CNN’s Michael Smerconish announced Saturday that his New Year’s resolution was to “burst my bubble.”
Despite hailing from humble beginnings in Pennsylvania, the CNN host confessed that over time, he had “unintentionally self-sorted.” Now, he announced, it was time for him to check his own privilege, a desire sparked after failing a quiz in Charles Murray’s 2012 book “Coming Apart.”
The quiz consists of everyday questions such as “Have you ever walked on a factory floor?” “Who is Jimmie Johnson?” and “Have you or your spouse ever bought a pickup truck?”
An average working-class American scores 77. Smerconish, he confessed, had scored just 44.
“My poor results should have prepared me for the disconnect that I felt watching Donald Trump’s ascension to the presidency, compelling evidence of my being out of touch with 46% of the nation,” Smerconish said.
“Mine is a virtual gated community, defined by things like my zip code, or where our kids go to school, my graduate law degree, my political registration as a non-affiliate, my health consciousness.”
He added: “I’m more into ‘The Crown’ than ‘Duck Dynasty.’ “
It’s a bubble, Smerconish emphasized, that’s at odds with his roots as the “grandson of Pennsylvania coal crackers.” As a child, he said, his home didn’t have a shower until he was in eighth grade, and his first job, when he was 16, was as a maintenance man at McDonald’s.
So this year, he insisted, he intends to be “better grounded.”
“I have resolved to keep an open ear and be a better listener,” Smerconish insisted.
“You can look for me at Cracker Barrel, shopping at Walmart, driving my F-150 more and my sedan less, maybe even lingering in the parking lot at Eagles home games instead of side-stepping all those tailgaters,” he said.
“In 2017, I am out to burst my bubble,” he concluded.
