Two years and a handful of days earlier, I interviewed then-candidate Trump in Pittsburgh ahead of a natural gas convention where he was the keynote speaker. It was at a time when most pollsters and pundits showed him unable to close the deal with voters to beat Hillary Clinton.I understand this observation, through the lens of my own experience. Trump has built a number of huge projects. Doing so, he has walked the sites, talking to the building tradespeople there. On a smaller scale I've had that same experience, the DrsC have built three houses and a major barn. In every case I've spent days on-site, chatting up the workmen.
His demeanor that day isn’t much different than it was last Wednesday. He appears to be still more comfortable chatting or sharing jokes with the service workers and police officers backstage than he is with the elite he grew up with.
Construction workers - almost all are men - are real people. They deal with real things all day long, physical things going right or wrong, shortages, weather contingencies, you name it. Their skilled work is an amazingly grounding experience, there aren't many phonies among them.
Compared to people who "care how things seem to others," these are very solid citizens. We have literally made family friends of our electrician, our plumber, our gardener and our pest control guy.
I totally understand how Trump would rather talk to a cop, a driver, a rigger, or a plumber than to a politician, an economist, a professor or a reporter. So would I, you get a ton less b.s. and less virtue-signaling from real people who have real jobs.
