Hillary Clinton: Half of Trump Supporters Fall in a “Basket of Deplorables”
A curious phenomenon I have noticed this campaign season is that when Hillary Clinton knocks Donald Trump, I can’t stand to listen to her. Even when she saying something true, it sounds like a fake lie coming out of her mouth.
Turns out it’s even worse when she is knocking Trump supporters — especially when she is not telling the truth. For example:
Clinton ripped 50% of Trump supporters during a LGBT fundraiser in lower Manhattan Friday evening, grouping them into a “basket of deplorables.”
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Clinton said to laughter from the “LGBT for Hillary” crowd. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.”
The other half, Clinton said, are disillusioned Americans who feel the “government has let them down.”
Half?
HALF?!
There most certainly is a very vocal minority of Trumpers who are fully on board the Trump Train. They subscribe to the “alt-right” group that promotes communitarian groupthink on behalf of white people. They put pictures of heavy-lidded green cartoon frogs on their Twitter accounts. They post pictures of Trump in a Nazi uniform pushing a red button labeled “Zyklon B” while people they don’t like are depicted in the background in a gas chamber. They share menacing and totally false statistics about blacks and crime. And so on.
This is not half of Trump supporters. By a long shot.
If I had to guess, I’d say a majority of people who read this site plan to vote for Donald Trump. Very few of them are actually excited about the prospect. A very small handful do deserve to be characterized as deplorable.
Not half.
The overwhelming majority of the people reading this site, and the overwhelming majority of the people who plan to vote for Trump in this country, simply can’t stand Hillary Clinton. Many of those people supported other candidates in the primary. They have simply decided that what they’re left with is better than Hillary Clinton.
Let me be clear: I respect that point of view. I have never, ever, ever said otherwise.
SIDE NOTE:
I personally despise and distrust Donald Trump to the point where I believe it makes no difference whether he or Hillary is elected — or, to be more accurate, I know it will make a difference of some kind, but I don’t know which will be worse in the long run. I also happen to think that, in an election season, demonization of the opposing candidate goes into overdrive. This happens every election season. It gets to the point where, offered a chance to vote for Hillary Clinton, or for someone responsible for the deaths of 45 million people — arguably the biggest monster in all human history — a majority (!) of respondents choose the monster over the opposing candidate.
Yes, it’s a silly poll, which garnered only a fraction of the votes that online polls on this site usually receive, in large part because it is silly. Yes, the votes for Mao can’t necessarily be taken seriously. I understand all that. But all that being said, many people treat their actual votes about as seriously as they treat casting a ballot in an online poll — and I think the poll does illustrate the effect of demonization of the opposing candidate. That’s a post for another day.
/END SIDE NOTE
While I do despise Donald Trump, I also despise Hillary Clinton. I am not going to harangue people who have made a personal decision that they want to keep Hillary Clinton as far away from the White House as possible. I have never assailed people who take that position. I never will. It’s a respectable position. It’s held by a lot of my friends on this site.
And that’s a hell of a lot more than half of Trump’s supporters, Hillary Clinton.
And to accuse half of his supporters as racists, xenphobes, Islamophobes, and so forth?
That’s just . . . deplorable.
Ding.
Patterico (bcf524) — 9/10/2016 @ 7:53 ami deplore sickly criminal stenchpigs and their nasty herpes-encrusted husbands what got them where they are
but then nobody’s ever accused me of not having a finely-honed moral compass
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/10/2016 @ 7:56 amYes, what is deplorable is a future president who hates her own people (and country). I remember her answer well when someone asked her if she loved America. “Well, I love what it could be,” she laughed. After she gets through finishing the transformation?
Patricia (5fc097) — 9/10/2016 @ 8:01 amI have never voted for a Clinton, and I am not starting now.
Jim (98dd1a) — 9/10/2016 @ 8:03 amI’m with you there.
Patterico (bcf524) — 9/10/2016 @ 8:10 amOf all the pro-Trump commenters on this blog, I find happy’s argument to be the most persuasive:
“I hate stinky pig.”
So do I. So do we all.
ThOR (c9324e) — 9/10/2016 @ 8:22 am“Of all tyrannies, a Hillary tyranny
sincerelyexercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under Trumprobber baronsthan under Hillaryomnipotent moral busybodies. Trump’sThe robber baron’scruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but Hillarythosewho tormentstormentus for our own good will torment us without end for she doesthey doso with the approval of hertheirown conscience. HillaryTheymay be more likely to go to Hell andHeaven yetat the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very progressivenesskindnessstings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”– CS Lewis amended
Tanny O'Haley (c674c7) — 9/10/2016 @ 8:27 amI am well aware of my own fallibility. I voted W in large part because I so despised Al Gore. I had very low expectations. Junior proved me wrong. On all the things that mattered most to me, Bush came through in a big way.
At various points in my career, doubting bosses gave me a chance. I am forever indebted to them. Deep in my core, I believe that we should give a guy the chance to prove himself.
ThOR (c9324e) — 9/10/2016 @ 8:37 amthank you Mr. ThOR this is a good thread to think about sleazy pig-lover Warren Buffet and his sleazy sleazy bank
sleazy stenchpig and her coterie of sleaze
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/10/2016 @ 8:41 amThe Left accuses all of us of being racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, and xenophobic regardless of who our nominee is.
Look at the way they treated Romney in 2012.
Dennis Prager has long joked about the acronym, he refers to as “sixhirb,” as he explains below, in an excerpt from a column in 2010;
That is why nearly all Democratic and leftist reactions to conservatives and Republicans are to avoid argument (remember, on the issues the left has few supporters) and smear them as SIXHIRB, my acronym for “Sexist, Intolerant, Xenophobic, Homophobic, Islamophobic, Racist, Bigoted.” It is almost impossible to come up with the name of a leading conservative whom the dominant media have not dismissed as one or more of SIXHIRB — and usually as a buffoon as well. This obviously serves the left and the Democratic Party in many ways. But the most important is to keep non-leftists in fear of anyone who opposes the left. In effect, the left says, and has been saying for a hundred years, “You may not agree with us, but our opponents are evil.”
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/10/2016 @ 8:43 amWell what can I say. Madame Hillary has declared that numbers of Trump supporters are “not American”. When she’s elected as President, I’m certain that she will arrange to have those “not American” voters re-educated. Can’t have the unwashed saying rude things now, can she?
I dunno–I went to summer camps when I was a kid; was a summer camp counselor when I was a little bit older, and now expect to spend some time in a camp in my declining years. will Camp Hillary serve good pie for dessert?
Skeptical Voter (1d5c8b) — 9/10/2016 @ 8:51 amI largely agree with your views on the character and qualifications of both HRC and Trump but can not understand how anyone can’t agree that there is little or no difference between them. Voting in any way that would enable HRC to continue corrupting our government and its officials is unthinable for anyone who believes in defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. If Congress can’t act against HRC and Obama’s abuse of executive authority they’re unlikely to lift a finger in another Clinton administration. However, we can be confident that both parties will work to restrain Trump.
crazy (d3b449) — 9/10/2016 @ 9:11 amI have the opposite view. Republicans will hold the House. They may hold the Senate. They will pass Trump’s big government policies but oppose (some of) Hillary’s.
This “checks and balances work only with Trump” argument I keep saying (Glenn Reynolds just made it in USA Today) strikes me as exactly wrong.
Patterico (bcf524) — 9/10/2016 @ 9:24 amWhere does this confidence come from? I do not share it.
Patterico (bcf524) — 9/10/2016 @ 9:25 amP, I think many of us have no confidence that the Rs in Congress will be any more effective in slowing HRC than they were with Obama,
yes, some argue that Obama could have been worse…
the press will be against Trump if nothing else…
Just imagine, the press saying something good about a Republican…for opposing Trump.
Very good, Tanny
One thing about that “Flight 93” article and the response to it.
If you read David Horowitz at all, you do think things are about to go over a cliff, that they are evil, not wrong, and they would like to crush any opposition just like Khrushchev demonstrated.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 9/10/2016 @ 9:47 amI think Prager is about the only “main stream” pundit /journalist that will say that.
“Republicans will hold the House. They may hold the Senate. They will pass Trump’s big government policies but oppose (some of) Hillary’s.”
So you’re withdrawing that whole DOWNTICKET RACES ARE DOOOOOOOMED!!! position, then? Real sorry, but as long as the 47% dependents exist, the era of small government is over.
“This “checks and balances work only with Trump” argument I keep saying (Glenn Reynolds just made it in USA Today) strikes me as exactly wrong.”
So your primary motivation is less getting any specific policy platform for any specific set of the American nation passed then making sure the pace of public government stays glacial (and thus kicking down the motivation and action for fast-paced government action to private and generally untouchable civil servants, administrators, consultants, professors, and lawyers as a consequence, in an echo of the Obama years.)
It almost sounds like…Congressional gridlock serves your types no matter which party is in power, and you never were a good-faith party member in the first place!
REAL TRANSPARENT AND STATESMANLIKE THINKING THERE, CAN’T IMAGINE WHY ANYONE MIGHT NOT LIKE IT.
Dystopia Max (76803a) — 9/10/2016 @ 10:19 amThe actual “deplorables” will self-identify shortly. When does PTS wake up?
Kevin M (25bbee) — 9/10/2016 @ 10:45 amPoll redux
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2016 @ 10:47 amThis “checks and balances work only with Trump” argument I keep saying (Glenn Reynolds just made it in USA Today) strikes me as exactly wrong.
Glenn is not talking about the standard checks and balances, but the de facto ones: the permanent bureaucracy, the press, social media, Hollywood, etc, all of which are heavily Democrat. A GOP administration has everything it does examined for flaws, and Dem administration has the same groups providing cover.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 9/10/2016 @ 10:49 amThe Constitution was DESIGNED to create as much gridlock as possible where there was no consensus. They COULD have designed a parliamentary system where the legislature controls everything and can make sweeping changes. They didn’t.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 9/10/2016 @ 10:53 amYeah, but they are not part of the government (except the bureaucracy). Congress is.
Patterico (bcf524) — 9/10/2016 @ 11:19 am“While I do despise Donald Trump, I also despise Hillary Clinton.”
Well, if you despise both equally, then all you can do is sit back and accept the candidate who ends up being elected President. A D or an R is going to be elected, so not voting at all or voting for a third candidate would be the way to go.
However, if you despise one of the candidates more than the other, even just a little bit, then you should vote for the least-despised in order to (hopefully) prevent the most despised from being elected.
tom (1e059e) — 9/10/2016 @ 11:53 amMaudie stepped in Mitt.
Oops!
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/10/2016 @ 12:29 pm#20- I don’t think it was designed for gridlock, that kinda de-legitimizes the whole idea of having a government. The checks and balances were to keep any one branch from becoming too powerful, and keep certain powers accountable to the voters
The 17th amendment crippled federalism, and since then the congress has abdicated most of its power to the executive and allowed the judiciary free rein. The sad fact is, most of what the government does is done by bureaucratic agencies, while the congress has gerrymandered themselves life appointments instead of set terms, and spend their time collecting money from lobbyists and special interest groups and distributing it for favors.
The limited government model conservatives yearn for is dead, buried, and decomposed back into the earth. There is no going back short of another civil war, one more horrible and bloody than the last, with the confederate side (speaking to state sovereignty, not slavery) winning.
LBascom (7b6094) — 9/10/2016 @ 12:29 pmPatterico, my confidence comes from the reluctance that all of us have to get behind him. Because they’re not all-in I anticipate the R leadership will rediscover the use of the committee process to sand the rough edges off anything that’s too wacky. Just as the bureaucracy will slow-roll everything he tries to change too drastically. With all the political tools of Congress at their disposal, what has the republican leadership actually done to stop Hillary’s lawlessness besides complain about the need for somebody else to stop it? Allowing Hillary to win validates both her corrupt and lawless above the law behavior to continue. The best reason to vote for Trump is to see if he’d actually put HRC behind bars as he said he would. For sure, nobody else is going to.
crazy (d3b449) — 9/10/2016 @ 12:50 pmMaudie’s crew is squawking ‘damage control, report!’ like an episode of ‘Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea.’ Her internal polling must have her sinking fast.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/10/2016 @ 1:02 pmYour FTD Florist suggests you send a sick Republican friend a ‘Basket of Deplorables’:
Spoiled beef on a bed of used coffee grounds and rotting lettuce, softened, flaccid cukes topped with rancid butter, blackened bananas, moldy oranges, stale, sourdough Tedcrumbs nested on fresh cut poison ivy (poison oak if in season.)
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/10/2016 @ 1:20 pmIt’s not like Hillary does not have her own basket of deplorables: Only Black Lives Matter, Hamasniks, etc.
kishnevi (4490a8) — 9/10/2016 @ 4:27 pmhey hillary i got you a deplorable in my basket right here
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/10/2016 @ 4:28 pmGot a Basket of Deplorables
Got a basket of Deplorables
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2016 @ 4:49 pmGot a billion in the bank
And she’ll lay down in the clover
Name starts with “H” but it’s not Hank
Sold her soul to guy named Satan
And she’s coughin’ up fur balls
It’s common folk that she’ll be hatin’
Committin’ crimes but that ain’t all
Another interesting thing about HRC’s deplorable comments is that she didn’t appear to ad lib them it looks like she read them off the teleprompter. Maybe Allahpundit’s on to something when he says it was a strategic move to make Trump and his miserable band of racists the story not her arrogant, condescending, corrupt lawlessness.
crazy (d3b449) — 9/10/2016 @ 5:19 pmhere you go,
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207091723160000&set=a.1034650875051.2005551.1488821042&type=3&theater
narciso (d1f714) — 9/10/2016 @ 5:19 pmit was a strategic move
the pig’s propaganda sluts at National Soros Radio are bending over backwards to make it look like one
apparently NPR propaganda slut Domenico Montanaro just has absolutely no idea it was piggypants clinton what invented birtherism when her tired sick geriatric ass was lamely trying to do a beatdown on food stamp
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/10/2016 @ 5:29 pmhe used to be at msnbc, which I think is some kind of demotion,
narciso (d1f714) — 9/10/2016 @ 5:31 pmJust observe the response times and the spinners they send out.
Maudie stepped in Mitt.
And worse, it was scripted. Those ‘true colors’ are shining through. Maudie’s ratings are trending down. They have their own internal numbers and know her show is close to cancellation.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/10/2016 @ 5:46 pmHillary makes the best clam dip.
G6loq (3a2647) — 9/10/2016 @ 7:16 pmHuma Abedin
clearly a sign of enemy action”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/10/exposed-fbi-director-james-comeys-clinton-foundation-connection/
narciso (d1f714) — 9/10/2016 @ 7:18 pmMaybe a more useful poll would be if the choice is Obama or Clinton. This may not be as silly as the Mao-Clinton question. Somewhere down the road I could see the equivalent of those two being the (leading) choices.
Gerald A (76f251) — 9/10/2016 @ 7:31 pm‘ANYONE WHO’S BEEN READING ME FOR ANY TIME AT ALL KNOWS THAT I DIDN’T JUST BECOME “A TAD BIT GOOFY.”
For that matter, I was never #NeverTrump. I’ve always said that I’d support him as the nominee, even though he wasn’t my first, or second, or third choice. Even Ed Driscoll here isn’t a #NeverTrump guy.’
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/243554/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/10/2016 @ 7:49 pmWhat Democrat campaigned, for national office, on legalizing gay marriage, or admitting men into women’s bathrooms?
In fact on gay marriage every single one running for national office declared themselves opposed, right up until about 2014, after it was a fait accompli.
Why was that?
Because progressives settle for half a loaf. They vote for the D anyway, even when the D claims not to support their fringe issue. After the D wins election, they get a seat at the table, a few people in key positions, and in the end they get what they wanted: because they got power.
They didn’t get power by working for gay marriage and men in the women’s. They got gay marriage and men in the women’s by working for power.
Party of Stupid will never learn.
You like free trade and limited government? Well, those have always been a minority taste, and now they are a minority in the only party that even gives them lip service.
Do you want to see those things come to pass?
Then you have to do what the Left does. Get power, then get what you wanted.
Gabriel Hanna (a90637) — 9/10/2016 @ 10:10 pmharvardtrash ted saddled up them bathroom trannies and rode em all the way to the white house
hillary still doesn’t know what happened
political. genius.
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/11/2016 @ 7:26 amhttps://pjmedia.com/instapundit/243583/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/11/2016 @ 7:27 amGabriel, Boehner/Ryan and McConnell have followed your game plan perfectly. No idea or principle was too small to be overlooked. How’s it working?
Our problem is that we blindly associated conservative with Republican. The Tea Party episode was a clear warning that our political arm was nothing but pragmatists and power seekers. The core of our country, people with jobs actually doing something, especially firemen and policemen, is still solid. Our leadership is the question. The NFL games today will be revealing. Let’s see who decides it’s politically expedient to support the thugs on the field.
BobStewartatHome (f2b3a5) — 9/11/2016 @ 7:46 amhttp://www.express.co.uk/news/world/709501/hillary-clinton-health-9-11-ceremony-medical-episode-coughing-faint
mg (31009b) — 9/11/2016 @ 7:46 am@ Tanny O’Haley, #7:
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
–Donald Trump, January 2016
“We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
–Donald Trump, February 2016
It seems like both candidates doubt the capacities of a large portion of Trump voters. It’s just that the Donald is praising them for it.
@ Gabriel Hanna, #40:
This seems more or less right. So your theory, I take it, is that conservatives should vote for their own D, just because he has an R after his name?
Demosthenes (09f714) — 9/11/2016 @ 8:51 am@40 Gabriel Hanna isn’t that what we’ve been trying to explain to the neverTrumpers since the idiot won the nomination? If Trump wins we have a shot. If Hillary wins we’re luck if we aren’t shot.
Rev. Hoagie® (785e38) — 9/11/2016 @ 8:52 am10. Dennis Prager, in a column in 2010
this is the fallbacxck argument, but I think it is ineteresting to note that:
Hillary Clinton doesn’t say that about Donald Trump
1. She assigns him faults, but ones that do not rise to the level of crimes. She’s very careful about that.
2. She assails his supporters but not him.
3. She does not even attack his judgement.
4. She attacks his temperament – that he’s not steady – that he’s not careful – and his (lack of) experience, and his approach to learning.
Sammy Finkelman (337057) — 9/11/2016 @ 8:55 am“Where is thy sword, Dionysus?”
— Kevin M
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/11/2016 @ 8:57 amCome on, Sammeh, she’s liable to say anything after she has a few drinks in her.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:00 amtom (1e059e) — 9/10/2016 @ 11:53 am
That’s the wrong way to put it.
How about if you said:
How would you feel?
Sammy Finkelman (337057) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:02 amDemosthenes,
Yes, because a Democrat Lite president is preferable to the Real Thing.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:03 amNot “just because he has an R after his name”, because it will be a MAJOR defeat for the left if Hillary! loses. Just think about how beautiful it will be watching Hollywood, the media, the newspapers go flucking insane! Hillary!, the once and great future of the left…shot down by the electorate. I can taste it, and it’s sweet. This would throw the left from se to shining sea into a complete collapse. They would be like Zombies walking around drooling on themselves unable to gather a coherent sentence.
She would then call the entire country a “Basket of deplorables”.
Rev. Hoagie® (785e38) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:04 amOzzy looks kinda puffy these daze…
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CsFY1JuWEAAUGnj.jpg
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:07 am@ tom, #22:
This is true, but misleading. There is no R running. We have a D running as a D, and a D running as an R.
One wonders if you would say this in all circumstances — for example, if the choices were some combination of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:09 amjebfilth and harvardtrash ted were Rs what ran
the voters found them to be nasty and repulsive and emphatically consigned to them the status of LOSERS
i wonder what this means
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:11 am@ Cruz Supporter, #51:
Neither Clinton nor Trump can be fairly classed as a “Democrat Lite,” so I respectfully dissent from what I take to be your point.
@ Rev. Hoagie, #52:
At the moment when your primary motivation becomes schadenfreude, I stop listening to you.
@ happyfeet, #55:
It means that the American Experiment had a good run, but that it’s about to close up shop because the average voter now thinks with your puerility.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:15 ama vote for stinkypig’s a vote for to continue food stamp economics and a max of 1.5% gdp growth per annum every year
that’s gonna hurt a LOT of people
but nevertrump don’t care
they’re all well to do social climbers in the insulated professional classes
they virtue signal how much they love the sacred fetuses but they don’t give a flying piggy crap about real people’s children
they actively want to see those kids suffer struggle and die for so their despairing parents will come to realize that sore loser harvardtrash ted and his harvardtrash sacky are the Way and the Light
and you speak to me of puerility
hah i say
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:20 amI speak to you of puerility, yes. But you don’t have to continue providing such thorough demonstrations. You’ve already done more than enough to illustrate the concept.
The rest of your comment is mere ad hominem, and not worth addressing.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:25 ami poop on you head
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:26 amthat a Mr. Trump can be elected – a man 180 degrees apart from failmerica’s smarmy incompetent ruling class
that is the very distilled essence of the American Experiment
electing a smirking piece of kim davis-loving harvardfilth like ted cruz not so much
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:28 amDemosthenes,
Hitler, Stalin, and Mao aren’t on the ballot.
Taking the Pepsi Taste Challenge is all fun and games, because a wise guy can always proclaim, “I prefer Sprite to both of them!” and then march off to his Sunday picnic with a two liter bottle of Sprite.
But either Trump or Hillary is going to become the next President.
Calvin Coolidge isn’t on the ballot.
Neither is Mao.
I prefer Chris Christie to become the new Attorney General rather than Loretta Lynch be re-nominated by Hillary.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:33 amTo everyone else: I admit that I sometimes wonder whether happyfeet is actually as stupid as he appears to be, or if his whole Internet persona is an extended formal exercise in Andy Kaufman-esque performance-art “comedy.” I think a good case could be made either way. Me, I tend toward the Kaufman theory, because occasionally you catch glimmers of intelligence and calculation as he ties events of months ago into talking points of today — glimmers that he tries very hard to hide behind slurs and bad English, but that shine through the murkiness nonetheless.
If I’m wrong on this one, then I admit that I cannot otherwise explain how happyfeet has not yet managed to drown himself in his own vomit and/or excrement.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:34 ami got my sprite i got my orange crush
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:34 amMr. Demosthenes if the goldy sackies were slipping harvardtrash heidi a lil sumpin sumpin under the table to get ted to help elect that pig
what would sore loser ted be doing differently?
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:35 am#63 Mr happyfeet,
I just spit out my Gatorade laughing at your paraphrasing of the old REM song.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:40 am49. Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:00 am
I think she has enough sense not to speak in public while drunk.
We don’t know how much she is drinking, but maybe that could explain large blank spaces in her schedule.
Today at the 9/11/ Memorial, where she arrived at about 8:18 am, she appeared to faint, and her staff, or the Secret Service, perhaps over-reacting, whisked her away at about 9:40 am, before the bell tolled for the collapse of the second tower, the Shanksville Pennsylvania crash, and the first tower. As she was leaving, she stumbled, and lost one of her shoes, which went under the van. They did stop to retrieve the shoe. The cerempny is over now and WNBC is reporting about the medical incident.
The Clinton campaign said it was the heat. She’s now resting in Chelsea’s New York apartment.
Michael Bloomberg and hundreds of other people nearby were not affected this way by the heat, which is only 82 degrees right now, expected to climb to 84.
(Anthony Weiner lives in the same building, but his son may no longer be with him. The Clintons are very worried about him because he may have no other major source of income now than a tell-all book, but in any case he wouldn’t do anything like that until after the election.)
You do have to wonder, of course, if Vladimir Putin had anything to do with this, but taht would involve very lax security.
Sammy Finkelman (337057) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:40 amCruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:33 am
You, or maybe other people, keep on saying that.
Loretta Lynch does not need to re-nominated to stay on. All that has to happen is for the new president not to accept, or even ask for, her resignation.
Robert Gates did not need to be reconfirmed by the Senate for Secretary of Defense in 2009, nor did the first president Bush have to do anything to keep on Richard Thornburgh as Attorney General in 1993.
Sammy Finkelman (337057) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:44 am@ Cruz Supporter, #61:
The thing about a principle (yes, there’s that word again!) is that it should be universalizable, even to extreme and unlikely situations. If you agree with Tom that my vote should be cast for the candidate I despise the least, then I think I’m well within my rights to pose a hypothetical as to which person, among the great monsters of the twentieth century, you despise the least.
If you then reply, as you just did, that your answer to the question doesn’t matter — then I will reply, as I have before, that my answer to “Clinton or Trump?” doesn’t matter either. I live in a deep-red state where Trump will definitely win and probably win comfortably, although not as comfortably as Republicans have won it in recent years. My vote would not help Trump appreciably if it were cast for him, and it will not hurt him appreciably if I cast it for anyone else or fail to cast it at all.
So I’ll vote as I please, secure in the knowledge of our mutual agreement that I don’t have to worry about answering questions that don’t matter.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:49 amSammy,
Okay, so you’ve proven that Lynch doesn’t have to technically be re-nominated.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/11/2016 @ 9:50 amGreat.
But how is that even important to the point I was making?
The point remains that a Trump VS Hillary difference is that we’d have Chris Christie as AG rather than Loretta Lynch, right?
Professor Demosthenes,
Don’t worry, bud, we’re not planning to break into your house to steal your absentee ballot from you or force you to punch your absentee ballot for “Trump.” (LOL)
Your vote is your vote.
The general election vote is about principles, but it’s not about perfection.
The question is, ‘On the spectrum, which of the two is a little closer to my principles?‘
In this case, Hillary is horrifying, and Trump is bad.
But ‘bad’ still trumps ‘horrifying.’
So, yeah, Professor Demosthenes, I am voting my principles. Trump may not share many of my principles, but he’s a little closer than Hillary is. And in the real world, that’s often all we got.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:02 am@Bob Stewart:Gabriel, Boehner/Ryan and McConnell have followed your game plan perfectly.
They are not the ones I’m talking to.
How’s it working?
For them, very well. They’re in office, aren’t they? In the Majority no less.
How did gay marriage, men in women’s bathrooms, and open borders get shoved down the throats of an electorate that was hostile to those things? Who campaigns on them? No one. The people who are in favor of those things support people who get elected, and they got those things in exchange for that support.
People who want limited government and free trade need to get a seat at the table and work their way through the institutions, because the electorate does not want those things.
How did the Left do it? Just as I said.
Gabriel Hanna (a90637) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:06 am@Demosthenese:So your theory, I take it, is that conservatives should vote for their own D, just because he has an R after his name?
The most rightward viable candidate, as I believe Buckley put it. Even the Libertarians in this elections are Ds, at least as far as carbon taxes and gun-grabbing goes.
If you do not support someone who can get elected, you will get nothing. You will have nothing to offer those who have power in exchange, and the electorate does not want what you want.
Again, how did we get men in the women’s bathroom? What candidate campaigned on that? None. They empowered their supporters who cared about those things and saw that they got what they wanted.
Gabriel Hanna (a90637) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:08 am69. We could have Loretta Lynch – the important argument in her favor for Hillary would precisely be that she would not need to be re-confirmed by the Senate. Otherwise, I wouldn’t rate her chances at all high.
I wouldn’t rate the chances of Chris Christie as Attorney General as that high, but anyway what you’re discussing is the general idea. Christie is now head of Donald Trump’s transition team – charged with finding people to fill positions.
They’re talking (in a newspaper article) about Rudolph Giuliani not only as Secretary of Homeland Security but even Secretary of State. Giuliani says he’s not angling for any Cabinet position.
Newt Gingrich hasn’t been heard from in a while.
Sammy Finkelman (337057) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:12 am@Rev Hoagie: If Trump wins we have a shot. If Hillary wins we’re luck if we aren’t shot.
That’s about how I see it. If he wins with the support of the limited government and free trade faction–note I do not say “conservatives” since they do not in general favor those things–then he will owe them something and he will need their help to govern, since he will have no friends in Washington and none in the media.
If he loses, the free trade and limited government faction gets nothing: they get Hillary’s fascism. If he wins without the free trade and limited government faction, they get nothing.
Pretty simple. But not simple enough for Party of Stupid, who wishes to make their appeal more and more selective.
Gabriel Hanna (a90637) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:12 amJeff Sessions seems to be close to Donald Trump, and was responsible for what’s on Donald trrump’s website about immigation.
Sammy Finkelman (337057) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:13 amSchadenfreude is German, I was talkin’ about good ole’ American gloating. I do appreciate your condescending, superior attitude though. Since your pure and noble motives are far superior than mine by all means please don’t listen to little ole’ me. After all, why let the truth get in the way when you can crucify the motive? I’ll be in a “Basket full of deplorables” when you decide to dismount your high horse.
Rev. Hoagie® (785e38) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:20 ammom and dad said if you think you’re gonna pout all through dinner you can go sit in the dining room by yourself
you lose your place at the table, you see
happyfeet (28a91b) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:21 amTrump cannot change the libel laws, institute protectionist tariffs, go to war with Russia/sell NATO out to Russia (I forget which is the operative talking point this week), use the IRS to audit his critics, or nominate his sister to the Supreme Court merely at a word from his royal mouth. He needs the help of people in government to do anything. The civil service hates him and will continually drag their feet and leak about anything he tries to do, and the press will see to it that’s it not buried on A17.
So if he gets help from the faction that favors free trade and limited government, then some of the goals of that faction will get implemented. Not all, there will be compromises.
If that faction spits on him… well, they’ll get nothing even if he wins. And they for sure will get nothing if he loses.
Gabriel Hanna (a90637) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:27 am@ Cruz Supporter, #70:
It doesn’t sound like you are voting your principles, actually. Here’s why: you have to oppose “principles” to “perfection” for your argument to make sense at all. I will vote for a less-than-perfect candidate…I voted for Bush twice, then for McCain and Romney, and I had (and have) at least a few serious disagreements with all three men. I would have voted for literally any other Republican candidate this cycle over Hillary — all the way from my personal preference, Scott Walker, down to men with whom I have serious philosophical and/or political disagreements (Christie, Kasich, Jeb). So your implication that I’m looking for perfection, and will settle for nothing less, simply doesn’t hold any water with me, because it’s not true.
What is true is that, if given two choices, I will not just say “Well, Choice B sucks, so I’m voting for Choice A, and there’s an end on’t.” Choice A still has to give me a reason to vote. And Trump has not. You say that you believe Donald Trump, while bad, is a little bit closer to your principles than Clinton, and that’s enough for you. I would be willing to consider an argument like that. The trouble is that first you have to convince me that Trump actually has principles, other than “doing what’s best for Donald Trump.” (Which isn’t actually a principle…it’s just selfishness. But forget that for now.)
I’m being serious here. I don’t understand how you can say that Trump is closer to your principles. That implies, to me, that you know what principles Trump has. But when I look at the man, and the thngs he’s said and done over his several decades in public life, I see nothing he won’t do or say to advance his own self-interest — right up until the moment it doesn’t, at which time he has no problem switching his stance or his words. If a man like that is close to your principles, then I can only see several possible explanations.
1) You think that because of what he’s saying now, while not knowing about (or choosing to ignore) the high likelihood that what he says will change.
2) You have somehow managed to divine something about the “true” Trump that I haven’t seen…in which case, I’d like to know what it is.
3) You actually have no principles, and this conversation is beyond useless.
Which is it? Or is there another possibility I’m missing?
@ Gabriel Hanna, #72:
Ah, yes, the Buckley argument. I’ve made it myself, and meant it when it did. But as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t apply here. If I agreed with Trump 50% of the time, and Clinton 5% of the time (just to be generous to her, she’s having a rough day), then I wouldn’t have a problem casting my vote for Trump. But the numbers aren’t nearly that good in Trump’s favor. Again, just to put quantities to the problem, it’s more like 10% to 5%. And while 10% may technically make Trump “the most rightward viable candidate,” that doesn’t mean he’s rightward enough to be right. So I think a better use of my time is to move to the next candidate down the list whom I consider “rightward enough” to support (i.e., Gary Johnson), and try to make that candidate viable.
Will I succeed? Almost certainly not. But hey, at least I’m not selling out most of what I believe in. That’ll have to do this time.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:39 am@Deomsthenes:But hey, at least I’m not selling out most of what I believe in.
Right, you take your vote to be an expression of your identity, and in that sense you are not. But in the sense of getting a chance to see the things you believe in be enacted, you ARE selling that out with your vote for the Libertarians, who are, btw calling for carbon taxes and have described firearms as “weapons of mass destruction”.
Gabriel Hanna (a90637) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:45 am@ Rev. Hoagie, #76:
Po-TAY-toe, po-TAH-toe. The attitude is the same in either country. Only the word is German.
What truth, exactly, is that? What you said was, I should vote for Trump because of all the teeth-gnashing it would engender on the Left (especially in their institutions) if Hillary loses. Then you said how “sweet” that was to you. Nothing you said to me has anything to do with truth. It has everything to do with motive — your motive. You gave me nothing else to “crucify,” as you so melodramatically put it. So don’t be surprised when I hold a mirror up to you and you don’t like what you see staring back.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:45 am@Demosthenes: Five years ago, when people who supported gay marriage cast votes for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, on record for years having opposed those things, did they sell out what they believed in?
It seems like they knew exactly what they were doing and got exactly what they wanted, doesn’t it.
Gabriel Hanna (a90637) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:46 amMerde… er, sh!t but Mr. Continental would like to share some champagne with you…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:47 am@ Gabriel Hannah, #80 and #82:
This argument only holds water with me if I thought for a moment that I actually had a chance to see most, or some, or even a few, of the things I believed in enacted. And this argument does not hold water with me. I am not going to spell out the logical conclusion for you, but you may apply modus tollens to discover it for yourself.
And believe me, in any other election, I would not dream of voting for the Libertarian candidate. That I am not only dreaming of it, but planning on it, is a measure of how awful our two main parties have become. To the extent you are responsible for Trump and/or Clinton, congratulations on contributing to the decline and fall of the American republic.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 9/11/2016 @ 10:51 amTo people who keep saying Trump’s indistinguishable from Clinton, can you demonstrate that from his policy advisors? Or are they there to fake conservatives out, and once Trump gets in he’ll say bye bye to them and unveil a bunch of people from left wing think tanks? I guess the NeverTrumpers would say “yes of course they are”, which puts them in a category similar to 9/11 Truthers in my mind.
Gerald A (76f251) — 9/11/2016 @ 11:27 am@Deomosthenes:To the extent you are responsible for Trump and/or Clinton, congratulations on contributing to the decline and fall of the American republic.
Congratulations on remaining pure and unsullied by any kind of compromise.
As for me, I regard all governments as little more than protection rackets, and my morals are compromised by my participation in it. So I do not see my vote as an expression of the purity of my convictions, but rather as a necessary evil which I participate in to head off a greater. So no, I am not very pure. Not like you.
Gabriel Hanna (a90637) — 9/11/2016 @ 7:08 pm@Deomsothenes: Interestingly you did not answer my question:
Five years ago, when people who supported gay marriage cast votes for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, on record for years having opposed those things, did they sell out what they believed in?
It seems like they knew exactly what they were doing and got exactly what they wanted, doesn’t it?
Gabriel Hanna (a90637) — 9/11/2016 @ 7:28 pmOh, I didn’t realize I was supposed to answer. Okay, so here goes:
Yes, they got what they wanted. Although I would argue that one of the reasons they got what they wanted is because they knew, or at least strongly suspected, that they were voting for politicians who secretly agreed with them, and would be happy to back their side as soon as the tide turned.
Since my biggest criticism of Trump is that he is not only not reliably conservative, but not a conservative of any stripe…and will be happy to sell out anyone, including his putative allies, if it gives him something he wants…I’m not really sure how my acknowledgement that gay-marriage advocates backed the right horse can be spun into you persuading me to back the wrong horse. Because I don’t support Democrats for president, and Trump is one, no matter what the letter after his name may say today.
But I’m sure you think you scored some kind of win, so you’re welcome to it — hollow as it is.
Demosthenes (09f714) — 9/13/2016 @ 8:15 pmConservatives are wasting their dwindling energies debating where to cast a vote that best preserves a lifeline to a dying ideology.
That line has been cut. And they’re fast floating into the backwash of history.
Ideology is out. Pragmatism is in.
Recommended viewing: American Umpire.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 9/13/2016 @ 10:20 pmPragmatism is an ideology. It’s just a remarkably small, and small-minded, ideology that has little actual content and values the short term over the long. In other words, it’s for progressives who don’t want to think too hard about what to do next, and don’t want to work too hard to do it. See also: Dewey, John. #ButHeyYouDoYou
Demosthenes (09f714) — 9/14/2016 @ 3:48 pm