Clinton: ‘basket of deplorables’
I’m not a party operative, never worked for a political party or belonged to one. I partake in politics through voting and writing. I am not versed in the machinations of running a political campaign or writing a political speech. But I do know dumb when I see it.
And I see it.
Clinton’s remark will keep giving to Trump, a gift he’s already used in tweets and his campaign will use from here on in; he’ll use it in the debates. This is what she said during a speech in New York at a fundraiser for the LGBT community:
To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables.’ Unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.
It doesn’t matter that she mitigated that by talking about the majority of the GOP supporters being reasonable and that the Democratic Party needed to reach out to them. That will not be remembered. The fact that she decided to run with ‘basket of deplorables’ will be, however. And for a very long time.
Despite my lack of experience I would have, and quickly, been able to tell Hillary and her staff that she should not refer to half of Donald Trumps supporters as a “basket of deplorables.’
Indeed, had they asked me (or doubtless you) to read through the speech, to vet it, I would have immediately advised against her saying you-know-what. Again I am a neophyte at this, but I would have flagged the ‘basket of deplorables’ phrase. And I might have told them something along the lines of this:
Hey, whoa, hey, Hillary, Huma, Robby, what up here? You’re gonna call half of Trump’s supporters a basket of deplorables? No, no, no! Are you kidding me? YES IT’S TRUE BUT THEY WILL TAKE IT AND RUN WITH IT!
And it don’t matter he’s made fun of people with disabilities, women, ethnic groups, called Rosie O’Donnell a fat pig and name-calls on a daily basis. He even suggested someone might assassinate you, etcetera, ad infinitum. The people and the press are immune to that BUT NOT TO A BASKET OF DEPLORABLES.
It will be akin to Mitt Romney’s 47 percent. Yes, Melania did worse by stealing from Michelle Obama – outright plagiarism! – but that nasty alt right will remember it forever and run with it so TAKE IT OUT!!!
Trump supporters
Doubtless she didn’t mean half of the supporters of the Republican Party are in the basket, but rather half the fervent supporters of Trump himself. And using the word half was clearly a (foolish) exaggeration (again we think of Mitt). But neither Trump nor his supporters, nor voters, will pay much attention to that.
No, they’ll be too busy using the gift.
Now the alt right (read basket of nutbars) such as the KKK, who love him, and that conspiracy geek Alex Jones and his followers, they are indeed deplorable humans. There are legions of Trump supporters who are racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, etcetera etcetera, ad infinitum.
So her phrase isn’t out of line. Under another context, it’s workable. But is there a point in pointing out what pinheads so many Trump supporters are? Ignore them! Don’t give them more of a misguided cause than they already have!! You’re hardly going to need to convince a room full of lesbians Donald Trump doesn’t have their best interests in mind anyhow!!!
The dumbness to come
Here’s the rub: the fate of the entire planet may well hang in the balance and the Democrats don’t seem to have anyone who can edit a speech. It’s rather pathetic and her supporters will soon be cringing as they watch her drop in the polls from the fallout of all this. From the gift.
The only solace is that Donald Trump opens and shuts that gap between his nose and chin every day, all day, and words representing his jumbled thoughts, his belief structures, his massive ego, come tumbling out. And very often they are muddled and they are dumb.
After all, this is the man who while out on the campaign trail actually boasted about the size of his penis, surely becoming the first person running for the presidency of any nation to brag, like a teenage boy trying to hide a low self-esteem, that he has a large member.
So between now and November 8 he is certain to say more than his share of dumb things. That’s his shtick, his stock in trade, and at least the Democrats have that to look forward to.
But they better hope that Hillary gets someone, her driver, the janitor in the building she’s speaking in, anyone, to edit her speeches. Because she can’t keep giving him gifts and expect to win.
