Politicians Out of Touch With America?
'Flyover Nation' Author Dana Loesch weighs in on America’s growing division into two nations; coastal and flyover.
“The title of this book and the concept came from the president’s remark a few years ago.” Loesch continued, “He said ‘Oh, you know these, people,’ and he’s talking about flyover nation residents, he says, ‘Oh, they just cling to their guns, cling to their religion.’”
Loesch viewed the comments as reflecting a broader stereotype many lawmakers have about people in Middle America.
“That’s not just some fun little playful stereotype, oh he’s being facetious, this is really how a lot of people on the coast, people in the Beltway, this is how they legitimately view flyover nation. They just think that these are a bunch of backward hillbillies and they go out in the back and they fire off their guns and they read their Bible while they do it,” Loesch told the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo.
According to Loesch, the realities of Middle America are quite different from that.
“But that’s not it at all, there’s a lot of values they have. So many of our men and women in the military come from flyover nation, this is the bread basket of America, small business. I kind of think of it as the spine of America.”
Loesch viewed lawmakers’ disconnect with Middle America as what led to the anti-establishment movement in the current presidential race.
“People in flyover are mad. They’re mad of course at Democrats because they’re used to being betrayed by Democrats. They’re used to having Democrats increase taxes and spend a lot of money on things like studying shrimp on treadmills for crying out load. When Republicans join in with them, they’re not used to that.”
Loesch sees Trump’s campaign as benefiting from Middle America’s frustrations.
“This is the reason Donald Trump is the nominee, because flyover nation just thought, you know what, we’ve been doing it your way for how many election cycles now, where has that gotten us? Nowhere. So they wanted sledgehammer to go to Washington, D.C.”