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Hillary Delivers Self-Inflicted Wound with “Deplorables” Comment
de·plor·a·ble (adj.) Deserving strong condemnation. [Synonyms: disgraceful, dishonorable, shameful, unworthy, inexcusable, unpardonable, inexcusable]
According to a CNN report:
Hillary Clinton told an audience of donors Friday night that half of Donald Trump’s supporters fall into “the basket of deplorables,” meaning people who are racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic…To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Clinton said. “Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”
Many observers believe that Mitt Romney’s off-hand remark that the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income taxes will be automatic Obama votes cost him the 2012 election. Clinton’s intemperate comment insults the 40 percent of Americans who, through their support of Trump, could be in the half that fall in Clinton’s “deplorable basket.”
The #neverclintons, #smelltesterstforTrump, #wontvoteforaliar, and varied other unenthusiasts for Trump will not like being labeled among Hillary’s five categories of disgraceful, dishonorable, shameful, unworthy, and inexcusable. If they were in doubt, their vote is now secure.
To label 60 million Trump supporters as potential racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes. Islamophobes and whatever new “phobes” Clinton can come up with represents one of the greatest gaffes of American electoral history. It was supposed to be Trump to commit such an error, not the super-experienced Hillary.
The mainstream media will do its best to sweep Clinton’s “deplorables” comment under the rug, but the blogosphere is on it. I doubt there will be a mention in the NYT or WP, but the Trump team has already begun to tweet with a vengeance. Drudge has already featured “Hillary attacks the voters,” and the original story of Hillary’s private remarks before donors was released by CNN, scarcely a bastion of right-wing conspiracy.
My proposal for a new bumper sticker: “Deplorable and Proud of It.”
Published in General
What in the world else is it going to take for that woman to do to convince the Nevers that Trump must defeat her?
As a former #never, I never thought my fellow Republicans who supported Trump were deplorable.
Well I’ll wear the label. Better than half theHillary voters who are of course known pedophiles and dog killers.
You’re just knocking these out of the park, Viator! :)
Just ordered mine :)
I’m waiting for the movie.
We’ve already had “The Untouchables.”
And “The Incredibles.”
I figure it’s about time for “The Deplorables.” Hope somebody is working on it.
Sorry but I missed the memo. I realize we are approaching a critical election and there is pressure to start lockstepping.
Yes, a Trump administration will be much more reliably conservative on SCOTUS, the federal judiciary, immigration, taxes et al. than the reign of witches promised by the Hillary Clinton administration. I also suspect a Trump win could cause a Corbyn-like crack-up amongst the Dems.
That doesn’t change unpleasant realities. Trump’s most passionate long-time supporters are not conservatives (don’t seem to have a conservatarian impulse whatever), care nothing for small government, federalism, or budget sanity, and seem to have enjoyed thoroughly the most rude, insulting and embarrassing performances of their man.
I am voting for the administration and not the man, but won’t blind myself to the fact that a not inconsiderable number of Trump’s most vocal supporters are foul alt-right types who gleefully trade in vicious racial and anti-Semitic slurs.
If you are a conservative who believes in original sin as I do, then you believe that each and every one of us is, to some degree, kind of deplorable anyway.
Reminds me of this:
Hillary channels Empress Jadis
Seawriter
But where are the Ricochet-branded shirts? “Ricochet, home to deplorable conversation.”
My grandfather was a Jew, I have never made a racial slur in my life and brought my children up accordingly. I most vehemently disagree that a considerable number of Trump supporters are alt-right, a term, I might add, most of us have never heard of until recently. Who do you hang out with in this party who thinks like that? This kind of stuff comes from the Democrats pretending to be Republicans. Trust me.
A number of Trump’s twitter followers trade in vicious racial and anti-Semitic slurs. What percentage of his actual supporters they represent is unknown, it could all be from 5 guys in a basement somewhere plus some Russian botnets.
This is why I’m a little scared for the future of our country.
How do you know they were really Trump followers? I submit they were Dem campaign workers seeking to get attention. Anyone can post on Twitter; they don’t ask for voter registration.
Anyone who meets certain arbitrary benchmarks can run for president too. It sounds like you’re arguing Trump is a Clinton plant. Welcome to the club.
If Hillary was smart, she’d do a commercial with quotes from prominent conservatives essentially saying what she said. The list is long. Jonah Goldberg, Mona Charen, you name it. Hell, get some Rob Long quotes from the flagship podcast. She wouldn’t have to apologize at all. The commercial could finish with a graphic: “Respectable conservatives agree with Hillary”.
Not Dog Killers!!
It makes me sick to say this, but they’re probably on the way in October. Of course, we’ll have some from Bernie supporters too.
What difference does a basket of deplorable make?
@goldwaterwoman, I can’t agree with this. The fact that one is a “Never Trump” person doesn’t mean they view Trump supporters as deplorable.
Romney’s gaff worked against him because it was true and the media knew it so they went after him. Hillary’s wont harm her because the media have successfully created over the last decades the view that all Republicans are worse than deplorable. At least she limited it to Trump supporters. There is genuine hate out there and it is growing. There would be widespread support for forced reeducation camps for most of us.
To firmly grasp the obvious, Clinton knows what she is doing. She invited press to this event. Her remarks were calculated to motivate election day turnout and influence already-commenced early balloting.
It isn’t about convincing undecided voters. Those voters—to about the 95th percentile—are not paying attention to any of this. The vast majority of Undecideds are so precisely because they don’t give a damn about political blather; it won’t penetrate their consciousness.
Clinton understands that the single most important political motivator is fear. She is telling all the constituencies her remark singled out that they must fear Trump and his supporters. Her message is that they are dangerous and will harm you—be afraid, be very afraid.
Given enough fear, it makes no difference who the alternative is . . . you will get off the couch and go vote for her. That’s her gambit.
Clinton is also cleaver enough to calculate the press reaction and to have planned her ‘day two narrative’—a non-apologetic, pseudo-correction that extends the story into Sunday’s televised blab-fest. Again, Undecideds are not watching that nonsense. She’s using fear to motivate supporters to take action. As was analogized earlier to GEICO commercials, this is what Democrats do. There’s truly nothing new here: they do it because it works.
‘A tactic perceived is no tactic.’ This is how I seek to address whether Hillary’s current Deplorables tactic is effective.
It seems implicit to me that she is indirectly praising Never Trumpers. Because she was obviously not lumping them in with Trump supporters. A great tactic. It’s classic divide and conquer. Shame the other half of Trump’s supporters who aren’t deplorable by associating them with the Deplorables. It’s a new angle on using the racist epithet to depress or at least intimidate people into taking their unpopular opinions out of the public sphere, until everyone thinks that nobody is publicly proud to espouse what they do. Intimidate them into not talking about it. Meanwhile the accuser comes up smelling like a rose. Obviously they can’t be hateful so long as they’re talking about a bunch of ‘hateful’ people. This is what a Hillary presidency will be about — non-stop shaming of people with unpopular opinions about marriage, charter schools, toilets, you name it.
You Never Trumpers out there, Hillary says you can play your part in electing the next president.
@hvts – Good point about being an effective tactic to increase turnout on the D side. It can also be effective for depressing turnout on R side, by playing on the NT fears, but this is my attempt at deconstructing and disabling that argument among the many here.
It’s what Republicans do too, by and large. How many comments do you read here selling the virtues of Trump, what a great guy he is, or a vision of how his policies will make America Great Again? No, it’s mostly a non-stop barrage of how horrible Clinton is, how her election will spell the End of the Republic, how she hates America, etc. In other words, using fear to motivate conservatives to vote for Trump.
We are not split 50/50. The Nevers are comprised of fewer than 15% and perhaps even less. That said, the Nevers must be just thrilled with her remarks as that’s exactly what they contend. It’s a crying out loud shame.
I agree with everything you say except for the “smelling like a rose” part. While true from the standpoint of her Leftist supporters, I think that most objective observers would view her vitriolic behavior as unbecoming, and therefore reflecting poorly on her character.
I agree that must be an willful exaggeration for the purpose of magnifying the fear. Thanks for the assessment.
I drew a blank. I might have been thinking of it as the intent of sliming another while getting off ‘scot free’, but in this case she’s obviously getting slimed by her choice of words and negative characterization. And she deserves it.
It’s not fear, Joseph. It’s genuine concern. It’s real, and the Left is winning.
We concede that Trump lacks the virtues, vision, and personality of an ideal conservative candidate. But it is obvious to us that a Trump administration has far less downside than an HRC administration would.
Her remarks were intended to strengthen the Never argument. Trust me when I tell you there are Democrat campaign people cruising Ricochet every single day watching the arguments and taking notes for future ads using our own words. National Review must be their Bible.
As I said “the single most important political motivator is fear.” I didn’t caveat that as applying to Democrats. It applies to all voters.
Your mistake, in my view, is drawing a moral equivalence between Democrats stoking false fears regarding every -ism they can name, and valid fears based upon Clinton’s actual record, her disregard for both the law and commonsense, her deceitfulness, her lack of moral decency, and her announced commitment to extend the previous eight years of Obama’s policy failures. Maximum fears about Clinton are valid.
Trump’s problems are significant and in some cases mirror hers. Trump will fail conservatives too. He just won’t do it every time, on every issue, and always by design. Indeed, if Trump were to do everything Clinton would do except he also builds the wall and stops our immigration madness, we will survive to 2024. Eight more years of Alinskyite division and the weaponization of the federal government against conservatives (read The Intimidation Game if you haven’t yet)? No, that we won’t survive.