When Hillary Clinton lost the Electoral College, most post-mortems faulted Democrats for failing to empathize with the anger and abandonment non-coastal Americans are feeling. But last week, when Donald Trump sucked up to the (previously dishonest, subsequently gem-like) New York Times, flip-flopping six times in an hour-long interview, I wondered whether his backtracking might be causing some of his supporters to feel abandoned. If they are, I empathize with their incipient buyer’s remorse. I imagine they must feel a bit like Bernie Madoff’s investors did, after realizing they’d been conned.
During the campaign, Trump said that he alone understood the plight of the everyday people hurting in this economy. But he didn’t pretend to be one of them. He didn’t hide the fact that he’s a billionaire living in a Manhattan tower and a Palm Beach palace in gold-leaf-and-marble opulence suitable for a shah. Instead, he depicted his wealth as an asset: Only a royal could bring down the monarchy. He offered his gilded grandeur as proof that his attack on the corrupt political system sprang directly from inside knowledge. Only a recovering, self-funded plutocrat who had once greased the palms of pols could drive the whores from the temple of democracy.