9/10 Open Discussion
Happy Saturday Peeps!
So let’s first address the elephant…I mean donkey, in the room – “basket of deplorables”??
I think it was a stupid thing to say if you’re trying to win an election.
Last night, when I heard that at her fundraiser with Barbra Streisand, Clinton said to laughter:
“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.”
Nice. Insult a big chunk of voters. I thought liberals were supposed to be caring people, people who often went the extra mile to engage people who have different points of view than they did, talk to people who have different attitudes than they have and, in a perfect world, find common ground, and go from there.
Clinton then said some of these people were “irredeemable” and “not America.”
Another thing that occurred to me was that during the brutal Democratic primary it wasn’t unusual to hear Bernie supporters labeled as sexist and racist, so do we also belong in “the basket of deplorables”? Does Clinton really believe that all of her supporters are perfect, tolerant, compassionate, people? Pure as the driven snow? Does she really think that none of them are even a little bit xenophobic, a little bit “Islamaphobic”?
Lastly, the optics were awful, imo. There she was before a room full of rich people and she elicits laughter by mocking fellow Americans by insulting them en masse and publicly writing them off. Is that a wise thing to do when you’re in the process of interviewing for the job of representing all Americans?
I don’t think that it was wise, I think it was elitist and stupid. And it wasn’t helpful to a country on the edge.
Over at Twitter #BasketOfDeplorables (which has been trending all day) I saw a comment that hit home for me that said that’s what happens when you spend “all August fundraising with elites”. I agree with that conclusion.
What do you think?
Sure she wasn’t talking about the candidates from the two major parties? They sure look to me to be a small basket of deplorables.
Hillary Clinton Is Trying Really Hard to Repel Progressives
Don, she actually doesn’t have to…we’re already repelled…that’s something she can do really well.
Well, apparently you can purchase your way out of the basket, if you have enough money. See: Saudi royalty.
::facepalm::
Just who is on her list to alienate next???? It definitely didn’t help Mitt Romney, when speaking to his elites at a fundraiser, and he got caught on tape talking about the 47%.
Did she get caught on video, too? (If so, can you imagine what the far right would do with that?)
It certainly was on video.
The Republicans are using it as ammo and the Clinton supporters are defending it.
I’m not saying that it was wrong but it certainly was an unforced gaffe.
Talk about handing ammunition to your enemies…. What was she thinking? I would have liked to have heard more of the second part.
While the behavior of the racists, homophobes, and other folks she calls deplorable IS absolutely deplorable, you have to address the behaviors, rather than the people. These are people who would be her constituents if she’s elected… objectifying them doesn’t solve any problems, and just makes the whole situation worse.
This comment was one of the very few comments I could rec out of the 600 comments that Barbara’s post received on TOP.
Pretty sad that only one of all those commenters got it….
Two commenters got it (and two or three others thought it was a dumb thing to say for political reasons). Here’s the other one, who I saw at least, who wrote about it from a ‘human decency’ POV (as well as from a political “efficacy” POV):
Yes, on video. Over at TOP they are saying that it was obviously part of the script (plus she used the same terminology speaking to an Israeli TV reporter the other day) so that means she did it intentionally, so that must mean she knew what kind of response she’d get, and so it’s all good.
Some over at TOP are swooning over how brave they think it was. Others are saying that it was a well-laid trap and that anyone who objects must be one of the ‘deplorables’, their objections mean they are guilty as charged.
Go to the two minute mark of this interview she did on Sept. 8th with what I believe is an Israeli TV outlet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqUW4ZeJssA
Somebody counseled her that this approach is a good one.
Probably got fed to her via that nifty little earpiece …
Dog, I abhor her.
Wow… not great advice, I’d say — though what she says in reference to the second group of people sounds better, at least.
Then she says at 3:58, “I represent a very clear challenge to the status quo, the stereotype of leadership, a challenge to vested power and forces that I don’t think are alway in the best interests of our country.”
A challenge to the status quo and vested power? In terms of being female, yes, but in every other way she’s got to be kidding….
Absurd for her to claim that she is a challenge to the status quo. At the very least, she herself asserts that she is a continuation of Obama’s presidency = the status quo!
Poor Republicans who hate Hillary and don’t have money = basket of deplorables.
Rich Republicans who hate Trump and have the money to donate to Hillary’s campaign = basket of adorables.
Pretty funny….and witty.
I’m a indy that neither likes Hillary or Trump and doesn’t have money. Which basket to I fit into? I’m sure I’m a deplorable american voter to both campaigns then ?
You might be in the uninformed deplorable basket and you probably get your news every morning from the likes of Matt Lauer. 😉
From Jonathan Chait at the New Yorker:
So you see, you not supporting Hillary means that you are probably not reading enough “elite print-news sources”. So get cracking and get reading, then you’ll become better informed and, of course, support Hillary.
/s
p.s. speaking of reading “elite print-news sources”, I felt a bit like I had to wash my brain after reading Chait’s piece after being slimed with so much snobbery.
“Both of these beliefs stun and appall foreign-policy experts in both parties, as readers of the Washington Post or the New York Times know. But the average undecided voter isn’t reading those newspapers. The average undecided voter is getting snippets of news from television personalities like Lauer, who are failing to convey the fact that the election pits a normal politician with normal political failings against an ignorant, bigoted, pathologically dishonest authoritarian.”
Many wonder why the race for President is still a horse race. Perhaps it is because of incidents like this.
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/23/not_my_abuela_twitter_explodes_in_outrage_over_hillary_clintons_hispandering/
Or maybe it was this.
http://americancolumn.com/black-lives-matter-confronts-hillary-on-camera-this-could-destroy-her-campaign/
Now the latest episode. It surely proves that Hillary is capable of ” seizing defeat from the jaws of victory”.
I love Benjamin Dixon. He tells it like it is. We need more of that.
The Clinton campaign has to get its talking points in order.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/295290-kaine-clinton-doesnt-need-to-apologize
Over at TOP almost everyone said that she shouldn’t apologize.
They’re living in a bubble, just like folks in the Fox bubble, reinforcing each other’s perceptions and prejudices and congratulating each other, and clueless about how other people see this a bit more objectively…. Guess that’s why we’re all over here!
There’s a difference between calling Trump’s campaign — or his actions, or his words, or his business failures — deplorable, and labeling his followers deplorable (rather than their actions). I hope she corrects it.
She says now that she shouldn’t have said the word “half”…
Democrat doubles down on ‘prejudice and paranoia’ of Trump campaign
Armando thinks she did great turning lemons into lemonade, lol.
The word ‘deplorable’ must have been focused-grouped, but they must have done this in Chappaqua.
It’s a word only an elitest would use. Regular people don’t deplore, they hate or despise or can’t stand or whatever.
https://www.facebook.com/ReZpectOurWater/photos/a.1091014567607504.1073741828.1075644215811206/1211478085561151/?type=3&theater
I give thanks every time I sip fresh water, I really do. Although, not being a particularly religious person, I’m not sure who I’m thanking, exactly. But I feel lucky to get it right out of the tap (although I do filter with my Brita pitcher figuring that couldn’t hurt). We had to get a new well pump recently and were reminded just how much one relies on water during the course of every day!
Thank you for sharing this, Mag. Maybe when it affects them too the Israelis will address the water issues for the Palestinians? This sounds horrific.
I’m grateful for our water too, especially as California goes through its fifth year of drought. My little town has lots of water challenges, and lots of people using it (we get a lot of visitors here too). We were all restricting our water usage last year (watering your plants was restricted to specific days, depending on odd or even addresses), and our water rates went up — and we already had the highest water rates in California. (Even higher than SoCal desert areas, which seems a little nuts.) We definitely can’t take it for granted — another reason why also supporting the Standing Rock Sioux and Red Warrior Camp in protecting their water is important. It’s the lifeblood of the planet.
Thanks NVPainter. Yes, when they realize that what happens next door affects them too, environmentally, maybe they’ll act. I hope we here also get the message. Fresh water so precious.
I love the ‘water protectors’ mantra – Water Is Life.
I found this poster precious. It was drawn by student James Gonzalez, part of the Helix Water District’s S. CA collection.
That is definitely a sweet poster! 🙂
How can someone who has as much money as they have, plus a billion for this election, who has been running for POTUS for decades, be so damned dumb? Seriously – Clintons are so out of touch with reality, and they don’t even know it.
She’ll “walk back” the comments – but they were public, and supposedly used before in another context. At least Mitt Romney was secretly taped – Her Heiniousness is seriously flawed. As in something doesn’t compute in what’s left of her brain.
Most dreadful for me, we could have been working to elect Bernie Sanders POTUS. No way Clintons ( yes, it’s both of them) can beat Trump, and they’ve got no one to blames but themselves.
Dearly wish a journalist had the guts to ask this question: “Mrs. Clinton, we know you have a long resume, but could you please tell us what FIVE ACCOMPLISHMENTS you are most proud of in the last 10 years. What have you accomplished, specifically. Instead of trying to tear down Donald Trump, please tell us what FIVE THINGS you have accomplished in the last 10 years which you are most proud of.”
I would love that, so sick of the ‘Trump is Bad’ mantra.
One thing I would bet she’d include on that list is her assertion that she was responsible for bring big bucks from DC to NYC after 9/11 for first responders. Not exactly sure how much of that was her doing, but she says that one all the time.
According to the NY Daily News:
But, then there’s this:
Good question!
And the sad thing is that we need her to be elected in order to avoid having DT turn us into a facist state. And she keep effectively sabotaging herself.
She talks about her experience and judgement, but she keeps making decisions that hows her judgement is not all that great.
think the Clintons are much more dangerous than Trump.
Notice many people use the words “fascist state” – sounds too much to me like one of those “be afraid, be very afraid” memes Clintons are trying to get us to believe.
We’ve seen how the Clintons behave when they are first and foremost concerned about their political viability, getting elected, can anyone imagine how destructive ( careless, reckless,) they’d be if back in the White House. TERRIFYING!
Seems to me that insulting voters will motivate them to turn out in droves for the other guy and more than likely will motivate fence sitters angry at her comment to join the other team…there is not a scenario that I can conjure up where this helps Clinton..it is kind of nasty coming from someone who wants to be president and whose job it will be to ‘be a uniter not a divider’…think that’s a Bushism…just threw up in my mouth…anyway isn’t she supposed to be motivating people to want to vote for her and not flocking people to the other guy? Didn’t she get the memo?
Basically vote for me because I will “hurt” you less than the other candidate, and after y6u vote for me STFU as now I’m in office and I don’t want to hear from you. Well iam basically giving the bird to both pres candidates and when I tell people that I get a shocked look from them as either side says he’ll do this to you or she will do that to you. These people have no idea on how to think for themselves –very scary to me that these people are acting like automatons no indy thought at all
I hear ya, but nowadays, when I peek in at TOP I wonder what I’d be saying if I was younger and/or didn’t know as much. I wonder if I used to have a kind of ‘blind’ faith in the party during most of all those years while going to DK. I might find some of my earliest comments somewhat embarrassing, for example.
I am grateful to Bernie for not only helping to wake me up, but for the way he woke a lot of other people up, especially the younger generation.
I love it when people talk about being ‘woke’. 🙂
Forbes
Quote of the Day
“Knowing why you do what you do empowers you to become more self-aware.”
– Connor Blakley
I have to admit when I was younger the “blind faith” in the party was in effect for me to an extent even though I was an indy. but with age comes more wisdom and I question a hell of a lot more now than I ever did then but now a days with the information available at the touch of a computer its easier to become more informed and suspicious of the true motives of all politicians. With politicians now a days to borrow a phrase from Regan “trust but verify” and then research after that 🙂
!!!!
Breaking: Arrest Warrant Issued For Amy Goodman in North Dakota After Covering Pipeline Protest
I’ll have more a bit later…
https://twitter.com/b_mullaney/status/774720000527507456
This needs to be shared widely. She did nothing wrong. They’re trying to shut down any dissent.
This adds a bit to the story.
https://usuncut.com/news/amy-goodman-charged/
I wondered if that might happen to any of the protesters after they crossed the fenceline… but Amy Goodman too? So much for freedom of the press!
Thank you humphrey!
Remember that video I posted recently?
Well apparently it went viral:
Guess they didn’t like that.
I can only hope that this draws even more attention to the ‘protectors’!
Bernie!
Bless the Amendment King! I hope it gets passed.
Oh, but then it goes to the House, doesn’t it? Damn.
Some are calling it her 47% moment.
It’s one thing to denounce racism and sexism incidents, and have substantive discussions about race and gender issues and how to make progress.
But they use identity politics as a weapon to smear people for their own political gain. Some of us are refugees from that other site because we couldn’t stand it any longer. We remember the vitriolic attacks by Hillary people to smear and discredit Bernie supporters for the crime of liking Bernie. We remember all the “Bernie doesn’t care about black people” and “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t support Hillary” and the DNC using Bernie’s religion against him. Issues and positions are just used when they are a self-serving opportunity to attack people for political gain — instead of actually caring about the issues and reaching out to people.
This is how so many people become disgusted with politics and politicians. I still have hope because Bernie Sanders has shown us a different way.
Yup, I know exactly what you mean. And I guess one of them must be here and doesn’t like hearing it, because I upvoted both your comment and @fishtroller03‘s, and they’re at 0 now. I re-voted on both a couple of times, just to be sure, and I’m being told I already voted on these comments.