This has turned into a major pet peeve of mine, whether it occurs in the Worse-Than-Useless Corporate Media, blog posts, or blog comments — failing to recognize and acknowledge that Clinton’s remark clearly and specifically defined whom she was calling “deplorable”:
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? [Laughter/applause]. The 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 offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.
“But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroine [sic — or much worse, to heroin], feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.”
(Clearly, from this actual context, ” — you name it” is a catchall for “and any other form of bigotry I left out of my list”.)
And really, Clinton just stated the obvious, which is why none of the media vapors and rightwing faux-outrage over it even tried to take issue with what she actually asserted. That is, notable for their absence from the ensuing tsunami of Villager tut-tutting and Trumpista faux-outrage were attempts by anyone anywhere (well, excluding the Stormfront et al. fringe) to make either the case that:
1. There are no Trump supporters who are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it”; nor even that these bigots do not comprise a substantial subset, at the least, of Trump supporters. (A case no one seriously attempts to make because it’s transparently preposterous on its face.)
Or
2. Actually defending (or pretending to) racism, sexism, etc. as something other than deplorable.
Or
3. Claiming that none of those “deplorables” are irredeemable (though that one imo might, in fact, be a makeable case at least in theory).
No, essentially all the media/center-left criticism took some form other than disputing the validity (obvious, imo) of what she actually asserted (excepting “half”), e.g., “politically stupid”, etc.
While, quite predictably, Trump and his Trumpistas just baldly lied that she’d called all his supporters “deplorables”, disappearing how she specifically defined “deplorables”.
(A personal anecdotal case in point. One day most weeks I and some tennis buddies have beers after playing. Right after Clinton’s “deplorables” remark, we were at one guy’s house having beers and watching some sporting event on the teevee when a GOP political ad came on, prompting the one Trump supporter there to refer to himself as being one of Clinton’s “deplorables”.
I bit my tongue just in time to keep “Really, ‘Charlie’? So which ‘deplorable’ bigot category are you self-identifying as: racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, or ‘other’?” from exiting my mouth. Cuz what would be the point?)
Now, there are plenty of valid avenues for criticizing Clinton for that remark, including the arguably sloppy “half” characterization (which she subsequently repudiated and apologized for) — though to be fair, she did issue the “just to be grossly generalistic” caveat right up front, something likewise generally disappeared from “reporting” about this.
From a purely practical, cynically political perspective, though, the most condemnable thing about it was providing an opening for the utterly, predictably bad “reporting” by media and dishonest reaction by Trumpistas (and even some “friendly fire”) determinedly disappearing the fact that — and how — Clinton actually defined “deplorables”.
Update [2016-10-3 17:9:25 by oaguabonita]: She was right! What she (clearly, specifically) identified as “deplorable” is in fact deplorable!
Maybe this will explain my distaste….https:/www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/hillbilly-elegy-review-jd-vance-national-review-white
-working-class-appalachia
I find it interesting that whenever a Democratic politician criticizes racism, homophobia and Islamophobia in the public square, someone always jumps up to say, why are Democrats bashing the white working class? Are you sure that the prejudgment is not yours? Not that of the author of Hillbilly Elegy? Because Hillary Clinton never said that white folks in Appalachia are ignorant bigots, and she didn’t use any dog whistles, either.
To add to that last comment a bit: I fully acknowledge that Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” comment was politically stupid. But the attacks on her about these remarks, whether coming from people on the right or on the left, sound to me a whole lot like criticisms of so-called political correctness. Well, I think we all know that when someone attacks “political correctness”, what they’re actually saying, in all likelihood, is something like this: I’m pissed off that I can no longer get away with bashing women/minorities/gays the way I used to.
I don’t think it is any accident that both Dem and Rep establishments are now demonizing the white working class. It is a pre-emptive strike against their being recruited by a new left speaking to their ECONOMIC welfare.
Its probably a Jewish conspiracy!
.
Some of us are working hard on figuring out how to both help these people and get some political benefit out of it so that it’s stable.
But, to be honest, the Dems have to turn out their voters first and it’s not easy to work on their behalf when they elect people with a mandate to obstruct and to reject all federal initiatives.
It shouldn’t be our job to serve their constituents, and it necessarily takes second place in an election season, but we’d be happy to have them as our constituents and to serve them well on health, education, addiction, small business loans, and in converting them over to 21st-Century industry/service jobs.
I’ll be talking about antitrust later today or tomorrow, and that’s the heart of it.
But that’s a kind of old school populism that progressives have forgotten about.
I have not forgotten anti-trust as a tool. I have posted on it a couple times, without much feedback, though.
this assertion:
Near as I can make any sense of it, your participation in this thread seems to consist (entirely?) of conflating Clinton’s defined “deplorables” with the white working class — a conflation I think completely invalid and reject. (I think that’s what Joel was getting at in his first comment as well.) Which is why I can’t see anything in your comments here that doesn’t look like a non-sequitur from where I sit.
But since that’s what you seem to be about here, it also seems important to note that it’s you (and maybe the hillbilly elegy guy; but not Clinton and not me) doing that (invalid, imo) conflating.
What you are missing is the over riding rule with a certain cohort here at the Pond,
“Clinton can NEVER be allowed to do anything right, and NEVER be given the benefit of the doubt”.
This rule over rides all beliefs, all principles.
That’s how you get people here critizing Clinton for NOT appealing to white republicans, while right now in a different thread critizing her FOR appealing to republicans.
It’s called cognitive dissonance.
Im sure it’s also true, like the other thread, there is no racial component to this.
.
Though the non-working url seems to suggest it raises objections to perceived attacks on “white -working-class-appalachia”, as does Joel’s reply.
Which, if so, completely validates my point. Clinton didn’t call the white working class in Appalachia “deplorables” (in fact she very specifically put many of them — i.e., the non-bigot contingent! — into the alternative “basket” of folks with legitimate grievances and deserving of empathy). She put, quite specifically, “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it” portion of Trump supporters in a “basket of deplorables”.
Which they are!
Are you now taking the position of suggesting otherwise???
So you did not bother to google for the article. Surprised at that, oaguabonita.
How about the asymmetry of power in that equation? You have no basket of deplorables for the 1%-ers who do actual HARM with their power? I have twice linked the video of three former Treas Secretaries (and HC’s presumptive one if gossip is true) at the Millikin Institute (look up that dude’s history) yukking it up over the fact that their tenures caused MOAR economic disparity. Paulsen, Rubin and Geitner.
Neoliberalism embraces class warfare as being morally neutral to all those -isms they label the aggrieved powerless with. -even as it devastates the rural poor, the working poor, the undocumented who cannot complain, the displaced H1B1 imports that depress wages. If one fails, it is NEVER categorical because the market is always neutral–that is their bedrock excuse for resource extracting the powerless.
There are thousands of Fergusons out there mining the poors to spare the asset owners.
But the haters are gaudy and mockable. While the 1%-ers are quietly going about the business of business.
Out of curiosity, how are you defining neoliberalism?
Also, while we’re at it, do you consider addressing issues of socioeconomic class to be of sole importance, and that racism, sexism and such will be corrected once we achieve a classless society?
I think I explained the context of my usage in the text, but if you want a primer of DNC variety neoliberalism, the old WaMo manifesto is pretty good…
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/1983/8305_Neoliberalism.pdf
Did someone feed you that second question? It sure looks like Davis’s snark.
Page not found.
So it goes. Perhaps Ortner’s will still work. I tend to use neoliberalism probably more in the sence that David Harvey uses the term. In fact his Brief History of Neoliberalism is a very readable scholarly treatment of the topic. I also like Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine – more of a polemic but with some decent journalism thrown in.
The latter was a sincere question, not intended as snark. Regrettably, we’ve reached a point on this blog to where the level of trust has devolved to where sincere questions will not be treated as such. My reason for asking was simple: I am under the impression that not everyone on this blog is devoted to capitalism, and thought perhaps you might be among those who adhere to some other economic perspective. When I was younger, I found among Marxist-Leninist, Trotskyist, and anarchist organizations of various sorts with which I was familiar and sometimes was active that the party line seemed to be that class analysis trumped all other concerns. The anarchists I knew had a nifty slogan: “class not race.” We did not have a term called intersectionality back in the 1980s, but we could have certainly used it, and I am thankful that there are theoretical orientations that include the concept in their analyses. Anyhoo, I got disgusted eventually by the narrow-minded focus of class analysis that it became easy to give up on contributing as an activist. So, I was curious as to whether the primary focus needed to be on class inequality or if there was some room for addressing racism, and so on as well. No snark intended.
Would you stipulate this: The 2016 election is driven by the conflict between “white economic and cultural grievances and a party of social elites and ascendant minorities. This struggle [is] rooted in race and class”?
If a pure egalitarian society ever existed, it probably had to be monoclonal.
The pet device in colonizing African territory was to advantage the minority tribe over the majority one.
Thus you had a loyal following fearful of reprisals.
I am perfectly comfortable with acknowledging that both class and race play a role in this electoral cycle. One of the worst mistakes that could ever be made was to decouple economic inequality from racial/gender/etc. inequality. That said, I would offer that even under the most ideal hypothetical conditions as far as socioeconomic inequality would be concerned, there will be a subset of individuals who will harbor hatred for others based on any of a number of real or perceived group qualities, and will use whatever influence they may have to harm those whom they hate. I live in a community where I am just as likely to see a BMW with Confederate symbols somewhere (usually front license plate area) as I am to see a broken down pickup truck with similar symbols. To describe any of these folks in those scenarios as deplorable (or at least to acknowledge that there is something deplorable in their behavior or beliefs) transcends socioeconomic class to an extent.
I will admit to social deplorables if you will admit that economic deplorables do even more widespread damage to society, but are never called for it.
I think agreement is still possible on this blog. When/if economic deplorables do get called out for the damage they’ve done, those criticisms manage to get marginalized. It is enormously frustrating.
Agreed.
glad you clarified your second question. it looked to me like, yes, Davis’ snark or something from a time machine, pre- isms of the 60’s and 70’s. to my knowledge no one thinks that any more.
You’d be amazed. I can still find folks who think precisely like that. As far as I am aware that is a party line stance in a number of socialist or communist parties, although thankfully those are fewer in number. Or even if their rhetoric is fairly progressive on matters of racial/ethnic inequality or gender inequality that their behaviors do not. See how the SWP in Britain melted down after the party leadership treated rape allegations committed by some of their members against other members quite dismissively.
It is a shame that a legitimate question is even now treated as snark. Or that a question conceived of independently is treated as if it was “fed” by someone else (as if I, and I would assume anyone else here can’t think for ourselves). The lack of trust is such that I do wonder who of us will still be talking to one another, or how many people we as a collective will have turned off of viewing this blog, let alone participate. It’s a shame. I know at one point you and I could converse quite civilly. I truly hope that hasn’t ended.
Would have helped to phrase it differently, as an open ended question, not as an either or and not conflating racism and sexism; here’s a suggestion:
Possible phrasing: from a practical standpoint of progressive agenda, how to do you view the relationship between issues of socioeconomic class, issues of racism and issues of sexism. note there are ppl who would say address sexism [gender inequality] first. anyway, it’s the either or that makes it look like a planted q because you put the respondent in a box.
I guess what made it look like a time machine to me was the idea that only one need be addressed and the others are solved. even those who say address gender disparity first don’t claim it will solve everything, just that one gets the most results for the effort
Might help to ask me what I mean next time. If I am not treated like total crap, I am quite willing to clarify if I have not made myself clear the first time. I don’t always speak clearly the first time, even when I intend to. Part of the package with being human. That’s life. That said, those assuming the worst of me and making accusations will find me to be an increasingly unfriendly and intolerant audience. Just the way it is.
well, no, sorry you took offense – just trying to be helpful. let me try again to explain what I meant – you phrased the question as an either or, there’s nothing apparently to misunderstand about the question, – so I’m not going to ask what you meant because it appears obvious. but he way you pose it, as an either or, (and not separating racism and sexism) is antiquated and looks like you’re trying to get the interlocutor to either say “class” [suggesting race and gender are unimportant] or to be evidently hypocritical and deny class is primary. but all three are components of critical importance – most people agree all three are factors [ok, granted my place of employ is a progressive institution and the theoretical discussion of the interplay of all three half a century old]. anyway, my point is ppl wouldn’t have read your question as DavisX snark if you’d phrased it open-endedly, or started out with “all three components are factors”.
It’s a shame that the onus is somehow on me to anticipate what some other commenter whom I barely follow might phrase things in order to either avoid misunderstanding or be accused of snark. Point taken. I should write better. Got it. I may have had a reason for my question and it does have to do with some who still call themselves “left” largely focus on class to the exclusion of other important matters, such as ethnic inequality, gender inequality, and so on. Since I do not particularly know or follow mino, I have had until extremely recently no basis for knowing where s/he might fall on such matters. That has all been well sorted out as of now. As for me, I never lost sight that all of this matters (economic inequality, social inequality, you name it), and that has been part of my thinking since long before I heard of Davis or anyone else here, and long before there were blogs or even an Internet available to the masses. So the very unhelpful accusations (not by you perhaps) about me being fed lines to say on, of all things, a blog simply goes beyond ridiculous. Surely you can appreciate how I might take that as an attack rather than as an attempt at any form of sincere dialog.
As of now, my focus is that of being on the side of those preventing the worst potential economic deplorable (and a deplorable on many other levels) – namely the guy with the orange spray tan and combover – from becoming the next President. My influence is obviously very limited. I know. And apparently according to a subset of commenters here, I am on the wrong side. That is very apparent as the snide comments I’ve received on other threads of engaging in groupthink and so on make abundantly clear. It really is a shame that it has come to this. And my patience has not only worn thin but worn out. I am gathering that the culture on this blog is now to be attacked and attack back in retaliation. That too is duly noted. A shame really, but it is what it is, I suppose.
I see a lot of loose emotion and a lot of accusations and it’s intolerable to me as well, constantly being accused of bad faith, that I’m voting for Trump, accusations contrary to what I actually write. That said, yes, the onus is on the commenter to write clearly, it’s the internet and the reader can’t hear the tone and, in my experience, many don’t read very carefully or just respond to part of the comment. As far as Mino goes, I meant on your discussion thread, the links posted at least that’s what I meant. as far as the accusations, etc goes, seems to me strange here we are on the verge of electing our first woman prez and hostile emotions are running high and all anyone can talk about is the guys – Trump and Sanders and sometimes Bill. I think there’s a kind of Hillary Clinton derangement syndrome going on – different from the ODS, but an underlying distress at having a woman prez. Booman finally posted something about her program plans yesterday and we actually had a discussion, but not for long, it seems.
reminds me of this
http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/10362633/freak-out-chicago-national-conference-new-politi
cs
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1967/09/23/letter-from-the-palmer-house
which eventually resulted in a riot of white ppl looting the kitchens and banquet halls of the Palmer House.
I can only write in my voice. It sort of is what it is. If it is being mistaken for others’ who have frequented this place past or present, there is not much I can do about it. At some point, I simply would rather let go and say it is the reader’s problem if they cannot identify my writing as mine, or my ideas as my own. It is not my problem. That may be an attitude that comes across as hostile to some, and that too is their problem, not mine. Life goes on.
I have gone to great lengths to not accuse those who might be voting for Stein or Johnson (or any of a number of even smaller party candidates who might have made it on a state ballot or two) as Trump voters. I know what it is like to be on the other end of those accusations and would not want to wish that on anyone else. That said, if Trump does somehow get elected, I’m probably not going to be in much of a solidarity mood as my first priority is securing the safety of myself and my family (given that some of Trump’s base are neo-Nazis and my animosity to Nazism is, shall we say, ancestral & not merely that I was once a punk and punks hated skinheads and given that some members of my family are LGBT, and given that my spouse is disabled and Trump’s mockery of persons with disabilities was inexcusable and unforgivable, we have reason to believe that we have a huge potential target on our backs).
I had my reasons for rejoining the Democratic Party for the first time since 1984. Sanders was a huge part of that, and his success and the potential to have laid the foundations for a Democratic Party that is more open to progressive and democratic socialist reforms is one I find to intriguing to pass up on. Hillary Clinton was not who I voted for in the primary, but I respect her competence and I trust that she will largely continue the work Obama started (and I did warm up to Obama, which is no secret to readers here). Given that I am a public service worker of sorts and my client base is among the most vulnerable in the US, I can easily vote for Clinton with a clear conscience knowing that their interests will be better served than what could be offered by her alternatives.
We make choices. We have to live with the consequences of those choices. I’m making mine and I am okay. You will make yours. I trust you will be okay. Just the way it is. And assuming the most likely outcome occurs and Clinton wins this thing, it will be exciting to at long last have our first female President. It should have happened long ago, but better late than never. We’ll see what she can do strictly from an executive standpoint, and how she deals with a divided Congress (I am assuming that the House won’t flip, but that the Senate might be somewhat friendly for a couple years).
thanks for your reply and disclosure which I appreciate. my work precludes much self disclosure on my part, and I apologize. Like you, I am a Sanders supporter who will vote the dem party candidate, mainly I’m voting the party. for some reason it is assumed that anyone critical of Hillary is not voting for her and the de facto hostility is distressing. I’m thinking more and more there is an underlying hostility to the female candidate that gets deflected into a hostility to Sanders supporters, I don’t know, the Hillary derangement syndrome. it’s bizarre the gratuitous hostility to other posters on this blog.
I hope you read the links I posted – would be very interested in hearing your thoughts about them. To me it’s an example – the whites looting and rioting – of how much underlying tension there is in any kind of change and tensions get deflected.I recall from some years back that you and I have some other interests in common, perhaps to return to that topic in future.
[somehow didn’t post this as reply so posting again]
and, if I understand correctly, mino’s point is that separating the three factors, esp. race, has been a strategy to prevent a discussion of class.
I think that this is more bullshit ‘both sides’ nutpicking. I can find many, MANY more class-denying multiculturalists (including the upper echelons of the Democratic Party) than you can find class-only leftists.
There’s a reason why it’s very hard to find a major civil rights figure, especially if you head outside the West, that wasn’t at least democratic socialist. This fact is very embarrassing to liberals, hence why they keep harping on this canard almost like, what, a century after Marxists abandoned it.
This is going to devolve into a pissing contest quickly. Not interested. Look. Decoupling class and race, or class and sexism, or class and homophobia was a bad idea. I don’t give a flying fuck who is worse than whom at this point. I just want it to stop. Both have to be considered together. You want a body count of whose worse? Great. Knock yourself out. But leave me the fuck out of it.
Found another discussion of the Jacobin article that points out the neoliberal Wurlitzer that has been aimed at white working class voters to demonize them ahead of any attempts to recruit them to a new left.
“The claim that Trump owes his electoral victory mainly to non-economic factors such as racism xenophobia lost much of its credibility when Bernie Sanders won handily against Hillary Clinton in States such as Indiana and West Virginia.
“The establishment elites and corporate media pundits tend to stigmatize the white working Americans in order to sanitize the brutal neoliberal policies of austerity economics of the past four decades. The plan and the hope is that in so doing they can exonerate the policy-makers of the establishment–both Republican and Democratic–of the responsibility for the unsavory state of affairs that has given rise to Donald Trump. When racism and bigotry can be blamed capitalism is exonerated.”
This explains why the liberal elites of the Democratic Party (like their conservative counterparts in the Republican Party) are promoting the obfuscationist narrative that sidesteps the decades-long policies of neoliberalism and militarism, or the fundamental injustices of capitalism, and instead blame the rise of Donald Trump on “moral failures” or “personal characters” of the white working Americans. As Daniel Denvir points out, “If there is no economic context, and Trump’s supporters are just mired in primordial racism, then they are forever lost in the morass of right-wing politics . . . [and] progressives can forget about the angry white guys”.
Me: And they reduce the danger to themselves of a unified working class pointing out just who has done the most damage.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/03/the-class-dynamics-in-the-rise-of-donald-trump/
I guess my comment gets at how the demonization works in this particular phrase
The clear disproof of that premise is the existence of MANY people working hard on both those fronts (and making some, though far too little so far, headway on both fronts).
There are actually very many of us who are able to keep two problems in mind, and work to solve both of them, at the same time.
Liberals support capitalism. They might support velvet-gloved capitalism that’s more Denmark-flavored than Mexico-flavored, but, ultimately, liberals support capitalism. They’ve done it since the dawn of the Enlightenment. That is going to by itself limit the effect of their work on fighting against class discrimination. It’s like saying that you support fundamentalist Islam but are against sexism. There are things that you can do on the margin within the confines of your ideology to be less sexist, but ultimately the former will handcuff you in the fight against the other.
But even in the context of ‘There’s a difference between Canada and Brazil’, no. American liberals in particular do not care about class discrimination. How many topics did we have during the Democratic primary about poverty? How many excuses do liberals make for the Clintons’ influence-peddling with the 1%? Why has the gini index increased almost as quickly under Obama and Clinton as it did with the Bushes and Reagan?
You liberals are simply not credible on your claim ‘we’re working to solve problems on both of these fronts’. Embrace Bernie-style class warfare, at a minimum, and then we’ll talk. Otherwise, you guys sound as sincere to your commitment as classic Rockefeller Republicans talking about anti-racism.
Here are several examples of how
deplorable they can be.
Really, the only people complaining about the ‘deplorable’ comment are right wing outlets and Trump surrogates. The mainstream media knows very well that Trump acolytes are deplorable.
.
Another white cracker who’s feelings we are supposed to care about.
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written this thread.
Not this bit, though:
Au contraire (not that the Worse-Than-Useless Corporate Media don’t know that; just that they don’t “report” accordingly). For example, the Worse-Than-Useless Corporate Media immediately and routinely labeled Clinton’s statement a “gaffe”, skipping past any examination of its possible validity right to political horserace “analysis” of its ramifications.
If that has diminished (only very recently), I attribute it mainly to the Villagers getting distracted by chasing after the next shiny object waved in front of them.
Let me try to explain: what I mind is putting them all, or even half of them, or some of them in a “basket” – what is the image of putting living breathing humans in a basket? Auschwitz comes to mind, that’s the most immediate image of gathering up human beings as non-human; and if I can get past the basket image, which I can’t, because that’s the dehumanizing part of the image, calling them “deplorable”. uninformed, or “pushed to the edge” as the economic analysis explores, ok. it’s the cruel WaPo from yesterday writ large. [everyone feel free to add your “my ancestors suffered more than your ancestors” comments]
Well, my basic question is who is the more deplorable? The powerless or the powerful?
Just WAY off-topic from this diary and thread.
In which the actual topic is the misrepresentation of what Clinton actually said for purposes of condemning her.
And subordinate to that: that what she actually called “deplorable” is in fact deplorable.
It was never asserted (by anyone, that I noticed — certainly not by me) that nothing else anywhere ever is also deplorable.
Imo, straining to twist her remark into an attack on the white working class is either clueless or dishonest.
I’ll go with dishonest.
..
Do you consider it odd that HC has been courting the very Republican elites that nurtured and grew the -isms in the citizens that you object to? So you are blaming the puppets, and absolving the puppet masters? HC does not seem to consider the masters as deplorable, does she?
I assume she’s even smart enough to realize that winning big, with coattails, would mean a better chance of getting at least some of her agenda (including some more-liberal elements that I assume you, like me, would like to see progress on, too). So she’s trying to win big and with as broad a mandate as possible by forming as broad a coalition as possible.
So, no, not “odd” at all.
I am endlessly frustrated by the necessity of living with those political realities.
I’m also a member of the Reality-Based Community, so I recognize them as the political realities that they are.
So, no, (speaking of putting folks in “baskets”), I’m blaming no (unbigotted) “puppets” (though you apparently absolving them of ANY agency, i.e., free will or accountability, seems worth noting!), I absolve no “masters”. The suggestion is silly. As I just noted elsewhere, some of us sometimes manage to keep more than one thing at a time in mind. Indeed, realize the necessity of doing so to making any significant progress in more than a single, narrow direction.
Yes, and HC is discriminating against the exercise of that free will. She has “empathy” for the quietly desperate who don’t upset the china. But condemnation for the the ones who act out in anger to the same situation. It is the JOB of the elites to manage the decline!
I like Tarheel’s quote: It is time to stop shaming the poor and create the economy that can provide the jobs and/or the income to permit life with dignity. That really is a mainstream New Deal position. It worked, but it made it more difficult for people to lord it over other people and feel exceptional.
Where is this condemnation?
Haven’t seen it.
HAVE seen expressions from her of empathy for them, too, though. One need look no further than the other “basket” in the full context of the “deplorables” quote right up there at the top of the page.
Again, what you’re claiming here appears to depend entirely on falsely equating “the poor” (in tarheel’s quote) with bigots (i.e., the “deplorables” specifically named by Clinton).
To be bluntly frank (since you persist in doing so), that false conflation looks shameful to me. In seeming to want to defend the interests of the poor/working class/white working class (funny how “white” gets inserted in there so often), you’re actually by that conflation defaming any/all of them who are NOT bigots. It’s very strange to me that you seem unable to see that.
I like tarheel’s quote, too. More to the point, I fully agree with it. I just think your citation of it here is a mis-application, again requiring false conflation of “the poor” with “deplorable” bigots.
Er, how do you think that anger from economic distress is being expressed? All those -isms grow with economic distress. Why are you so determined NOT to make that connection? I am done. We are talking past one another.
scapegoating The Other for it (who is quite likely to be as economically distressed as you, perhaps more so) is deplorable (bigotry).
Since I posited way up yonder that Clinton’s named forms of bigotry were deplorable on their face and that no one has disputed that (and then nobody proceeded to dispute it here either, until now), I’ve been proceeding on the assumption that was accepted common ground.
And since you waited until now to dispute it (by suggesting economic distress excuses it), it’s no wonder we’ve been talking past each other!!!
Attempting to understand what motivates people to adopt deplorable attitudes and engage in deplorable behavior is all good, the better to combat deplorable stuff in smarter, more effective ways. (Note that I’d say the same with respect to, e.g., ISIS — and be declared a “blame-America-first” traitor by faux-patriotic rightwingers for it! . . . been there, done that.) But that’s a very different thing from denying or refusing to recognize that the deplorable is in fact deplorable, even if understandable in some ways and to some degree.
Understanding (or trying to) ≠ excusing/justifying.
I was trying to go to a discussion of the metaphor – the metaphor – basket- overrides the literal caveats that are the subject or your diary. there are many discussions of how this functions – symbolic language, metaphors, etc, – this is how demagogic metaphorical language works. will look for some links, but most discussions I know of – are middle chapters in books. there may be an article to which I can link somewhere or a way I can explain using T’s demagogic language.
metaphor was bad. I stipulated (repeatedly now) that Clinton’s remark was bad on multiple grounds. The point is that criticizing it on FALSE grounds, which depend on misrepresenting what she did say and its (uncontested!) validity is NOT valid.
I don’t need convincing of the importance of metaphorical language/framing.
yes, I understand. my point is the metaphor goes to a different level of understanding that overrides the details that you point out.
what I pointed out.
yes, I see that and that’s why you wrote the diary – I’m talking about how the statement is received, how the metaphoric language functions to the hearer. the entire discussion since she said it shows that the details you point out have been absent from discussion; I’d say it’s because for the hearer, the metaphor shapes how they hear the subsequent phrases
depends entirely on misrepresentation of what the statement actually said (which was valid).
And that we have a societal institution, enshrined in the First Amendment, whose job is accurate representation, but instead is persistently enabling the misrepresentation required for that mis-reception. Thereby enabling the metaphorical misperception.
I.e., that institution is failing in its responsibility (what’s new?).
And while that’s far from the only problem, it’s a major one.
well no, not misrepresentation – the metaphor is the vessel as the literary theorists would put it.
metaphor is not like a subject heading; metaphor is the shape of the thought expressed
factual Reality — the case here — the metaphor is a misrepresentation.
Dishonest propaganda, in fact.
sorry, don’t follow. do you mean it’s a misrepresentation to say it’s a metaphor? or that the metaphor is a misrepresentation of reality?
what you’re identifying as “the metaphor”. That hasn’t been clear to me.
But no, even without that defined for this instance, I’m not saying “it’s a misrepresentation to say it’s a metaphor” (depending on what “it” is!). And yes, I am saying if “the metaphor is a misrepresentation of reality” (i.e., is in conflict with observable, factual Reality) then of course “the metaphor is a misrepresentation of reality”!
How could it be otherwise?
But, yeah, it would help if you got specific about exactly what, in this case, you’re calling “the metaphor”.
sorry, didn’t realize we weren’t on same page. will ponder how to backtrack
people sometimes write on this site about emotions overriding reason – that’s only one tiny corner of the campaign discourse and I think kind of irrelevant; it’s the nature of the metaphoric language that is at issue.
that there are numerous valid avenues for criticizing Clinton’s remark, as long as they acknowledge and keep firmly in view what that remark actually said and its basic validity (routine failure to do so being the point of this diary and thread).
The very weird “basket” framing is certainly one of those valid avenues.
But, similar to what I replied to mino, seems veering off topic from the one established in the diary.
One week we gat a whole group of people going,
‘OMG! Hillery is appealing to republicans so she can take the Democratic Party to the right as she always wanted too! Neoliberal!’
The next week we get,
‘OMG! Hillery is not appealing to white republicans because she wants to ignore their economic populism!’
They are racist, isolationist, crackers.
.
You write:
Yes, it did indeed.
Do you really believe that?
I don’t.
His supporters are desperate people. They are frightened people. They see the way of life for which they, their parents, their grandparents and right on back lived and died. They have no idea how or why this has happened and the media isn’t about to tell them. They are also mostly not very smart people on some levels or they would have been able to figure all of this out for themselves.
But…the U.S. Constitution does not disenfranchise the “not very smart.” Neither does my own preferred constitution, which states:
Which is simply a restatement of the Golden Rule.
I want to ask you a question, oaguabonita.
if you do believe hat 1/2 of Trump’s supporters are “deplorables,” what do you want done with them after Clinton wins?
Shall we just round them up and get rid of them? That is the stench that comes off of HRC’s statement as far as I am concerned. Typical elitism.
As Bush II’s mother once said:
What HRC is basically saying is that half of Trump’s supporters are “not relevant.” Let’s just ignore them and let them fade away.
Or worse.
How many people voted for Trump during the primaries?
Do you know?
And how many more are going to vote for him this November?
Last election a total of about 126 million people voted. I think that the turnout will be much higher than that this election, myself. Let’s say 150 million…a coonservative estimate in my book. And let us make an even more conservative estimate regarding who wins, who loses and by how much. Let’s say it’s 45% Trump, 55% HRC.
Do the math. HRC is essentially throwing almost 34 million Americans into that “deplorable” basket.
Hmmm…
Into the dustbin with them?
HMMMMmmm…
What do they do, these people?
They work in the trades. They work at manual labor. They run businesses. They are…many of them…in the military.
Now…many people claim that Trump is a racist. That he wants to rid the country of many minority members any damned way he can. Like deporting “illegal immigrants.”
OK…there are claims that the illegal immigrant population in this country is somewhere in the neighborhood of 11 million.
They also work in the trades. At manual labor. In positions of service. Run businesses. Are they any worse than this basket of deplorables that Clinton so despises?
I think not, myself. I work with them. Play their music for and with them. I also come from two families that…at one time or another in their long history here in the U.S…were most definitely part of that “basket of (white) deplorables” of which HRC was speaking. Bet on it. Within my own living memory.
If racism and classism are two sides of the same coin…and I believe that they most definitely are that…then who is the greater villain in this little game?
The “classist” HRC or the “racist” Trump?
Of course…these kinds of numbers expand ad infinitum and are thus under no obligation to be considered anything but examples in an ongoing argument, but the question still remains:
If both of these candidates want to throw large numbers of people under the societal bus who are one way or another surviving in the U.S…making their way here however they must…then why support either of them?
Support comes down to which group one most despises, I guess.
I despise neither group, myself.
You?
AG
there in the thread before weighing in.
I’ve acknowledged from the outset that “half” is the bit of Clinton’s statement that’s at least arguable. (I also noted at the same time that she has repudiated and apologized for the “half” characterization.)
Try to keep up.
When Trump backpedals, do you believe him?
No.
Why do you believe HRC
Because you are “on her side.”
Keep up!!!???
I am ahead looking back, oaguabonita.
Been through all of that partisan shit.
They are all liars.
Believe none of them.
Even when they are telling the truth.
They use the truth like bait.
And then SNAP!!!
They’ve got you!!!
AG
Not that it is the main part of your argument, but I don’t think participation is going up.
Gallups question on voter intent points the other way, that votes will go down this year. Mostly for the young, and thus more for the democrats then the republicans. Voter intent in September has in Gallups questions in 2000-2012s correlated strongly with actual voting, with about 70% of those giving Gallup a “10” on a scale 1-10 how sure they are to vote, actually voting.
So more like 115 million then 150.
My guess it is the high unlike of both candidates that drives down participation.
Could be.
But:
#1-I distrust polls and the media in general. They are at least as much an influence on what is going to happen as they are a predictor.
#2-Distrust of the federal government and its mass media is greater than it has ever been. Ever. Fo ample reason. I think that a huge number of Trump sympathizers…people who are not considered “likely voters,” many of whom reside well outside of the mainstream population from which polls are (ostensibly) gathered…are going to show up this time to vote for Trump. To a somewhat lesser degree minorities are going to show up in sheer self-protection to vote for HRC. It may not be a s great a surge as the Trump thing because much of the urban black population is basically through with both parties and many in the latino population suffer linguistic and cultural barriers that somewhat protect them from really understanding what is going down here, but the more socialized minority members understand exactly what is happening and will vote Democratic in sheer self-defense.
and
#3-This election is itself a wild card. Passions are running high…so high that many people are afraid to even discuss politics with people that they do not know well in fear of some sort of retaliation. Many Trumpsters fear this government and its allied media, and thus may well stay silent until election day.
Millennials may not show up. They’re really just kids, most of them, living in a kid dream bubble that rarely breaks until the late 20s/early 30s at the earliest. But minorities and Trump people are damned well going to vote in great numbers.
Like I said…could be…
Either way.
AG
P.S. Also…do not underestimate the potential of an Assange October surprise to make a bvig difference. If it really happens…and contains truly damaging evidence of federal corruption under a Democratic administration…it could upset the whole predictive apple cart.
Watch.
LOL Even Jamie Diamond thinks HC was unfair to single out a whole class of people.
JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon on WFC Monday, 3 Oct 2016 | 2:56 PM ET | 01:48 Jamie Dimon came to the defense of his fellow bankers on Monday, and went after Hillary Clinton while he was at it.
JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive pushed back at the Democratic presidential candidate after she criticized the U.S. banking culture amid Wells Fargo’s fake account scandal. “It is outrageous that eight years after a cowboy culture on Wall Street wrecked our economy we are still seeing powerful bankers playing fast and loose with the law,” Clinton said on Monday.
In response, Dimon said: “When people blanket a whole class of people…that’s just unfair.”
committing the same false rhetorical conflation you did!
Clinton specified
For Dimon to paint that as condemning “a whole class of” “his fellow bankers” requires conflating all “his fellow bankers” with those “powerful bankers playing fast and loose with the law” (surely you’re not claiming no such exist, right? Right?).
Exactly as you portraying Clinton’s “deplorable” bigots remark as an attack on “the white working class” requires you (not she) implying that all the white working class are deplorable bigots; just so, Dimon portraying Clinton’s remark about “powerful bankers playing fast and loose with the law” as condemnation of the “whole class” of “his fellow bankers” requires Dimon (not Clinton) implying all “his fellow bankers” are “powerful bankers playing fast and loose with the law”.
Even more hilarious: several times in this very thread you have railed against deploring deplorable bigotry instead of deploring the powerful whose depredations, in your telling (though it’s pretty confused), either caused or excuse that deplorable bigotry.
Then, as if on cue, Clinton obliges you by doing exactly that.
But, apparently because it’s Clinton who’s doing it, this becomes, in your mind, yet another basis for criticizing her.
Unbelievable!
But most hilarious of all is seeing you, crusader/defender of the powerless, approvingly citing Jamie Fucking Dimon, museum type-specimen for the Powerful-Screwing-the-Powerless .01% — lack of criticism for whom you’ve been railing against! — as your authority!
While drawing a conclusion from all that is tempting, I’ll refrain and just let those facts speak for themselves.
Swing and a miss. You did not understand why I posted this at all.
Dimon is the poster boy for the “real” deplorables, imo. The ones with power to injure, not just shoot off their mouths for effect. The ones that have gotten a pass in our meritocracy, generally.
You want us to look at the puffed up toads, while the crocodiles stalk us.
Yeah, Clinton spent some time on them, but did she do it in a room full of rich doners, eh?
(and whether I understood why) has nothing to do with how logically wrong it and your analogous “white working class” conflation are.
thanks for your reply and disclosure which I appreciate. my work precludes much self disclosure on my part, and I apologize. Like you, I am a Sanders supporter who will vote the dem party candidate, mainly I’m voting the party. for some reason it is assumed that anyone critical of Hillary is not voting for her and the de facto hostility is distressing. I’m thinking more and more there is an underlying hostility to the female candidate that gets deflected into a hostility to Sanders supporters, I don’t know, the Hillary derangement syndrome. it’s bizarre the gratuitous hostility to other posters on this blog.
I hope you read the links I posted – would be very interested in hearing your thoughts about them. To me it’s an example – the whites looting and rioting – of how much underlying tension there is in any kind of change and tensions get deflected.I recall from some years back that you and I have some other interests in common, perhaps to return to that topic in future.