"You can take Trump supporters and put them in two big baskets. There are what I would call the deplorables—you know, the racists and the haters, and the people who are drawn because they think somehow he's going to restore an America that no longer exists."
Can you explain why white Trump supporters have chosen this as a banner to rally around rather than reject those elements and that ideology from their platform or their identity? Why is it wrong to deplore racism and hatred?
"You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Laughter/applause) Right? (Laughter/applause) They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic – Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people – now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks – they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America."
The key word that you omitted is "irredeemable"- basically she is saying that there is no hope for redemption for people have certain beliefs. What does that imply about how she would have governed people who are, in her words, irredeemable?
Well, sure, if you omit the part where she admits to being "grossly generalistic" and where she says she believes only "some of those folks" are "irredeemable," then you might interpret it as a statement about people who hold certain beliefs rather than people who refuse to be persuaded from their beliefs... but that would be omitting the full context.
>What does that imply about how she would have governed people who are, in her words, irredeemable?
Nothing. Obviously, she was speaking in the context of campaign strategy, reading something more ominous into it would be disingenuous.
She insulted racists, bigots, sexists, etc... but those people aren't her base. Angry, disenfranchised rural white voters and their embrace of Trump's populism by way of race-culture supremacy/identity as a reaction against America's demographic and cultural shift has been thoroughly documented. Also, her description of the rationale for the rest of Trump voters is one that Trump voters themselves admit to.
What didn't happen is Hillary Clinton calling all Trump supporters (or, by extension, all white people or all working class people) racist and "deplorable."
She said that "half" of Trump voters are those things.
> What didn't happen is Hillary Clinton calling all Trump supporters (or, by extension, all white people or all working class people) racist and "deplorable."
Trump voters know other Trump voters. They look around themselves and don't see "half" of them being those things - therefore, they infer that Hillary Clinton had misidentified many of their friends as being those things.
Was that bigoted? Yes, and she paid for it. Imprecise, yes, but I don't think she was literally claiming 50% of Trump supporters were those things. But was it entirely untrue?
I lived through the same election cycle as everyone else. I've seen the racist elements of American white supremacism and the alt-right embrace Trump for whatever reason, and I've seen the contempt in which some Trump supporters appear to hold the rest of the country. They voted for a man who has said far, far worse things than Hillary Clinton, yet it's more important for them to form solidarity with racists than to admit that maybe she wasn't entirely wrong. When you're willing to get in bed with swine you won't wake up smelling like roses.
It’s part of a particularly odious strategy: make a bold stand against “hate,” then describe everything your opponent stands for as hateful, regardless of the reality.
1. The US-Mexico border wall. The purpose of the wall is to prevent people from illegally crossing the border to enter the US. Say what you will about its effectiveness. I doubt it would be that effective and think our money is better spent elsewhere. But if you support it, you'll be branded a racist.
2. Deporting illegal aliens. If you agree that people who are in the US illegally should be deported, you'll be branded a racist. Race has nothing to do with it. It's the legality of it. If you don't like the law, lobby for it to be changed. You'll also be accused of hating all immigrants (i.e., ones here legally) which has no basis.
So on this particular point, I was clicking through a bunch of Youtube videos last week while bored and saw one in particular that stuck out. The particular point was about refugees, not illegal immigrants, but it seems that at least some people are absolutely convinced that there's already an authority above the US government that makes enforceable laws, and that Trump/etc is just ignoring those laws. No amount of arguments or explanation during the video could convince the person that there is no such law.