in, clasp him to his bosom as soon as possible.

©2022 John Hofmeister. Every Fucking Right Reserved.