Biden puts a big chunk of Americans back in the ‘deplorables’ basket
Four years ago Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president was built on a mixture of name recognition and public service experience marbled with heavy doses of arrogance, condescension and spite.
The latter came through in September 2016 at a LGBT fundraiser in New York. Arguably, it was the moment that doomed her bid for the White House.
During her speech, the Democratic nominee said, “We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of (Donald) Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?
“The 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 their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.”
Clinton’s friend, the 2020 presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, recently ventured here in adding to his growing list of gaffes.
Discussing George Floyd’s death and President Trump’s reaction to it during a podcast interview on Thursday with actor Don Cheadle, Biden said he believed the “vast majority” of Americans are “decent” people.
But, the former vice president added, “Do we really think this is as good as we can be as a nation? I don’t think the vast majority of people think that. There are probably anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the people out that are just not very good people, but that’s not who we are.”
Biden did not explain who the “not very good people are.” And to Biden’s tone-deaf political ear, 10 percent to 15 percent probably did not seem like a very high number.
But just so people get the math, we are talking at least 33 million Americans on the low end and 50 million at Biden’s stated ceiling.
Interestingly, that roughly aligns with Clinton’s take. Trump got more than 60 million votes in 2016, so putting “half of Trump’s supporters into … the basket of deplorables” equates to at least 30 million people in a rhetorical sense.
This comment came just days after Biden insultingly told millions of black Americans “you ain’t black” unless they vote for him.
In the interview with Cheadle, Biden also said he would concentrate on working with the “decent” people.
“We have to appeal to that and we have to unite people, bring them together,” he said. “I won’t traffic in fear and division. I won’t fan the flames of hate. I’ll seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued our country, not use them for political gain.”
Biden also said, “The words a president says matter, so when a president stands up and divides people all the time, you’re gonna the worst of us to come out.”
The divisive words of a presidential candidate matter as well. The media will not hold Biden to account for anything he says the way they do Trump. So come November, voters should understand that, yet again, a Democrat is consigning them to the ranks of the contemptible.
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