I just finished reading this article in The Atlantic about how the ranks of the poor are growing, especially among older adults. It said, “In America in 2016, nearly half of all single homeless adults were aged 50 and older, compared to 11 percent in 1990.”
I’m contrasting that with this article in the New York Times that advised eating “high-quality foods,” “grass-fed and pasture-raised animal foods,” “cooked at home.” How can you say this isn’t elitist? Who are they talking to? It’s not just the cost of the food but also the time and labor to prepare it, the skill, transportation and food access, an equipped kitchen, working with disabilities. There are so many barriers to this kind of advice.
I’m not arguing that eating fresh, whole, “high-quality” foods prepared and eaten at home with your family isn’t good. I’m saying it’s the kind of advice that millions of Americans can’t adhere to. Now what? What is the advice for low-income, elderly, sick and disabled people? People who lack adequate housing, healthcare, transportation? The advice should be better quality packaged, processed, and prepared food but no one wants to go there. The New York Times article went so far as to tell people not to eat processed food, the same food that Congress is preparing to put into a box and distribute to Americans:
Fanatic Cook 
Actually, the advice should be fixing wealth inequality and improving social institutions but you still have to put dinner on the table in the meantime.
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This is why Trump got elected. There are millions of people in the US who run up against barriers in trying to follow advice from the elite – liberal elite and conservative elite. Hillary Clinton did not embrace these millions of people. Trump embraced them more. (But, as it turns out, he lied.)
Truck drivers, miners, trash collectors, maids, food service workers, meat processors, farm workers, home health aids… There are lots of jobs in this country that we need, but that pay poorly. As Bernie Sanders says, no one who works 40 hours a week should be scraping by. The people who tell these workers, and the elderly on fixed incomes, the disabled, the sick … that they should be eating whole foods, fresh, organic, grass-fed, prepared and eaten at home with their family are out of touch.
I think Trump will get elected again. Because these people, “the invisibles,” have a vote. A vote that is just as powerful as anyone else’s. And as far as I can see, no Democrat is rising to the occasion.
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