Deplorables

Sometimes there's a delicious irony to politics. In 2012, the Democrats with the enthusiastic help of their trained hamsters in the media succeeded in demonizing Mitt Romney for his suggestion that "47 percent" of the public (those who pay no income taxes and are dependent on government in significant ways) were beyond his reach as a politician. In his private remarks, secretly recorded by a Democratic operative, he never denigrated the 47 percent by casting aspersions on their character, except to directly imply that they lived lives of dependency. The media went nuts, and it's entirely possible that his "47 percent" remark sunk Romney's presidential campaign.

Yesterday morning we got this from ABC News:

Hillary Clinton didn’t mince words [in public remarks] during a star-studded fundraiser in New York City Friday night, describing some Donald Trump supporters as “deplorables” who are hateful and bigoted.

“To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call ‘the basket of deplorables.’ Right?” she told donors at the LGBT For Hillary Gala, at which Barbra Streisand and Rufus Wainwright performed. “Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.”

The Democratic presidential nominee added, “Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable. But they are not America.”

Hmmm. I'd say Clinton's comments are at least as explosive as Romney's, but I'll betcha the entire episode will be erased from the news rather quickly. After all, from their high moral perch above the country, prominent Democrats are allowed to denigrate vast numbers of people who don't agree with them.

Conservative blogger, Ed Morrissey, sums up nicely:

Nothing says woman of the people like a political candidate who got filthy rich while serving in the Senate and State Department insulting millions of voters while surrounded by celebrities, right? Hillary Clinton shifted her attack from Donald Trump to his supporters at a fundraiser in New York City, putting “half” of them into “a basket of deplorables.” That’s a memorable turn of phrase, but will Hillary want to forget it?

... This sneering, condescending, and insulting stereotyping of millions of voters perfectly encapsulates the Clintonian quarter-century, especially with their above-the-law antics since leaving the White House. And that’s why most candidates stick to insulting each other, and not voters.

Of course, Clinton is now walking back the comment, providing a heartfelt 'apology' to the millions she insulted. Romney did the same thing. But here's the difference—the media will be all too happy to accept Clinton's 'apology,' and quickly move on. They didn't do that with Mitt Romney.

Morrissey comments on the fallout or lack thereof:

Should it get the “47 percent” treatment? Yes, perhaps even more deservedly than Romney; his (misguided) remarks were about specific tax and safety-net policies, not accusing tens of millions of Americans of bigotry simply for not supporting him. Will it? No, and for one unassailable reason — the media will never start that same kind of feeding frenzy around Hillary. They’ll cover it initially, perhaps even noting what a foolish misstep it was as Don Lemon did in the CNN clip, but very quickly the media narrative will turn to whether Republicans are “pouncing” and “overplaying their hand.” Don’t be surprised if that shift occurs as soon as tomorrow morning’s news shows.

I think Morrissey's assessment is right on target. This will be gone in 72 hours.

UPDATE (9/12/16):
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It appears that every Democrat spokesperson is emphasizing the following narrative as they scramble to protect Hillary from her outrageous and insulting "deplorables" comment. To wit: "She's apologized and regrets having said it." Yeah, right. The Wall Street Journal comments:

The remarks echo Mitt Romney’s comment in 2012 about the 47% on the government dole. The media played up the Romney comments as emblematic of an out-of-touch rich guy, and they probably contributed to his defeat. Mrs. Clinton’s comments were arguably worse, attributing hateful motives to tens of millions of Americans, but the media reaction has treated it like a mere foot fault.

Mrs. Clinton apologized, sort of, on Saturday by saying in a statement that, “Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’—that was wrong.” But she went on to say she was otherwise right because some of Mr. Trump’s supporters are the likes of David Duke.

Yet the rest of what she said was almost as insulting. She said Mr. Trump’s other supporters are “people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.”

So she thinks half of Mr. Trump’s voters are loathsome bigots and the other half are losers and dupes who deserve Democratic pity. It’s no accident that Mrs. Clinton said this at a fundraiser headlined by Barbra Streisand, the friendliest of crowds, because this really is what today’s elite progressives believe about America’s great unwashed.

What's most amusing about this entire episode is to consider what would have happened had Donald Trump uttered the same words as Clinton in front of a crowd of fat-cats—and the fat cat laughed gleefully (as the glitterati crowd did as Hillary made her statement. The trained hamsters in the media would have gone bezerk.