Politico recently touched down in the millennial hub of Washington D.C. to get a sense of the Trump junior staffers’ social scene. Life as a Trump-supporting 20-something in D.C. seems to boast challenges distinct from the staffers serving less-authoritarian administrations, who did not face the formidable challenges of having a MAGA hat picture in their Tinder profile.
Past administrations brought their own set of woes to the neighborhoods around Capitol Hill, but in the era of Donald Trump, Politico reports that young appointees, lobbyists and staffers working for the president are wading into the murky waters of the by-and-large Democratic-leaning young scene, most of whom are understandably disenchanted by the Trump agenda. In other words, being a Trump staffer in a city in which only 4.1% of the population voted for Trump is a difficult experience, to say the least.
How exactly are the young era of Trumpies dealing with dating life in D.C.?
Politico interviewed anonymous staffers who revealed that, unlike the Clinton, Bush, and Obama days, when the young crowd typically took up digs in the central neighborhoods of Washington D.C., the new kids on the block are "avoiding the heart of the city" and forging their own paths along the outer edges and suburbs of Washington.
Moreover, some Trump staffers are choosing to hide behind guises, often shielding their identities and political ideology to avoid unfavorable situations. From Politico:
While under normal circumstances, you could expect young White House officials to work their job titles into conversations at the earliest opportunity, the Trump crew has learned to use the types of dodges more commonly deployed by employees of the CIA. “I’ll just say I work for the federal government,” says a White House aide. After some conversations at bars on U Street and the Hill turned south when his Trump ties came up in conversation, one since-departed staffer learned to reveal his White House past only as a last resort. “Even now, people have to ask five or six times before I say, ‘Yeah, I worked there,’” he says. When being vague doesn’t cut it, staffers can always straight-up lie, as one young administration official learned to do while working out of New York during the campaign. “I told people I was an auditor down on Wall Street, and people just stopped asking me questions after that,” he recalls. [...]
One beleaguered 31-year-old female administration official described at length her “very, very frequent” scraps with her matches on dating apps. “You do the small talk thing, and you have a very good conversation, and then they might say, ‘You didn’t vote for Trump, right?’” she says. “As soon as I say, ‘Of course I did,’ it just devolves into all-caps ‘HOW COULD YOU BE SUCH A RACIST AND A BIGOT?’ And ‘You’re going to take away your own birth control.’"
According to Politico, some of the younger Trump administration are outliers in this regard, in some cases wearing their MAGA pride like a badge of honor. "Caroline Sunshine, a 22-year-old Disney Channel star turned White House press assistant, showed up at the [White House Correspondents’ Association] dinner in a custom-made dress adorned with a collage of tweets and press coverage about her recent hiring at the White House," Politico wrote.
With all the hostility facing the new West Wing employees, the staffers conclude that everything considered, they’re doing alright. After all, working for the White House is never a bad ego-boost:
“At the end of the day, if they are part of the establishment and living in D.C., they usually want or need something from the White House, which can be kind of nice,” says one Trump staffer. “It’s a powerful building,” says another. “People respect it.”
Read the full story at Politico here.
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