President Trump isn't the only one  who says too much on twitter.

Stuart Rothenberg, a Washington insider who writes for the Washington Post and runs The Rothenberg Political Report, has just revealed what he thinks of the people of West Virginia, who gave a warm welcome  to President Trump last night, in a vicious tweet:

Lots of people in West Virginia can't support themselves or speak English.

The elite has an itch and they can't stop scratching.

The itch is disdain for Americans who live outside a few enclaves of People Like Them and whom they believe to be, as a one trailblazer in disdain once put it, deplorable.

But West Virginians do speak enough English to respond (along with sympathetic friends) to StuPolitics.

Katie at KatieHellerWV responds:

This is extremely ignorant.

Victor at VictorConservat:

I am from WV, teach at a major university and speak languages. Comments like this elected Trump. Proceed

Kel Hughes at lightsong77:

We speak English quite well troglodyte. Let us demolish your overrated political quid pro quo industry and see how well you survive.

New York based journalist Salena Zito at SalenaZito:

Respectfully as someone who comes from the region that is incredibly bigoted — people from West Virginia are incredible hard-working folks

You can see more responses here.

Not in the least rethinking his position, Mr. Rothenberg responded:

Of course they are hard-working. They mean well. Just close-minded, provincial, angry & easily misled. My wife's dad was a coal miner in PA.

This moved Immortal Mike at michaelbayer1 to tweet:

"My wife's dad was a coal miner in PA" and "some of my best friends are gay"

Just for the record and to state what is obvious to people who get outside the Acela Corridor, not all all people in West Virginia are poor or unable to speak English. But what if they were? Would that in any way make what Rothenberg wrote any less disgusting? Even if it were accurate, and not just a fit of pique in the wake of a well-attended Trump rally, would there be any way on earth to justify this kind of ugliness?

I blogged some time ago on a Frank Buckley column on "Redneck Porn"–or the nasty but self-titillating things contemporary elites say about those they regard as their inferiors.  Back in the day, decent people didn't say things like what Rothenberg said about West Virginians. It wasn't nice. But today is is not only accepted but a badge of membership in the bi-coastal elite.

We Americans used to have a different attitude about people who didn't have the money and advatages that people like Mr. Rothenberg believe make them special. Buckley wrote:

How very different this was from the older literature of poverty in America, James Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” or Michael Harrington’s “The Other America.” The earlier writers described the poor with compassion, as fellow Americans. They were the Joads in “The Grapes of Wrath,” honorable people down on their luck. There was no sense of moral superiority in this literature, even with those who might have brought their poverty on themselves. The desperately poor were broken in body and spirit, and while they didn’t belong to anyone or anything, they still were our brothers with whom we shared a common humanity and citizenship. If they lived their lives at levels “beneath those necessary for human decency,” we were called upon to do something about it. In Mr. Harrington’s case, that had meant living with them in one of Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker hospices, not an experience any of the purveyors of redneck porn will have shared.

And I'd add that Mr. Rothenberg ought to avail himself of Miss Harper Lee's treatment of the same theme–turn to Chapter Three, when Walter Cunningham is invited to lunch at the Finch household and puts molasses on his food. Scout gets a talking to when she comments.  

The elites want only one thing from those they look down on: their votes. Rothenberg reveals why, unless the economy fails drastically (which looks unlikely just now, but you never know), they are unlikely to receive these.

Speaking of meals, don't you know miner dad-in-law looks forward to holiday means with Stu?