I find it very hard to believe that anyone who complained about the ‘deplorables’ line was actually planning to vote for Hillary anyway. It always comes off as sour grapes from people who are deplorables, attempting to spread a false claim that this caused millions to change their votes.
“Well of course I’m a racist and a Republican and would never have voted for Lying Hitlery, but that comment was just too much and will cost the Democrats future elections by insulting people like me!”
I’m a white male, I’m not a Republican, I’m not a deplorable. Nothing in that statement insulted me or made me think ill of Hillary Clinton.
But Humans like to try that argument a lot. People who were never going to agree with you or treat you fairly will grasp at your anger or some comment you make to try to guilt and shame you into submission and retroactively justify their position.
Just look at the comments made by people who hate blacks, about actions taken by black people justifying their hatred of black people. Or really, any other group. “I can’t support that group because they’re not being polite” is really a bullshit way of blowing off what you weren’t going to support or listen to anyway.
Tactical errors don’t invalidate the underlying philosophy. To provide a corollary to the old and tired proverb (I’m good at trotting those out :)), you can’t fight with pigs without getting dirty.
To your hypothetical, the obvious campaigning answer is No. The reality is different. The deplorables are out there, and they are overwhelmingly Trumpists.
Well, look, I not only planned to vote for Hillary, but did so. And so my hands are clean, hey nonny nonny; but I’ll hereby complain about that line anyway.
Personally, that comment was about the only point in the campaign where I actually liked Clinton. She was stating a truth that many chose to pussyfoot around, and was doing so with an appropriately dignified, yet authentically outraged, affect. I mean, I’m not a swing voter, so YMMV.
I agree that the comment is much more a target for RO from people who weren’t voting for Clinton anyway than a substantive explanation for the election result.
But, again: how did you feel the next day, when she publicly expressed regret for that comment? How did you feel when, at the debate, she got asked about that comment and backpedaled away from it – taking pains to spell out that, within hours, she said that she was sorry about what she’s said, because her argument is not with Trump’s supporters, but with him?
Why wouldn’t her argument be with them, if she’d been right about them? Why should she be at all sorry for dignifiedly telling a truth that many pussyfoot around, when she could’ve stood by it instead of, er, pussyfooting around? What happened to that authentic outrage when she was given a platform to elaborate on it?
Again, the real question for me – per the thread’s title – is, what should the party’s candidate should say about this in 2020? Would you recommend first saying that the deplorables are irredeemable; and then expressing regret for saying that; and then making clear you have no argument with them, but only with the guy they support? Or would you recommend not doing that in the first place? Or would you recommend doing it, and then unflinchingly riding that line whenever asked?
Hillary’s problem wasn’t that comment. Her problem is the person who she is, and the number of non-partisans and independents who swore they would never,ever vote for her. The partisan fanaticism is every bit as strong with the Dems who largely seems completely blinded to any possibility except seeing the entire country as 100% with “us” or 100% against “us”. And there seems to be little hope for much improvement in the short term because they are committed to following up “See how much of a fuck up Trump is” with “Told you so, you should have voted for Hillary” rather than “okay, we fucked up too by putting Hillary on the ballot, we will commit to doing better in 2020 and beyond”
Waldo: the next day, I thought “Ah, there’s the old familiar Hillary, the one who will say anything to get elected, yet still isn’t very good at politics”. I think that covers all the questions in your first two paragraphs.
To the last paragraph, you need to draw a distinction between the hardcore bigots and Nazi sympathizers who constituted Trump’s core of early supporters, and mainstream Republicans, who may not have been primarily motivated by xenophobia and hatred, but were OK with electing a guy who hangs out with Steve Bannon if there were tax cuts in it for them.
Then you make the case that the second group of people is somehow not deplorable. If I could come up with a snappy way to express that distinction off the top of my head, I’d be doing that for a living instead of blathering on the internet. But that’s the basic idea.
Also, you acknowledge that the pro-globalization economic policies of Clinton and Obama may have been good for “the economy” in some abstract sense, but also produced massive inequality and left a lot of people behind. You reassure them that the new Democratic Party is sensitive to their needs. You leave out the part about how, no matter how bad Clinton would have been, only an absolute fucking moron could have fallen for Trump’s racist snake oil.
I just finished reading The Sopranos State, on the corruption in New Jersey. I wonder if Corey Booker can withstand the close examination of a national race.
A depressing/exciting factoid: We are now at a point approximately equidistant in time between the first debates of the 2016 election and the first debates of the 2020 election.
