SALENA ZITO ON DINER BREAKFASTS.

For everyone in the place, their visit to Dean’s Diner was part of either a weekly routine or a customary traveling experience; in short, it was normal to pick a diner over a fast-food restaurant or a corporate franchise. They liked supporting a local business, the hardy yet inexpensive meals and the sense of belonging — even if they’d never been to this particular diner before.

A Washington, D.C.-based journalist working for a well-respected newspaper — seeing someone being interviewed at a diner for another reporter’s story — recently tweeted: “Who has time to sit down for breakfast at a diner on a weekday? Feels like people who have time for a leisurely weekday diner breakfast are not normal!”

It was another reminder that those who work for our cultural curators — corporations, academia, Hollywood, Silicon Valley and our national newsrooms — often have very little in common culturally with many of the people who buy their products, attend their schools, stream their shows, use their social media platforms or read their news stories.

(It was also a swipe at yours-truly, made explicit in a follow-up tweet about “the salena zito-style real american interview.”)

Unfortunately, many of these people who live and work and socialize in the “super zip codes” amuse themselves by mocking people who frequent diners, gas stations, Dollar Generals, Dunkin Donuts and other un-trendy places.

Keystone College political science professor Jeff Brauer sees it as a big part of the cultural divide in this country that has caused both the Republican and Democratic coalitions to shift so significantly over the past few years.

“Too many journalists, academicians and Washington insiders are still misreading the current political climate and divide in the U.S.,” explained Mr. Brauer. “There is still too much focus on left versus right, liberal versus conservative and Democrat versus Republican.”

The divide, he said, is much more inside versus outside, and has contributed to the rise of populism in both parties.

Yep. And the divide comes mostly from the apparently irresistible urge of the insiders to be snotty toward those they see as their inferiors.