The Atlantic

Hillary Clinton's Trickle-Down America

While they may be thriving economically, coastal cities thrive on income inequality and a politically powerless underclass.
Source: AP

After a long, bruising career in public life, Hillary Clinton deserves a respite. Yet the erstwhile Democratic presidential nominee finds herself in the news again, having recently observed to an audience in Mumbai, India, that while she may have lost the 2016 election, she won, decisively, “the places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product.” In itself, this is hardly cause for offense. Clinton is, so far, merely stating a fact. But she went on to offer a moral distinction between her supporters and Donald Trump’s, which has proven more polarizing: “I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward, and his whole campaign, Make America Great Again, was looking backwards.”

What’s striking about Clinton’s remarks is that she seems to be connecting the wealth of the places she won to the character of the people living in them. Granted, this is hardly the first time someone has posited that America’s richer

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