When I have a gut reaction to something or someone, especially a negative reaction, I try to examine it as honestly as possible to see if any of my own prejudices or privilege are tangled around its roots. So of course I wanted to know why the word “elitist” suddenly struck a chord with me when it’s been used for so many years as code for liberal, educated, urban…all good things in my experience. (Not that “rural” or even “suburban” are bad things, but I’m a city girl born and bred and I like it here. I like being away from the city, too, but the quiet takes some getting used to.)

What I’ve figured out is that, while I’m still not quite comfortable with the word “elitist” because it’s been used so much in right-wing framing of liberal values, it really comes down to classism. And you don’t have to be poor, or working class, or rural to understand that sometimes thirty dollars a month can be the difference between eating and not eating, or between paying a bill and having late payment fees and interest start adding up to the point that, by the time you have money to pay the original bill, your debt has grown exponentially. You can be middle class, you can even be wealthy, and you can still know these things. All it requires is either intelligence or empathy. One or the other of those faculties is a good thing to have. Having both together is priceless.

I am a latte-sipping (okay, I prefer chai), wine-drinking (occasionally), far left-leaning, vegetarian, feminist Pagan living in that pit of absolute naughtiness known as New York City. I’m a white woman married to a brown man, and we are hoping to someday adopt a little girl from China and raise her to be a strong, independent, Goddess-loving woman. In short, I am thiclose to being the nightmare of the Far Right. If only I were my husband were a wife.

I also remember what it was like when my single mom lost her job and we had to live on food stamps until she found another one. I remember the hated taste of powdered milk and the way even mac and cheese can be gross when you’ve eaten it several days in a row. And my husband and I have been in the too many bills and not enough money boat from time to time, just like the majority of Americans. Ramen noodles, rice, making casseroles out of whatever was on sale that week, yep, been there. We are fortunate to live in a city where public transportation means we don’t need a car and can therefore avoid the added expenses of car payments, insurance payments, parking fees, and oh yeah, insane gas prices. There have been times when even paying subway fare for the week left us strapped. If we’d lived someplace where driving was a necessity, I don’t know what we’d have done.

So, when I hear a politician, or a pundit, or even an economist talk about how an extra thirty dollars a month won’t do anyone any good, I don’t think, “Yeah, have another latte, ya hippie scum!” I just realize that this person doesn’t understand and, more importantly, isn’t willing to learn, what a life very different from his or her own is like. And while, clearly, it is possible to be that sort of person–incurious, lacking empathy, and supremely confident in the infinite wisdom of one’s finite knowledge based on limited personal experience–and still be a well-paid pundit, I think we all know by now what kind of president it makes.