This congressman isn’t ducking his constituents. But what he is doing is far worse

Unlike some of his congressional colleagues, the Elk Grove Republican, whose district is nowhere near Elk Grove, is game enough to continue presiding over town hall meetings where he is the piñata.

But instead of candy pouring out of McClintock when his constituents hit him – with tough questions and heartbreaking testimonials – intolerance pours out of him instead.

In this way, McClintock is an embodiment of democracy in the age of Trump. Instead of ducking and hiding he shows up and takes questions, which nets him high marks for fulfilling the most basic role of a legislator.

But beyond that, McClintock represents only those who identify with his ideology – and no one else. He seems impervious to shame, and incapable of publicly expressing compassion to those who don’t fall within the margins of his rigidly held beliefs.

At a town hall meeting in El Dorado Hills on Saturday, McClintock told a young woman that she should go back to where she came from – El Salvador – even though she was brought to the U.S. as a child and raised here. He told a pair of gay teenagers that their concerns were not his.

Democrats got skewered for practicing “identity” politics – racial diversity, marriage equality, transgender rights, immigration reform – when losing to Trump last November. Trump supporters posit that defeat as an ideological pendulum swinging back toward traditional American values that reject the grievances of minority groups. That Trump lost the popular vote is an inconvenient truth dismissed by Trumpian conventional wisdom.