IMAGINE IF A DEMOCRAT SAID THIS

Trump marvels at size of Texas: "This is a vast state ... the state's tremendous, we don't see that. I come from New York, you have Fifth Avenue and that connects to Park Avenue and its not too far away, but this is, you know, hundreds of miles between places."

— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) April 10, 2019

A Democrat who said something like this would be lambasted on Fox News and talk radio for days. The Democrat would be called an out-of-touch coastal elitist. Trump? We all know nothing like that is going to happen to him.

Also note that when he talks about New York, he talks only about New York City, specifically Manhattan. (And he even gets that wrong. As Ellis Weiner notes, "Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue are parallel. They never connect.") Most of the territory of New York State consists of northern and western regions that, for the most part, are sparsely populated. Maybe you'll never go hundreds of miles between populated areas in New York State, but there's still a lot of land with few if any people on it.

But so what? Trump's a city guy. He doesn't go upstate, so why should he know anything about it? Well, here's one reason: A few years ago, he seriously considered running for governor:

In late December 2013, after Donald J. Trump had met with a number of Republicans to discuss a possible run for governor of New York, he received a memo from an attendee, a freshman assemblyman from upstate.

... the document ... had the particular interests of Mr. Trump in mind: It was titled “Springboards to the Presidency.”

... An examination by The New York Times of contemporaneous documents and emails, as well as interviews with people who met with Mr. Trump during that period, found how he carefully weighed a run, measuring whether the governor’s office was a necessary steppingstone to his long-held goal: the White House....

He discussed with state Republican leaders the idea of using the governorship as a platform to run for president, a situation in which he would serve for a year or so and be succeeded by his lieutenant governor.

We're told that Trump made visits to upstate New York, but he went by private jet -- he didn't choose to drive (or even be driven) there.

But he's a Republican, so he's a man of the people, not an elite snob -- right?