Donald Trump captured the twenty-first-century malaise of a rural America left behind by globalized coastal elites and largely ignored by the establishments of both political parties. Central to Trump’s electoral success, too, were age-old rural habits and values that tend to make the interior broadly conservative.In the process of building three homes the DrsC have found construction people to be very grounded individuals, sensible and no-nonsense. I've found more people I genuinely liked and admired in the skilled building crafts - carpenters, plumbers, electricians, painters, excavators - than among the college professors who were my colleagues.
That a New York billionaire almost alone grasped how red-state America truly thought, talked, and acted, and adjusted his message and style accordingly, will remain one of the astonishing ironies of American political history.
As a builder of hotels and other big projects, Trump is accustomed to dealing with and talking to people in the construction trades. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn he preferred their company to that of the fancy society people to whom his wealth has provided access.
