In the age of Donald Trump, college-educated white liberals consider right-wing white populists in small towns and outer suburbs to be the gravest threat to their values and, sotto voce, their power and influence. Many seem to assume that rainbow liberalism will remain deferential to the demands of avowedly enlightened, well-off people like themselves …
But what if working-class Latinos aren’t especially interested in serving as junior partners in a coalition led by their self-proclaimed white allies? What if they instead support new forms of anti-establishment politics, rooted in grievances and vulnerabilities that place them at odds with liberal white elites?
Thomas Jefferson was appointed Secretary of state https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1872/11/jeffersons-return-from-france-in-1789/537267/
On the very day of his landing Jefferson read in a newspaper that President Washington had appointed him Secretary of State. “I made light of it,” he wrote soon after to a lady in Paris, “supposing I had only to say No, and there would be an end of it.” ... It was at [the mansion of Uncle Eppes in Chesterfield County] that Jefferson received the official announcement of his appointment as Secretary of State. A gentleman from New York overtook him at Eppington, bearing his commission signed by the President; also a letter from the President cordially inviting him to accept the place, yet giving him his choice to return to Paris if he preferred to do so. It was evident that General Washington expected him to accept. Mr. Jefferson’s reply was such as became the citizen of a Republic. He told the President that he preferred to remain in the office he then held, the duties of which he knew and felt equal to, rather than undertake a place the duties of which were more difficult and much more extensive. “But,” he added, “it is not for an individual to choose his post. You are to marshal us as may be best for the public good.”
