A Visit to the Real America

Salena Zito writes politics from the perspective of the great fly-over, where her roots lie. Here she reports, for The New York Post, taking a diverse group of Harvard students in a non-credit course sponsored by the Institute of Politics called the Main Street Project, on a trip visiting several sites in small town America.

To get the local flavor, the group stayed in B&Bs, ate in local non-chain restaurants, visited small companies,  and drove blue-line highways from one location to the next in vans. And they spent 2-4 days in each location. She even took them to mass at a Polish Catholic Church.

The kids discovered another America most had no idea existed, where people are both friendly and genuine. And she told them what she'd privately established, just about every person they had talked to voted for Trump.

My students looked stunned, at first. But then a recognition crossed their faces.

These were Obama's "bitter clingers to guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiment" and the kids hadn't noticed because the folks were polite and friendly, the way Americans are supposed to be. By choice I live among such people, they're my small town neighbors.

Read the whole Zito article, it's good.