One Hamptons party explains what’s wrong with American politics

For anyone still wondering why Middle America’s so angry, just take a look at the guest list for the annual bash thrown by Washington Post heiress Lally Weymouth, currently the paper’s senior associate editor, in the Hamptons last week.

It was full of politicians and power brokers — the ones who pantomime outrage daily, accusing the other side of crushing the little guy, sure that the same voter will never guess that behind closed doors, they all get along.

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner partied with billionaire Democratic donor George Soros, who rubbed shoulders with billionaire GOP donor David Koch.

Chuck Schumer and Kellyanne Conway were there. So were Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Ronald Lauder, Carl Icahn, Joel Klein, Cathie Black, reporters Steve Clemons and Maria Bartiromo, columnists Richard Cohen and Margaret Carlson, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, Ray Kelly, Bill Bratton and Steven Spielberg.

Oh, and Lally’s uncle, former Gov. and Sen. Bob Graham, and cousin Gwen Graham, who’s currently running for her dad’s old job as Florida’s governor.

Weymouth’s party is the latest reminder that for all the bruising rhetoric, the constant polls showing a deeply divided America and the most polarizing president in history, our battle isn’t red vs. blue, right vs. left: It’s about the 1% vs. the rest of us. They laugh as we take their political theater for real.

“If you believe any of these people care about you, you are mistaken,” Samuel Ronan tweeted. “The Hamptons might as well [be] another planet.”

Ronan’s running for Congress from Ohio’s First Congressional District. His platform? Campaign finance reform and lobbying restriction. We’ll see how long that lasts if he wins next year.

No one’s immune. Even Barack Obama, who once said, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” has spent his post-presidency cashing $400,000 speaking fees and kitesurfing with Richard Branson. Hillary’s campaign was compromised by shady dealings with big donors to the Clinton Foundation. Trump won by fighting for the forgotten worker yet advances policies that benefit the wealthy.

The journalists who want to belong are no better. The press is supposed to be oppositional, adversarial — comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, as the old saw goes — yet almost every year, otherwise respected reporters jockey for seats at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner like desperate kids playing musical chairs.

In the Trump era, such familiarity cuts both ways. The president was wrong, of course, tweeting insults at MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski, but what were she and Joe Scarborough doing at Mar-a-Lago last New Year’s Eve? Why were they so chummy with an incoming president?

In February 2016, CNN reported that Scarborough’s then-friendship with candidate Trump was a major network concern.

“I’ve actually called him up and said, ‘Donald, you need to speak in complete sentences at debates,’ ” Scarborough boasted at the 92nd Street Y in November 2015. A member of the media, ratings bolstered by Trump’s frequent appearances, giving the front-runner advice — often.

Little wonder that trust in politicians and the media has reached historic lows: According to Gallup, 42 percent of Americans trust their political leaders and only 32 percent trust the mainstream media.

At Lally Weymouth’s party, her brother toasted Spielberg for making a film about former editor-in-chief Katherine Graham, their mother, and her superstar editor Ben Bradlee, who made his career on the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. Yet throughout his life, Bradlee boasted most of one thing: He may have been a journalist covering John F. Kennedy, but he truly believed they were best friends.

Text extracted from: http://nypost.com/2017/07/10/why-ordinary-americans-hold-politicians-and-media-in-contempt-all-in-one-hamptons-party/