You were doing fine until you characterized Clinton’s statement as thoroughly accurate. Just as she lies even when she doesn’t have to, supporters here carry water for her when they don’t actually have to. And Vox has been damaging their reputation this campaign season. We all know they are a liberal site, but some of their articles this year have been specifically to “explain” things in a light extremely favorable to Clinton.
Ezra Klein himself is still great but he needs to start reining in some of his writers and “explain” the purpose of the site. It’s to “explain the news”, not be Clinton’s Baghdad Bob.
I’d also note that the Vox article hurts Clinton’s case more than it helps:
“See, half of Trump’s supporters are deplorable. But only a quarter to a third of mine are, so vote for me so you can feel that you’re on the right side!”
It’s really time that Really Smart People stopped trying to use statistics to prove questions of morality. First it’s, “Who lies less?” and now it’s “Whose supporters hate more?” If anyone actually bases their voting decision on, “Well, this party is half haters and that party is a third haters, so I think I’ll vote for the party that’s a third.” has gone off the deep end. Why not just vote Green, I’ll bet almost none of their supporters are haters.
It was accurate. It probably understated it, if anything. By the polling, at least half of Trump’s supporters believe that black people are lazier or more violent, or that Muslims should be kept out, or that homosexuality should be banned, or that Obama isn’t American, etc, when added together. Unless you don’t think these views are deplorable, then she is correct.
To continue the thought, “Trump supporters” are the dominant force in today’s Republican Party. What they believe is what the party stands for, and what its supporters are supporting, even if they purport to deplore it themselves.
When you’re talking about that many people, I’m not sure it matters much. You can say Romney’s comment was worse if you need to, but both were really stupid things for a candidate to say.
Trump’s statements are different, though. He’s talking about people reacting to the structure set up by society-- that is, when you can make more money not working than working, people will choose to not work. He suggests people will change their behavior if the incentives are changed.
Now, you can argue about whether that will actually work or not, but I don’t think it’s insulting say people are acting rationally, given the incentive structure they find themselves in.
Clinton, OTOH specifically said many of Trump’s supporters are “irredeemable”. That is, they are such bad people that NOTHING CAN CHANGE THEM. I don’t know if you can get more insulting than that.
Right. So characterizing **half **the population - most of whom work extremely hard in jobs that pay them a pittance thanks to people like Trump and Romney - as people who deliberately don’t work and are being “carried” by the other half - as Trump and Romney did - is not insulting. But suggesting that a sizable portion of a candidate’s base is racist - a portion that includes the KKK, a portion that has, since the advent of the campaign, often engaged in open harassment and worse of minorities to the extent that there is something called the Trump Effect and who have proved impervious to the vast amount of reason and evidence against their position - is somehow more insulting than that.
He doesn’t say that half the people don’t work. He says lots of people don’t work, and don’t want to work, because the system disincentivizes work. It’s pretty mangled English, and can certainly understand that some people will find it insulting, but I’m not seeing it as necessarily insulting.
However… if HRC thinks it is, then she and her supporters should use it in Political ads against Trump. Don’t sit around and bitch about how the press are such meanies; use some of that money that HRC is so good at collecting and get the message out!
Maybe Hillary should have said that certain views (of half or more of Trump’s supporters) are deplorable, not necessarily the people. I think politically this will still be a good move because it will highlight these deplorable views, and pushed Pence to miss another opportunity to criticize David Duke, and create an opening for something like “Trump and Pence call President Obama feckless, weak, and worse, but refuse to call David Duke deplorable. Well I’ll call Duke deplorable – white supremacism is deplorable, white nationalism is deplorable, bigotry is deplorable, and Donald Trump is deplorable for spreading bigoted misinformation about President Obama’s birth, about the crime rates of minorities, and more”.
Are you suggesting she attack the argument, not the person?
I’ve heard it said that if the campaign is about Trump, Hillary wins. If it’s about Hillary, Trump wins. I think there is a lot of truth to that, since both candidates have high negatives. Hillary can win this election if she just stays on message-- something she can do 1,000x better than Trump can. No excuses for unforced errors on her part!! Let Trump stumble his way to defeat.
Oh come on, Happy. Even those of us who are panicked about the idea of Trump being President should be willing to admit Clinton has a rather long history of telling fibs. Dodging fire in Bosnia, you say?
According to Politifact, which is hardly a Fox News allow, Clinton’s public statements contain some element of falsehood half the time, and are outright lies (Mostly False or worse) 28% of the time. They count 70 separate instances of Clinton lying, and an additional 54 they rate as “half true.” She most recently said something false as recently as Friday. Their records only go back as far as 2007, and she lied before then.
Even if you are reeeeeally generous in your interpretation of the cites on Politifact, the woman has lied more in known public statements than a genuinely honest person would. Now, has she lied as much as Donald Trump? Of course not; Clinton at least tries to be plausible, where Trump is probably the most brazen liar in the history of American politics. But if Donald Trump is your standard for honesty there are no other liars in the world.
You’re editorializing a bit in your assessment. Looking at those number on Politifact:
Her statements are rated as either True, Mostly True or Half True 72% of the time. Comparing apples to apples, Barack Obama’s numbers are 75%.
Trump’s are 30%.
Mitch McConnell are 54%.
Nancy Pelosi’s are 55%
Joe Biden’s are 66%
Paul Ryan’s are 59%
Harry Reid’s are 50%
Jeb Bush’s are 70%
Bernie Sanders’ are 72% (same as Clinton’s #s)
She appears to be more truthful than most politicians at the national level, in leadership and/or running for president this year.
Even taking out the Half True statements, and only counting True or Mostly True:
She still appears to be more truthful than most politicians.
And since she’s accused of being an especially grievous liar, let’s look at it from the lying/untruthful perspective. Here are the percentage of statements that are either Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire (with percentage of PoF statements shown in parentheses):
Again, she does not seem to be untruthful more than other politicians, and in fact tells less whoppers than most of the other people I listed.
And here’s how the Veep candidates show as liars:
Kaine: 24% Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire (0% Pants on Fire)
Pense: 43% Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire (0% Pants on Fire)
So, again, where’s the proof that Hillary Clinton is a serial liar? Or needs to be called out above all other politicians for her rampant lies?
Nah. The primary difference is that Romney’s remarks were basically “Ew, poor people” whereas Clinton’s were “Ew, racists”. You can be a good, hard working person and still be on the lower end of the economic curve. It’s harder to promote the idea that someone is being unfair to racists, misogynists, etc.
Plus, as noted, Romney’s remarks were about 47% of America. If you’re on that end of the scale, you get insulted about being called lazy. Clinton’s remarks were explicitly about Trump supporters. If you’re a Trump supporter, go ahead and get mad but Clinton doesn’t give a shit because she’s not trying to lure those people away; she’s trying to keep others from joining them.
Just out of curiosity, to see if maybe people from previous races aren’t as big of liars as Hillary Clinton, I looked at other recent presidential and veep candidates, and how much of what they said were lies. Here are the percentage of Mostly False, False and Pants on Fire (Pants on Fire isolated in parentheses):
Mitt Romney: 42% (9%)
John McCain: 42% (4%)
Sarah Palin: 54% (10%)
John Kerry: 42% (0%)
John Edwards: 20% (7%)
George W. Bush: (not many recent statements to assess)
Dick Cheney: 59% (6%)
So again, the 28% (2% of which were Pants on Fire) of her statements being untruthful seems to be pretty damn good in comparison to other politicians who have either run for president or vice president in recent years.
So again, I ask where’s the evidence that Hillary Clinton needs to be called out for her lies as if she were the lyingest liar that ever lied her way into politics?
I suspect this is one of those things the right wing says over and over and over and over in the hope that people start believing it. It seems to have worked.
I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s that when your ox gets gored, you care. And Hillary has run two high-profile and hard-fought primaries against other Democrats in 2008 and 2016. So everyone who supported Bernie or Obama has a memory of some lie or misstatement or stretched truth, even if they are not more frequent than the average politician.
Is this one of those Magic Eye pictures where you have to squint at it to see the true picture? Because I’m pretty sure 50% is “half” and telling 50% that they’re being “carried” by the other 50% is spectacularly insulting.
As always, you are totally missing the context, and the larger point. (Although in fairness, a lot of people are missing it, certainly quite deliberately in some cases.)
Clinton didn’t bust out the basket of deplorables remark in order to convince people that Trump was bad. It wasn’t “Senator Clinton, what’s a reason to vote for you over Trump?” “Well, I’m better, and as proof, I give you the basket of deplorables”.
Rather, the important part of her sentence was the SECOND part. She was trying to explain to people who were her natural allies why Trump was doing so well. She was basically saying “hey, all those negative stereotypes you have about Trump supporters? Well, sure, they’re true for SOME of his supporters, but some of them are just decent everyday people who feel like they haven’t had a fair shake lately”. She was trying to build an olive branch of understanding between her supporters and those Trump supporters who are reachable.
