David Von Drehle Shows Why More Columnists Should Wave Goodbye to Washington and New York

The Washington Post, like the New York Times, is full of liberal columnists. And they’re surrounded every day by fellow liberals—in DC in 2016, Donald Trump won only 4 percent of the vote, while in Manhattan Trump got just 10 percent of the vote.

One journalist who escaped is Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle. He lives in Kansas City and he often brings an outside of Washington feel to his journalism. See today’s “Harvard has betrayed its mission to educate” and “Everyone acts like America is in decline. Let’s look at the numbers.”

Maybe more Washington and New York journalists, especially the columnists, would benefit by being sent out into the country for a year or two to let them listen to someone other than fellow liberals. The 15 states that voted most Republican in 2016? Number one was Wyoming, followed by West Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, South Dakota, Alabama, Idaho, Kentucky, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kansas, and Missouri.

Paul Krugman of the Times could spend a year in Wyoming talking to Cheney and Trump voters. E. J. Dionne of the Post could be sent out to Charleston, West Virginia, to learn something from Jim Justice, the colorful Republican governor. The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen, who lives in New York City, could go to Birmingham, Alabama, while New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who lives in DC, could move for a year to Jackson, Mississippi.

Fred Hiatt, the Post’s editorial page editor and columnist, grew up in DC and went to Harvard. Nashville, the capital city of Tennessee, is too liberal for Hiatt to learn much, as is Memphis. Knoxville, which went 58 percent for Trump and is the home of the University of Tennessee, might give him some fresh ideas.

Margaret Sullivan, the Washington Post’s media columnist, was at the Times before she came to the Post, and she could have a choice of Pierre, South Dakota, or Little Rock, Arkansas.

While my home state of Wisconsin isn’t on the top 15 Republican list, Trump did win the state and Dana Milbank, the Post’s most stridently liberal columnist, could learn something living and writing in Green Bay. The Packer fans there could put a cheesehead on him and show him some real NFL football and let him see what real America is like.