If you had visited here for weeks — as I had, reporting about the disaster — you understood, more than anything else, that the people here wanted to know that those in power would help them. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), just weeks post swearing-in, was here multiple times. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) also came. However, the person with the most power, President Joe Biden, had not come, nor would he ever.

Vance told me that Trump did a great service to the residents of East Palestine by forcing the political class to care about them.

“His visit filled the leadership vacuum left behind by Joe Biden’s indifference toward this disaster,” he said. “It sent a clear message to the rest of the country that these people are our fellow Americans and we can’t leave them behind.”

[It’s the elites versus the normies, and the elites are furious that Trump connects to the normies more than they do. — Ed]