There is an environmental disaster taking place in East Palestine, Ohio. The small town may never be the same. But there has been a disturbing lack of urgency from the media and, most importantly, the Biden Administration.

It's puzzling that people who claim to care so much about the environment are relatively silent in the face of an actual environmental calamity. It's led me to come to only one conclusion: Elites don't give a damn about Ohio.

I mean this in two ways: They don't care about the actual state of Ohio, and they do not care about Ohioans and people like us in culturally similar states.

This is not a new phenomenon. I live in Cleveland, Ohio, one of the most disrespected cities in the country. We're used to the arrogant and dismissive sneering from the coasts. But to see the almost gleeful way some progressives have reveled in the misfortune of the residents of East Palestine shows a moral, cultural, and political rot that is at the core of elite society.

One deplorable progressive shared a map alleging that the disaster was poisoning the water of "Yokel Central." Highlighted were the states of Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky, and parts of Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Virginia. He then arrogantly added: "Gee, that's too bad. Perhaps they'll reevaluate their voting patterns. (They won't.)"