Is "basket of deplorables" Hillary's 47% moment?

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Hillary has to advance this narrative to enable people to get over their barriers to voting for a candidate they believe has committed a felony and gotten away with it.  That's the bottom line here.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

At least half of Trump's supporters are racist so I am not sure what is so controversial about this statement. About half of Republicans supported him in the primary when they had other choices. I can understand there are many Republicans who can't support Clinton but they are in the other category. At least half of the people supporting Trump are racists who just want their country back from the non-whites. Great Americans, they are. Anyone who isn't white isn't really American.

And you know this how?

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Because slamming as moochers the poor and the elderly is the same as slamming the racists, homophobes and anti-semites who are Trump's base.

Yeah, really. Romney seemed to cement himself as a heartless plutocrat with that comment, but Clinton here is just calling people out for what seems to be obvious, at least if you go by people at his rallies and polls showing the absurd beliefs of a sizable number of Trump supporters.

Plus, going by the numbers, she only really insulted like 20% of Americans, which is probably lowballing it in terms of # of sexists/racists/xenophobes/etc, whereas Romney basically said 47% of Americans were poor moochers that he didn't really care about appealing to.

I don't hold that comment against her at all. I'm actually slightly glad a politician didn't attempt to gloss over the fact that a large portion of our country are indeed bigoted assholes. I sure as hell am not making excuses for those people.

So which am I?

I'm a 59 year old father of 3, including an 11 year old special needs grandson my wife and I have adopted due to problems with his parents I'll not discuss here.

We attend a church that is conservative, but well-integrated.  My wife and I are stably employed stably in respectable occupations.  We're by no means rich, and the last decade has been tough, economically, but we work, pay taxes, and obey laws.  We have a conservative Biblical worldview on social issues, but a recognition that free market capitalism has not worked well for millions of Americans.  We make no bones about the fact that we believe that only through the blood of Jesus Christ can a person be saved; there are no two, three, or sixty paths to Eternal Life.

We've voted for Democrats and Republicans over the last 20 years.  We've been Obama voters and Bush voters.  I'm a union member, but I'm also a parent for whom the public school system has abysmally failed our youngest child, and for whom McKay Scholarships (which Teacher Unions oppose) has been an absolute Godsend for our son.  He is physically small, and was bullied at his school, which public school officials did nothing about.  So you can see how I'm of two minds on a number of things.

So where do I fit in here?  Am I deplorable?

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

I honestly might vote for Trump because of this. I expect this kind of thing from atlas hack posters but calling 25 % of the country awful irredeemable people because they support your opponents political campaign is disgusting. How can she unite he country when she finds such a large percentage of it so awful? I'm sick of leftist identity politics telling me that my dad is the main thing holding America back today.

It's hard to believe that someone offended by that comment was not already voting for Trump. The truth is often painful.

I was turned off by Trump's comments on Judge Curiel among other things. I'm not a fan of this idea that the majority of the people in my town and family  are awful people just because they aren't voting for Hillary Clinton. Always good to hear such judgment from the tolerant and open minded left.

The point wasn't about people not voting for Hillary Clinton, it was about them voting for someone who is extremely bigoted. Plus, there is the fact that Trump has more openly racist supporters than any previous Republican nominee. McCain and Romney didn't have people holding up confederate flags, shout racial slurs and death threats. There is also the small matter of David Duke endorsing him.

Unfortunatly there are only two real options in American elections. Is it really fair to call millions of people horrible just because they would rather take their chances with Trump than vote for Clinton? My parents voted for Kasich in the primary and are voting for Trump. I take offense at calling my parents racist or homophobic because calling them that is rediculous.

I would encourage you to vote for Trump.

Up until now, my position on Trump was that I would support him if the election were held today, but I wouldn't ask anyone else to.  But I'm not going to vote for a candidate who would view me, and people I care about, in that manner.  People have blasted Trump for his intemperate comments; why is this not up there with all of them? 

So, yes, I've made my binary choice, and I would certainly hope every Republican would do the same.  "Stronger Together" is a statement Hillary is making to the Movement Progressives, and not to America as a whole, and this fact should be driven home from now to November 8.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Hillary is scum for showing such contempt and loathing for millions of hard working, tax paying Americans with this deplorable prepared text.

Her so called apology is laughable.  She apologizes in percentages.

No wonder 2/3 of Americans don't trust Hillary. 

She may as well spend three days recovering because all she's been doing lately is hobnobbing with her multi-millionaire friends on Wall Street, with her hedge fund manager friends, raising money, and viscously attacking and demeaning millions of ordinary, hard working Americans, while her multi-millionaire friends on Wall Street laugh, and hobnobbing with multi-millionaire extreme leftist Hollywood actors.

Perhaps she can spend her down time erasing e-mails and writing more speeches viscously attacking ordinary, hard working, tax paying Americans.

What would you call people who are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc ?
They are obviously deplorable .... and that is a "mild" description of these people, compared to what I would call them.
No really .... I want you to answer the question .... What would you call these type of people ?
Give me a word or two to describe them.

Let me ask you what is more deplorable; a person uncomfortable with unfettered illegal immigration, or Bill Clinton who uses his position to get sex from young women while married?  

Hillary Clinton called 25% of America as "deplorable".  That's what she did.  And it's what she thinks.  And why they're "deplorable" is because they find both her and her husband deplorable and have a coherent argument to make in that regard.  Truthfully, this comment is far more reprehensible than Romney's 47% comment, or Obama's "clinging to guns and religion" comment; those comments were, at least to some degree, observations.  Hillary Clinton went way beyond that; she cast a judgement on a huge number of folks she doesn't know, and doesn't like, all because they don't like her.  "Out of the wellsprings of the heart, the mouth speaks."   This standard has been applied to Donald Trump.  It's time it be applied to Hillary Clinton.  Oddly enough, this is one of the most candid and honest statements she's made in all of her pubic life.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Hillary is scum for showing such contempt and loathing for millions of hard working, tax paying Americans with this deplorable prepared text.

Her so called apology is laughable.  She apologizes in percentages.

No wonder 2/3 of Americans don't trust Hillary.  

She may as well spend three days recovering because all she's been doing lately is hobnobbing with her multi-millionaire friends on Wall Street, with her hedge fund manager friends, raising money, and viscously attacking and demeaning millions of ordinary, hard working Americans, while her multi-millionaire friends on Wall Street laugh, and hobnobbing with multi-millionaire extreme leftist Hollywood actors.

Perhaps she can spend her down time erasing e-mails and writing more speeches viscously attacking ordinary, hard working, tax paying Americans.

I'm curious: how do you differentiate this from Mitt Romney's 47% comment?

I am not in the least concerned with something Romney said 4 years ago.  Ancient history.

I am concerned with 2016.

OK, but I didn't ask about your emotional reaction or level of "concern."  I know that fades over time.  I asked about your intellectual evaluation.  Unless there's something in the context you can't recall after four years, you're totally capable of evaluating Romney's statement.

So, I'll ask again:

You just called Clinton "scum" for "showing contempt" toward a broad swath of ordinary Americans (half of Trump voters).  Do you see Romney's statement as "showing contempt" toward a broad swath of Americans?  Did it make him "scum"?  If the answer to either question is "no," how are the situations different enough to make that differentiation reasonable?

Romney in 2012 with his "47%" comment came off as condescending, but he was making a legitimate observation.  It was smarmy that he didn't have the guts to make his argument in the open, where it could be debated, but it was a legitimate observation that deserved public discussion, given that the entitlement issue is one of the 800 pound fiscal gorillas in the room today.  I was an Obama voter in 2012, and I don't have a negative opinion of Obama, but the "makers vs. takers" issue in American politics is not an illegitimate one, and is deserving of honest, thoughtful, and open discussion.  Ronald Reagan was not wrong when he said that every time you create a Federal program, you create a constituency for it that comes to depend on it and will fight, politically, to keep it in effect, regardless on the effect of the whole of America, and anyone who believes otherwise needs to be honest with themselves.  The flip side of that observation is that we have had such an extreme flow of wealth upward, rather than downward, that we have become a nation where, indeed, more people than ever have nowhere but the government to turn to for help, and that, too, ought to be seen as another 800 pound gorilla in the room.

Romney was not, however, judging the whole of folks.  He did not call them "deadbeats" or "moochers"; he coolly observed, essentially, that more people than ever get a government benefit and view it as a right, and a FUNDAMENTAL right at that, and not just a mere legislated right.  Indeed, Romney was far more polite than Ronald Reagan, who told Welfare Queen stories and the like.  Romney reflected an elitist point of view, but he was observational, and not judgmental.  I would apply the latter statement to something like Obama's statement about folks "clinging to their guns and their religion", etc., he wasn't judgmental, but it was an observation, and not an entirely inaccurate one.

Hillary, on the other hand, just judged and condemned 25% of America as trash.  "Deplorables".  That's way different than what Romney did in 2012 or Obama did in 2008.  And the sad thing about it was that this was a rare time when she was being honest and candid.  She can't be honest and candid about her actions as SoS, but she can sure let loose with what she thinks of folks who'll never vote for her and, even worse, won't listen to her reasoning.   If Trump and Pence are wise, they should take the tack that, in this case, no apology is even possible.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

When I heard about the Mitt 47% speech in 2012 I was very disappointed and upset about it.  It was a terrible decision to even give this speech, and this speech should never have been made.

Mitt's statements and Mitt himself deserved to be criticized and condemned for sure, and they were, relentlessly, but I personally do not believe that Mitt's statements were degrading or vitriolic and were certainly not hateful like the statements made by Hillary about certain sectors of the American public.

Lincoln Republican,
Why is it I have to keep driving the same huge chisel in your head.
She is specifically calling individuals that are racist, sexist, homophobic, bigots, etc as the scum of our society.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT ? !
What do you want us to call these people ... Angels ? Heroes ? Excellent people that we should be proud of and need more of ?
Why are you defending low level filth that unfortunately reside within our nation ? I don't understand you.
Clinton is not calling ALL trump supporters "deplorables." She is not even calling 50% of them deplorables (after she corrected herself). In the same initial speech she gave, she even made room for, and discussed, the other segment of trump supporters who are not in "the basket."
Have you read the transcript or watched the full video of her initial speech ? If not, do so, before you begin to spew more ignorance about the topic.

There's nothing "moderate" about you.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

There are a lot of people on the left who need to read the posts of some of the people here and contemplate why Trump won.

I have re-read these posts, every one, and there are some people for who complaints about other people being "hate-filled" are a joke.  One person in this thread (possibly a mod at the time) spewed unbridled hatred toward me, and wished me harm.  These people aren't fit to call about anyone about being "hate-filled".  

I'm not going to respond in kind, but I believe that each and every one of these people deserve Donald Trump as their President, as well as the millions like them on the left.  I've been called all sorts of names by people who just flat-out hate Evangelical Christians.  "Life and Death are in the power of the tongue".  Scripture says this.  Perhaps the millions of folks who joined Hillary in overt hatred of Christians, whether merited or not, brought the Judgement of God down on themselves in the form of having to endure President Donald John Trump.  

Judging by her supporters, I cannot conclude that Hillary Clinton's Presiidency would have been good for America, regardless of what kind of President Trump turns out to be.