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| Jared Kushner’s Entitlement Is New Jersey Born and Bred | Jared Kushner’s Entitlement Is New Jersey Born and Bred |
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| Jared Kushner, first son-in-law and White House senior adviser, used a personal email account to communicate about government business, it was recently revealed. In his initial application for a security clearance, Mr. Kushner failed to list a single meeting with a foreign government official during the campaign and transition. (Amended forms now reportedly list over a hundred contacts.) He is also, according to official sources, a person of interest in the investigation into the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russia, although when he was recently hauled up to Capitol Hill to testify about a meeting he attended at Trump Tower in June 2016 with a Kremlin-linked lawyer who was promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, he insisted he was entirely blameless. | Jared Kushner, first son-in-law and White House senior adviser, used a personal email account to communicate about government business, it was recently revealed. In his initial application for a security clearance, Mr. Kushner failed to list a single meeting with a foreign government official during the campaign and transition. (Amended forms now reportedly list over a hundred contacts.) He is also, according to official sources, a person of interest in the investigation into the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russia, although when he was recently hauled up to Capitol Hill to testify about a meeting he attended at Trump Tower in June 2016 with a Kremlin-linked lawyer who was promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, he insisted he was entirely blameless. |
| Lots of explanations have been put forward as to why Mr. Kushner seems to operate as though the rules don’t apply to him. Perhaps there’s one more factor to consider: his New Jersey upbringing. | Lots of explanations have been put forward as to why Mr. Kushner seems to operate as though the rules don’t apply to him. Perhaps there’s one more factor to consider: his New Jersey upbringing. |
| Anyone who has ever driven on the New Jersey Turnpike knows that, at a certain point in the road, the entire Manhattan skyline appears to rise from the surrounding marshland like a close-yet-so-far Land of Oz, both tempting and terrorizing with its mysterious jutting cutouts. To traverse this roadway, as Mr. Kushner surely did as a young man, was undoubtedly to exist in a constant state of aspiration and alienation. No matter one’s personal glories, for those who call New Jersey home, and especially those who reside in Northern New Jersey, it’s difficult to forget that one is still not from “the city,” as the landmass across the river is known. Overcompensation tends to follow. Blind arrogance is an occasional byproduct. | Anyone who has ever driven on the New Jersey Turnpike knows that, at a certain point in the road, the entire Manhattan skyline appears to rise from the surrounding marshland like a close-yet-so-far Land of Oz, both tempting and terrorizing with its mysterious jutting cutouts. To traverse this roadway, as Mr. Kushner surely did as a young man, was undoubtedly to exist in a constant state of aspiration and alienation. No matter one’s personal glories, for those who call New Jersey home, and especially those who reside in Northern New Jersey, it’s difficult to forget that one is still not from “the city,” as the landmass across the river is known. Overcompensation tends to follow. Blind arrogance is an occasional byproduct. |
| I know because I remember experiencing such feelings myself while growing up in Bergen County in the 1970s and ’80s. While Mr. Kushner was raised in Livingston, an upper-middle-class town of 30,000 in neighboring Essex County, he attended school in Paramus, a middle-class town a dozen miles from the edge of Manhattan that, with its surfeit of malls, has long held the status of a punch line. How an intelligent young man could have spent his formative years in such a place — never mind at an Orthodox yeshiva — and not come away feeling humbled in some way remains something of a mystery. | I know because I remember experiencing such feelings myself while growing up in Bergen County in the 1970s and ’80s. While Mr. Kushner was raised in Livingston, an upper-middle-class town of 30,000 in neighboring Essex County, he attended school in Paramus, a middle-class town a dozen miles from the edge of Manhattan that, with its surfeit of malls, has long held the status of a punch line. How an intelligent young man could have spent his formative years in such a place — never mind at an Orthodox yeshiva — and not come away feeling humbled in some way remains something of a mystery. |
| But then, while New Jersey has become increasingly diverse, it’s also a place where dollar signs largely determine status and conspicuous consumption is celebrated as an inalienable right. “Fast Cars, Women, Money!” read the poster that the guy from Alpine (an enclave of celebrities and multimillionaires), who lived next door to me in my freshman dorm at college, unabashedly pinned to the wall over his bed. Naturally, it featured a bikini model sprawled across a Porsche. | But then, while New Jersey has become increasingly diverse, it’s also a place where dollar signs largely determine status and conspicuous consumption is celebrated as an inalienable right. “Fast Cars, Women, Money!” read the poster that the guy from Alpine (an enclave of celebrities and multimillionaires), who lived next door to me in my freshman dorm at college, unabashedly pinned to the wall over his bed. Naturally, it featured a bikini model sprawled across a Porsche. |
| Moreover, feeling left out often translates into an eagerness to be “let in” — an impulse that seems to have informed Mr. Kushner’s post-collegiate years. After graduating from Harvard and, following his father’s imprisonment, taking the helm of the family real estate business, Jared Kushner moved both himself and the company to Manhattan. There, he established his urban sophisticate bona fides by purchasing both an in-the-know newspaper (The Observer, read most avidly by the media and real estate elite) and a trophy Fifth Avenue high-rise (for which he famously overpaid) and, later, marrying a Park Avenue princess, albeit herself only one generation removed, at least on her father’s side, from similarly unfashionable Queens. | Moreover, feeling left out often translates into an eagerness to be “let in” — an impulse that seems to have informed Mr. Kushner’s post-collegiate years. After graduating from Harvard and, following his father’s imprisonment, taking the helm of the family real estate business, Jared Kushner moved both himself and the company to Manhattan. There, he established his urban sophisticate bona fides by purchasing both an in-the-know newspaper (The Observer, read most avidly by the media and real estate elite) and a trophy Fifth Avenue high-rise (for which he famously overpaid) and, later, marrying a Park Avenue princess, albeit herself only one generation removed, at least on her father’s side, from similarly unfashionable Queens. |
| In Philip Roth’s novella “Goodbye, Columbus,” the Newark working-class hero, Neil Klugman, spends a summer coveting both the supple body and well-stocked house of the rich and saucy Radcliffe student Brenda Patimkin, of Short Hills, adjacent to Livingston. Even though Mr. Kushner is far wealthier than Klugman is meant to be, it’s possible to see the presidential son-in-law as a later-generation Klugman metaphorically opening Ivanka’s refrigerator, as Klugman opens Brenda’s, and marveling at all the fresh fruit. Though in Mr. Kushner’s case, perhaps his awe had more to do with her fridge being empty. Eating at home, after all, is for the merely bourgeois. | In Philip Roth’s novella “Goodbye, Columbus,” the Newark working-class hero, Neil Klugman, spends a summer coveting both the supple body and well-stocked house of the rich and saucy Radcliffe student Brenda Patimkin, of Short Hills, adjacent to Livingston. Even though Mr. Kushner is far wealthier than Klugman is meant to be, it’s possible to see the presidential son-in-law as a later-generation Klugman metaphorically opening Ivanka’s refrigerator, as Klugman opens Brenda’s, and marveling at all the fresh fruit. Though in Mr. Kushner’s case, perhaps his awe had more to do with her fridge being empty. Eating at home, after all, is for the merely bourgeois. |
| In the past year Mr. Kushner has pulled off the ultimate insider coup — an office in the West Wing. Even with all the scandals swirling around him, no doubt he considers himself to be a great success. Yet it’s hard not to feel that he’s making the same mistake that so many Trump voters did regarding wealth and entitlement — namely, confusing money for virtue and accomplishment — and the luck of birth for talent. If so, this might account for Mr. Kushner’s apparent confidence that he can act in whatever manner he sees fit. | In the past year Mr. Kushner has pulled off the ultimate insider coup — an office in the West Wing. Even with all the scandals swirling around him, no doubt he considers himself to be a great success. Yet it’s hard not to feel that he’s making the same mistake that so many Trump voters did regarding wealth and entitlement — namely, confusing money for virtue and accomplishment — and the luck of birth for talent. If so, this might account for Mr. Kushner’s apparent confidence that he can act in whatever manner he sees fit. |
| In any case, Mr. Kushner hasn’t entirely abandoned his Jersey roots. He and Ms. Trump maintain a weekend home at Trump National Golf Club in horsy Bedminster. And a stalled Kushner Companies plan to build a large residential and office tower complex in Jersey City appears to be back on. | In any case, Mr. Kushner hasn’t entirely abandoned his Jersey roots. He and Ms. Trump maintain a weekend home at Trump National Golf Club in horsy Bedminster. And a stalled Kushner Companies plan to build a large residential and office tower complex in Jersey City appears to be back on. |
| This follows an embarrassing misstep last spring, when Mr. Kushner’s sister, Nicole Kushner Meyer, traveled to Beijing to pitch the project, which offered fast-track EB-5 United States visas in exchange for $500,000 investments in it. At an event to court Chinese investors, Ms. Meyer mentioned Mr. Kushner, and a slide during a presentation displayed a picture of President Trump, implying to some that she was selling access to her brother, who had divested his interests in the project, and, by extension, to the White House. (Her company later denied any such intent.) | |
| Mr. Trump was unlikely to have been pleased. But as a fellow bridge-and-tunnel guy made “good,” the president of all people should know that you can never fully escape where you come from. | Mr. Trump was unlikely to have been pleased. But as a fellow bridge-and-tunnel guy made “good,” the president of all people should know that you can never fully escape where you come from. |