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In an interview that aired two weeks ago on PBS, Kevin Hassett, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, suggested that furloughed workers were fortunate not to have to use vacation days over the Christmas holidays. “And then they come back, and then they get their back pay. Then they’re — in some sense, they’re better off,” he said.

Trump himself has been unable to feign empathy for the 800,000 federal employees who haven’t been paid in more than a month, or the hundreds of thousands of government contractors who likely won’t be paid at all. Earlier this month he retweeted a Daily Caller piece, ostensibly by an anonymous member of his own administration, arguing that the work of most federal employees is worthless. “We do not want most employees to return, because we are working better without them,” it said. On Thursday afternoon, Trump told reporters that grocery stores will “work along” with people who can’t pay for food.

One effect of this government shutdown, now in its second month and without immediate end in sight, is to reveal the sham of Trump’s purported populism. It’s true, he’s able to connect culturally with some economically precarious parts of America. Despite being expensively educated, his worldview is basically that of Archie Bunker. He eats fast food, likes pro wrestling and has the terrible taste in interior design common to arriviste dictators. His vulgarity creates a kinship with people who purport to hate elites.

Yet in purely financial terms, Trump is as elitist as they come. Though he campaigned as a candidate of (white) workers, he has governed as a shameless oligarch. He has proudly surrounded himself with millionaires and billionaires, seeing their wealth as evidence of their worth. At a rally in 2017, speaking of his economic advisers, he said, “But in those particular positions, I just don’t want a poor person.” He has gone out of his way not to hire anyone who would actually understand the plight of the workers he’s holding hostage.