Deplorable - deserving strong condemnation; shockingly bad in quality.
The truth is a really nasty female dog. And no, I'm not going to use the "B" word. In this 2016 United States presidential election it really bites -- many times. And just when you thought that this campaign could not get crazier with a Republican candidate's rise to prominence being fueled by overt racism, xenophobia, and misogyny, it gets pulled into another tangential direction. Last week at a fundraiser in New York, Democratic Presidential Candidate, Hillary Clinton, said that in her opinion Donald Trump's supporters on the Republican Party side was populated by a "basket of deplorables."
Immediately, a woman whose statement on the Republican candidate's supporters was genteel, benign even, when compared to Donald Trump's well documented bigoted and racists attacks against women, Mexicans, Muslims and immigrants, was subjected to the kind of reaction that only the truly ignorant can muster. Here's what Ms. Clinton said.
"To just be grossly generalistic you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic--you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up."
She continued: "But the other basket--and I know this because I see friends from all over America here " but that other basket are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures--they're just desperate for change. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."
So what's the big deal? She get's, and I'll use a Barack Obama term here, a "shellacking" from Trump, the slavish media, and the Republican Party's "amen chorus." So now Trump says that Hillary Clinton is running a "hate campaign" without any substance. LoL, is this the political "Twilight Zone?" #trumpcrazy The press swooped down like a pack of wild dogs out for blood and immediately clamped on the exposed political neck of a hapless Hillary Clinton. You could hear their ecstatic, gleeful cries as the political pontificated. Hear them:
"No. 1 rule of presidential politics. Okay to mock your opponent. Never a good idea to mock the electorate," gushed Mike Barbaro of the New York Times and Domenico Montanaro of NPR chimed in with "memo to candidates: Stop generalizing and psychoanalyzing your opponents' supporters. It never works out well for you."
Crap. Earth to Michael. Reporters are political strategists and the "Guardians of Truth and Fairplay." Are these people for real? Maybe they are living in Trump's parallel universe. Where have these folks been ALL of this time? When Trump vilified Mexicans as rapists and criminals much to the glee of his mentally challenged supporters? Where were they when Trump's supporters jazzed up and jacked up on Aged Trump Hate Juice routinely see America's first Black president as "not American" and without foundation called for Hillary Clinton to be jailed?"
That's not deplorable? Yes it is and there is a well-defined, well-cultivated, and well-schooled "basket of deplorables" in the Republican Party AND particularly in the Trump Campaign. That's a FACT. Its not Trump & Company's hypocritical hyperbole and political river-dancing. Or the mainstream media's manufactured outrage and dreamed up story.
But most of the hoopla is much ado about nothing. If and it's a huge "if", people are fair, and I know that's asking a lot, nastier names have been called demeaning and putting down people during this political cycle. Now the media could continue to hold on to the notion that Ms. Clinton's statement has no bearing in fact because there is no data to support her claims. Such absolutist approaches may make reporters; political pundits and their lackeys feel good prompting Ms. Clinton to say that "half" may not be realistic.
But I beg to differ in this race to the bottom. She's dead right -- IT'S MORE THAN HALF. And I don't need any data or poll to tell me that. See, I can't be a hypocrite and pretend to the contrary because MOST sane and reasonable people would conclude on the basis of the behavior and Trump's own rhetoric that he heads up and leads a bunch of pretty deplorable people.
She was not wrong and if anything she grossly undercounted. But if its data that the mainstream media wants to prove that there is a "basket of deplorables" then let's do this. The arrogance of the corporatist media and its elites is that they believe that most Americans are stupid, don't read, and are so dependent on their "news as entertainment" distortions that the barometer for what is factual is set so low as to make them forget that there is easily available data lying around.
It's like this American population of today is trapped in a perpetual state of somnambulism and that waking up is just too painful, the effort to think too great, and the activity to use one's brain to positive effect too taxing. That's why they get away with the kind of stinking bilge water that passes as sane thought and deliberations.
Let us therefore start with President Barack Obama. In multiple surveys by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling firm, the questions was asked if respondents believe President Obama was (a) born in the United States and (b) whether they believe he's a Muslim. These questions begin to scratch the surface of "deplorable" racial bias. In one result about two-thirds of Republicans with a favorable opinion of Donald Trump said that Obama is a Muslim, and 59 percent said he wasn't born in the United States.
In June of 2016, a few months ago, Reuters News agency, measured the racial attitudes of Hillary Clinton, Trump, Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich supporters. A significant number of supporters for each candidate voiced negative attitudes about Black Americans. But Trump backers stood out in their animus and hatred. Nearly 50 percent said Blacks were "more violent" than whites; almost as many said that Blacks were "more criminal than whites." More than 40 percent said that Blacks were "more rude" than whites, and more than 30 percent said that Blacks were "lazier" than whites.
Pretty deplorable I think. When in this day, after slavery and segregation, Jim Crow Laws and the Civil Rights Movement a majority of Donald Trump's supporters have racist feelings, tendencies and attitudes towards Black people then this proves without doubt that there is a "basket of deplorables." If that's not a textbook level of deplorable then I ate my school fees. But let's go even further to a complementary study that backs up the above data.
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