Deplorables-Part II

The more I think about Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comment and now the attempts by her supporters and their trained hamsters in the media to defend it, the more I have to smile. The elites have decided that Donald Trump is the leader of the "deplorables" because his comments are sometimes crude, his demeanor is sometimes brutish, his political knowledge is sometimes weak, and (half) his followers, well ... in Hillary's words, they're "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic." Five words that tell use far more about Clinton and her followers that they tell us about the people who are their target.

The overriding image for all of this is fascinating. Hillary Clinton stands before a group of glittering elites at a high-priced New York fundraiser sponsored by none other than Barbra Streisand. In a prepared speech (the prepared part is especially telling), she goes beyond demonizing Trump to demonize tens of millions of her fellow citizens. As she says "basket of deplorables," laughter can be heard in the audience, not a little—a lot. The glitterati enjoy Hillary's comments, laughing at the middle and lower class people because those people want a change from the oppressive, ineffective, and outright damaging policies that the Democrats have fostered over the past eight years.

The deplorables seek a new and different path; they don't agree with much of the politically correct nonsense that now permeates the media, the government, and even private sector entities. They look at Muslims who want to immigrate to the USA with suspicion, not out of "Islamophobia" but because scattered in the midst of those immigrants there assuredly are people who want to kill them. Sure, some of the deplorables are hard-core right-wing, but some of Hillary's followers are hard-core left wing. Both hardcore elements offer highly distorted views of the world, and one is no better than the other.

The elites, including Hillary Clinton, are so far removed from the world of the deplorables, so far removed from those who work in factories, drive trucks, mow lawns, provide electrical and plumbing services, that they view them as an odd species. Hillary no more understands the world of the deplorables than she understands the Navier-Stokes equations—both are a mystery to her and to many of her followers.

Daniel Henninger summarizes the use of the five words nicely:

Those are all potent words. Or once were. The racism of the Jim Crow era was ugly, physically cruel and murderous. Today, progressives output these words as reflexively as a burp. What’s more, the left enjoys calling people Islamophobic or homophobic. It’s bullying without personal risk.

Donald Trump’s appeal, in part, is that he cracks back at progressive cultural condescension in utterly crude terms. Nativists exist, and the sky is still blue. But the overwhelming majority of these people aren’t phobic about a modernizing America. They’re fed up with the relentless, moral superciliousness of Hillary, the Obamas, progressive pundits and 19-year-old campus activists.

Evangelicals at last week’s Values Voter Summit said they’d look past Mr. Trump’s personal résumé. This is the reason. It’s not about him.

The moral clarity that drove the original civil-rights movement or the women’s movement has degenerated into a confused moral narcissism. One wonders if even some of the people in Mrs. Clinton’s Streisandian audience didn’t feel discomfort at the ease with which the presidential candidate slapped isms and phobias on so many people.

The most telling aspect of this whole affair is that Trump's followers find it oddly amusing. Some have adopted the moniker "deplorables" as a badge of honor. For the Dems, that's a really bad sign.