This past week Clinton came under fire for calling some Trump supporters “Deplorable.” She said: “To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.” She later said that she regretted the statement and how generalized it was.
I’m sure the statement played well with her base. It has been in vogue to accuse Trump and his supporters of many forms of bigotry, and to be fair he hasn’t done a lot to discourage that. After all, this is the man who began his candidacy by referring to certain as “rapists,” while only “assuming” that some are good people.
However, the statement by Clinton was poorly thought-out at best and campaign-damaging at worst. Here’s why.
Firstly, if you plan to govern in this country you must be able to at least get some bipartisan support. Calling members of the opposite party racist, sexist, etc. doesn’t make them want to work with you, and can, in turn, pressure their elected officials to not work with you. Even those who are moderates voting for Trump, whether it be because he is not part of the political establishment or because they don’t trust Hillary, certainly don’t like being associated with people who Clinton called bigoted. These people, who could possibly be won over to Clinton on policy, are left alienated or at least in association with the alienated individuals, even if she did later acknowledge these people and say that "those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well." It’s hard to be the unified head of a country when you have admitted to strongly disliking some fragment of the population who disagree with you politically.
The second reason is that it shows a low point for Clinton and her ability to avoid name calling. Unfortunately, so much of this election has just turned into character attacks and name calling, largely thanks to Trump and his creation of monikers such as “Crooked Hillary.” Sure, it’s not as bad as Romney’s 47 percent comment back in 2012, but it makes voting for her just a bit harder to swallow, in my opinion. Clinton had done such a good job of avoiding personal attacks, and this comment just broke the streak. It was impressive too, given the constant sexist attacks and unfair accusations which she receives on a daily basis. Regardless, it seems like it’s impossible to get an American election that actually focuses on the promises and ideas behind the individuals without getting caught up in ad-homenims and pandering.
Finally, in the extended version of the quote Clinton seems to attribute much of the surge in racist and bigoted sentiments to the rise of Donald Trump. In reference to Trump, she went on to say that “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.” To me, this quote shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the issues that should primarily anger her base. It is not like bigoted sentiments have always been there. They didn’t just arise because Trump got on stage and decided to run for president. Trump did’t multiply the amount of bigoted people by 100, we have had issues with unjust police killings of African Americans for years, we have had discrimination against LGBT issues for years (an issue where Clinton herself has not always been the most progressive), we have had xenophobic impulses for a while, which led to the creation of the border fence. Trump may be the most recent incarnation but these people and feelings were always there and are just being manifested more vocally.
Clinton saying that she regretted these words was a good start, but she needs to demonstrate a more nuanced approach to both addressing the Republican base and issues of bigotry if she wants to be the unifier president which we so desperately need.
