Trump and Gateway

This is a really thorough, balanced, and well-written article.

It’s hard to know why Trump does what he does, but he often seems to care more about winning than ideology, and he seems to think Gateway would be a win for his enemies. Politicians from both parties still talk about how infrastructure can create jobs and boost growth, but many Washington Republicans see some forms of infrastructure, from bike paths to wind farms to urban transit expansions like Gateway, as Democratic infrastructure.

The basic political divide in America today, perhaps even sharper than race, is between people who live close together in Democratic-leaning metropolitan areas and people who live spread out in Republican-leaning rural areas and exurbs. Gateway may be vital to America’s most important financial and political corridor, but for some Republican skeptics, it looks less like a necessary fix for the nation than an overpriced gift to New York, a federal intervention to preserve the viability of a Democratic machine and dense urban development in general. King says that for many members of his party, New York still signifies union bosses and urban blight, cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism. “New York is a fun political target for those guys, because it’s not their idea of how life should be,” he says. “They only like New York when they’re fundraising.”

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/06/gateway-tunnel-new-york-city-infrastructure-218839