Alternate Realities

This is the time of year when politicians of all stripes descend upon the South Fork with hands open and palms prepared to be greased. There are dollars to be gathered, and golf rounds to be played, and cocktails to be hoisted, and shoulders to be rubbed. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat or a Republican, or what your political principles are. Look at the Obama and Trump progeny who hang together at the Surf Lodge — if you belong to the right club and enjoy the right connections, and carry enough cash in your fist, you will have plenty of opportunities to gain access to even more of the same.

Whether it’s Donald Trump at Joe Farrell’s estate or Cory Booker at Bon Jovi’s, there is something truly galling about the powerful and politically connected hobnobbing gleefully against a background of some serious middle-class economic hardship. Forget about the taxpayers who subsidize Cadillac health insurance plans for elected officials, while their own care falls to GoFundMe pages and local charity events. Forget the fact—documented last week in an excellent article in the Independent newspaper—that even longtime locals are being forced to move out of their neighborhoods by high real estate prices set by a demand for second homes to serve the wealthy class whose share of the American pie continues to grow inequitably.

As year-rounders move and economic stratification solidifies here, and virtually everywhere else in this country, the paths of these two very separate economic groups of people are becoming increasingly less likely to intersect at any point. At the same time, too, the power of the people whose interests public officials are intended to serve seems increasingly to be simply flaming out.