“Gee, I just can’t make up my mind whether to vote for Clinton or Trump. There’s just no difference between them that I can see. Wait, you say Clinton insulted Trump’s bigot supporters? How rude. Guess it’s TRUMP for me!”
Don’t really see that happening.
Do you think it happened for (against really) Romney after his infamous “47%” comment?
Nah. He lost because of voter fraud.
What change in numbers was there from that comment?
I doubt it will matter much for Clinton. She’s not saying anything that isn’t already being said by everyone about Trump supporters.
Romney said something no one was saying out loud. And he was already losing, so, unless you have numbers, we can’t say it actually changed anything.
Clinton apologized for saying “half”, perhaps being a little too specific, but she’s not wrong. What the media isn’t reporting is her talking about the other half of his supporters who are scared for economic reasons and need support (or whatever specifically she said)
Can anyone imagine Trump apologizing for anything he has said? He has vaguely said he may not have used some right words in a speech, but when reporters press him, he won’t be specific. Why does he get a pass so much with all the crap he spews? He won’t even acknowledge whether he still believes Obama wasn’t born here and the media doesn’t seem to press him on it. Yet, it’s Clinton who everyone gasps at and tutt-tuts when she calls out some of his racist supporters. Sure, people will get on Trump’s case sometimes, but it all seems quickly forgotten until the next time and people are still supporting him.
Plus, what Romney said could be spun as disparaging to certain groups that are not acceptable targets, such as retirees (who tend to lean Republican, btw) and victims of the Great Recession who work their asses off to make ends meet, but at low paying jobs, and thus don’t pay federal income tax. Obama needed the support of a diverse group of voters that includes devoutly religious people and gun owners in order to be elected president. Hillary’s comments were directly aimed at people for whom there is zero political risk in attacking, but might have unfairly characterized some of her opponents most loyal supporters due to poor word choice. I see little cause for concern.
Nm
What was wrong with the original post, was the tweet redacted?
I’m about 50% convinced that this whole thing was a troll by the HRC camp - in her “apology” where she said that it was probably wrong to say “half”, she brought up that whole litany of stuff again - hiring the Breitbart guy, birtherism, attacking Judge Curiel and the Gold Star parents, and so on. So far it’s been Trump’s MO to double down on all that stuff when challenged on it; this feels like just a stab at getting Trump to bring up all his greatest hits once more after Labor Day. I pretty much feel that anyone who feels like they were just called out by HRC wasn’t ever going to vote for her anyway and there’s not much downside for her here. She left a pretty big out to Trump supporters by commenting on their legitimate economic grievances.
It was a very well done parody account. A reporter I follow commented on it, I did too, then after I copied and pasted here, he told me that he got fooled by it.
So, no, it wasn’t real. Shame though. 
Thanks for the nice catch. Otherwise, I would have shared it.
That would have been … wait for it … yuuugely better.
Seriously. You’re right the rhetoric would have been better your way.
IMO I don’t see this as a big Clinton gaffe. Sure, a few deplorables will get pissed she called them a bad word.
IMO the bigger gain is the others. The decent people who are hard done by, and who are *not *barely closeted racists or authoritarians. To whom she said: “you have a choice: stick with the side of pure moral evil or join the side that historically, now, and in the future, stands for helping the working man.”
If she gets some fraction of decent-but-R-leaning voters to say “You know, she’s got a point. I don’t really favor mass deportations, over racism, random acts bravado, etc. I don’t like hanging out with those loudmouth guys at work. Hmmm … I gotta admit the Rs ain’t done jack for me the last 4 times I voted for 'em. Time for a switch?”
Okay, so it’s only partially related to race. Assuming that’s how people take it, we still have the problem of an extremely unpopular candidate, with a lot of undecided 'Merikuns who see her as an elitist, arrogant, condescending, unlikable, feminazi. Do you think they are going to identify with her, or does this reinforce their views of her? Time will tell I guess.
We should ask if they desire a safe place. Or perhaps a more PC term to refer to them by.
I’m not freaking out but I am admittedly worried about her chances. She should have slammed the door shut on Trump in August, but instead she went on a fundraising binge while ordinary white Americans in Denham Springs, Louisiana were drowning in water and financial loss.
Who is she trying to court here – more minorities? More progressives? Bernie bros? Not really. She’s got that vote pretty much locked up, barring some bombshell that alienates them too. The people she’s going after are white center-right voters in suburban America. And she’s increasingly pushing them into the Trump camp. 538 may not show it yet, but my experience in communications and politics tells me the data will catch up to that story soon enough.
“Increasingly” via what, other than the ‘deplorables’ remark?
And you still haven’t answered my earlier questions about how this could have happened, and how you could think it possible when you simultaneously talk about Trump’s massive base of support.
And why would those people be offended at all if they weren’t already in the Trump camp? Because it’s “divisive”? That seems like a minor thing to hang a hat on.
Honestly, I’m a little tired of freaking out over the hurt feelings of white people, even if I thought it was good political strategy, which I don’t.
Not sure what you’re referring to here, but to be clear, the report of Hillary’s comments was real as was Pence’s response.
FTR, I don’t think Hillary’s comment did her the slightest bit of damage considering the demographics involved. Pence reprimanded her saying that these people “are Americans, and they deserve respect”. No, Mikey, nice line, but people like former KKK Imperial Wizard and raging white supremacist David Duke, or Ted Nugent, or a good portion of Trump’s other ignorant bigoted supporters, or The Donald himself, may be Americans and they are entitled to the civil rights accorded to any human being and those accorded to citizens, but they’ve done nothing to earn respect and everything to earn condemnation, and they certainly don’t deserve any special respect just because of the geographic location where they happened to have emerged from their mother’s womb.
If Trump and Pence are so concerned about “respect” maybe they shouldn’t go around with such contempt for poor people and women’s rights.
Worse than that, a Trump victory - even a close defeat - would only further confirm that a very disturbing new dawning, one in which conspiracy media drive the national political conversation and influences thinking in ways we couldn’t have imagined before. We’re living in an age in whcih it is becoming more and more difficult to separate fact and fiction. We’re entering an age of incompetent democracy, and that is extremely dangerous. The poll numbers tell me, we’re pretty much there. The hope that I hold out for a Clinton victory is that she can be the last line of defense and perhaps expose the entire conservative political wing in congress and across the country as a bunch of destructive hyper-partisans. This is why I am no longer holding out hope of a Clinton presidency and a majority in congress; rather, I am now of the opinion that Clinton and the rest of us would actually stand a better chance were congress to remain in the hands of partisan republicans. They can’t help themselves, and she would expose them. She would expose them in two years as a minority president than she ever could as a presidential candidate. She can’t campaign worth shit, but she can fight like a tiger, which is why conservatives hate her. She can enter the lion’s den, and she can fight them all, and she can win. But she has to get there first. I’m worried that this reality TV binge watching nation won’t give her the chance. It’ll be our loss, and that loss will be felt for generations, not years.
It doesn’t matter. You have religious conservatives who think democrats are the children of Satan, racists who want to take back their country, and undecideds who are influenced by the flimsiest of arguments.
You will see.