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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
8 years? I highly doubt she’d be re-elected in 2020, and lately it’s looking like she might not be healthy enough to serve out even one full term.
So you’re going to vote based upon an expectation she won’t get reelected or will suffer ill-health? You’re okay letting the fate of the Republic rest upon those predictions?
The list of incumbent Presidents that failed to get reelected is rather short. Since WWII it’s Carter and then Bush 41. I’d call LBJ something different, since he was ‘primaried’, but even throwing him in it’s a short list. Forget Ford . . . he was never elected to one term, let alone a second.
Clinton is 68. Sure, she might die any day. Any one of us can. But life expectancy for her will take her well past two terms. If your playing probabilities, I think you need to reevaluate this.
I don’t think the “fate of the Republic” hinges on the outcome of this election. See my earlier comments regarding fearmongering.
Even shorter: the list of times the same party has won the White House for 4 consecutive terms. Hasn’t happened since Harry Truman.
Yup, that’s the main difference between us. I’d encourage you to read The Flight 93 Election if you haven’t. But either way, if you are like most people one article is extraordinarily unlikely to change your worldview.
Unfortunately between Democrats and whatever your version of center-right is called, it seems the USA is going to turn out exactly like President Lincoln suggested: a victim of suicide.
Little by little our liberties are taken away as people like you think one more election won’t matter. Should you and others like you prevail, I shudder to think what our country will look like in a few short more years.
Again, if your worldview finds comfort in that thought it’s extremely unlikely there’s anything that anyone will say that will persuade you otherwise. So, my only rejoinder is: Even if you are right, it’s unlikely we’ll do more than slow our rate of demise slightly with the GOP regaining the White House in 2020. Think today’s Tories . . . all the fundamental assumptions about what government is for will have been “resolved” and we’ll be arguing over managerial nuances.
And if Trump wins? You yourself said:
The Dems will run another progressive in 2020, one who will almost certainly be more charismatic and more popular than Hillary. Then no doubt you’ll tell me the fate of the republic hinges on the 2020 election… and the one in 2024…
The logic of your argument is addressed in The Flight 93 Election article mentioned previously. The pseudonymous author points out that:
So, we come back to worldviews. The article makes the case far better than I can, and certainly than I can in several hundred words—he or she took 4300.
Yes, Trump is problematic. Which politician isn’t problematic? How does that detract from an assessment that, from the perspective of conservatism, Trump is far less problematic than Clinton?
Not sure who this charismatic Prog is in 2020 . . . Kaine? Bring it on! But, yes, it’s going to take more than one cycle to rinse Obama’s euro-statist, race-baiting, lead-from-behind, can’t-name-our-enemies, crap-negotiating, IRS- and FBI-weaponizing filth down the political drain.
You are proof of why it’s the exact opposite. His opponents—people like you—will never stop talking about “Twitter followers” as if that is something he (unlike everyone else on the planet!) is accountable for.
You just want him to jump on the Democrat’s hamster wheel that will have him daily apologizing for one or another nut job living on a mountain without running water. That way every day he’d be self-associating with exactly the people from which your insincere advice is he disassociate.
Trump is just a bit more clever than you think . . . but keep trying!
Oh, come now. We all know that Hillary doesn’t actually believe that half of Trump’s supporters are deplorable. We all know that Hillary actually believes that 100% of Republicans, including all Trump supporters, are deplorable. Hillary actually believes that she is the force of goodness, put on this Earth to help people, and that anyone who opposes her opposes helping people. This is, necessarily, because they hate people. They hate African-Americans, women, gays, Muslims, poor people and, most of all, they hate Hillary because she is the embodiment of all that is good.
God only knows how Hillary manages to believe this, but she clearly does. All criticism of Hillary is concocted by the vast right-wing conspiracy of deplorables, whose hatred leads them to block the Utopia that Hillary would bring forth if only the deplorables would get out of her way. Not only does Hillary manage to believe this idiocy with all of her heart and soul (I use the latter term loosely), she also believes that this makes her the candidate who wants to unite America. “Stronger together,” as long as we can send all the deplorables to a gulag.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Trump is an anti-Semite at all. The right thing, however, and even the smart thing, would be to denounce anti-Semitic comments made by his supporters. They are hardly the majority.
Sure; and one should answer the question “When did you stop beating your wife?” with a firm denunciation of wife-beating . . . that’s the ticket!
The fact you don’t think Trump has denounced antisemitism is my point — doesn’t matter how many times he does so because it will never be done enough, or vehemently enough, or quickly enough, etc., to satisfy the Trump haters. His best strategy is to ignore it.
A number of Hillary’s supporters are racist anti whites who are prone to violence and murder. Where is your outrage? They are not just accepted but invited to the White House.
This guilt by association is the stuff of communist show trials. Reagan said “They are voting for me, I am not voting for them” and that is what Republican candidates should do.
I find the constant clinging to the Alt-right by the Pseudo Conservative Pro Hillary forces to be despicable, more despicable than their targets. In fact, let us go all the way and call it deplorable.
So this “mountain without running water” has electricity and Internet access?
Couldn’t possibly agree more.
I don’t believe everything anyone has ever said. Do not attempt to clothe me until you know my size.
It should be in Trump’s interest to denounce antisemitism. This isn’t the Democrat Party, after all.
Do you understand that he has a Jewish son in law and a daughter who has converted and is raising her children as Jews? Anyone with half a brain knows the man can’t possibly be antisemitic.
Also of note (and perhaps it’s been mentioned already) is that Hillary didn’t include antisemites worth including in her basket of deplorables. Antisemitism isn’t really a Democrat cause.
A Trump acknowledgement of far-right fringe groups (by denouncing them) would only invite a pile-on from the Dems and a feeding frenzy in the media. Why not focus on the manifest antisemitism contained in the Obama/HRC Middle East policies. That has the potential for doing more to combat antisemitism than being drawn into an argument about attention-seeking hate groups. They can be dealt with later.
It might sound as if I favor politics over principle, but the truth is that Trump can make his opposition clear in other ways. And allowing Hillary to become president would be a giant setback for the cause of fighting antisemitism.
This trolling keeps their small minds busy, @goldwaterwoman. Trump isn’t falling for it and that’s all that matters. Remember, the Left has played its other cards . . . this is the one that remains. You are pointing out plain facts: these never dissuade the Left from its preferred tactics.
That Clinton had to turn to her “deplorables” meme in early Sept is a sign of her desperation to turn slumping polls around. It’s all about momentum at this stage. Even with a lead, one never wants to be sliding downward into October . . . difficult to pull out of that. The pole position, as it were, is to be up-swinging into October—especially when there’s a statistical dead-heat in the polls!
And the “deplorable” meme is backfiring. Poor O’Billary has probably had a stroke to boot, which will be increasingly hard to hide. Regardless, she’s a physical wreck. It’s sidelining her when she most needs vigor and strength.
So, the only thing left in her playbook is waving the bloody shirt of this and that ‘phobe. This shores up her base. It’s not transforming the front lines. Thus Trump still has a decent shot at what will be the greatest political upset in US history.
Those words look pretty darned good!
Yup. It’s not exactly new technology—they’re called “generators.” You put this thing called “fuel” in them and—‘lo & behold—you get “electricity.” Then there’s this other cool thing called “satellites” and that let’s the gap-toothed baboons use “the internets.” Just don’t try wiping it “with a cloth.”
I repeat. Politics is a game of addition. The Democrats know that and are professionals. They never denounce anyone for anything if they might get a vote.
Their favorite game is to get stupid Republicans to denounce everyone in sight, making them play subtraction.
Reagan said “They are voting for me, I am not voting for them: and he was right.
Denunciation is for communist show trials and fascist jerks.
Trump was given a Jewish prayer shawl in a black church by an evangelical black bishop who got it in Israel. He wore it proudly.
That is how you handle the Alt-Right if you are concerned about them.
This call for constant denunciation is beneath us. And Stupid as the day is long.
Absolutely. I agree 100%. There is no evidence whatsoever that Trump is an antisemite.