Earlier this year, Hillary Clinton tried to demonstrate that she planned to fight for West Virginia coal miners, despite her statement that she was going to put a lot of coal companies out of business.
During a visit to Williamson, when she was asked directly by out-of-work miner Bo Copley about her words, she said, “I don’t know how to explain it other than what I said was totally out of context for what I meant because I have been talking about helping coal country for a very long time.”
As I’ve said before, Clinton had to have an iron constitution to venture into coal country to try to sell the message that she will work for all those who are struggling, not just people who support her. Frankly, that’s powerful, and one we would hope for. The President never has everyone’s backing, but they are still the President of all the people.
However, Clinton undermined her own argument during a fundraiser last Friday when she said, “To just be grossly generalistic (sic), you can put half of the Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Clinton said. “Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”
She added, “And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to have only 11,000 people, now they have 11-million.” She said some of these people are “irredeemable” and “not American.”
In fairness, there is another part of the speech that’s often left out of the discussion. She also said there is the “other basket” of Trump supporters “who feel that the government 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 matter even where it comes from.”
But even that comment is patronizing because she is suggesting that those voters only support Trump because he’s different, that they have not thought through their decision.
The next day she apologized and tried to clarify. “Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’—that was wrong.” She added that she would continue to call out bigotry and racism in the Trump campaign.
There are two possibilities here: Either Clinton was trying to throw some red meat to a friendly crowd of Democratic donors or it was a “Kinsley gaffe,” where the politician accidently tells the truth. It’s similar to Mitt Romney’s infamous comment to contributors during the 2012 campaign that 47 percent of Americans would not vote for him because they depend on a government check.
The problem with the original Clinton comment is that Trump supporters or voters leaning toward Trump cannot know to which Clinton basket they fall. Are they a “deplorable” or just someone desperate for change?
The “basket of deplorables” further ensures that Clinton has no chance of winning in West Virginia where Trump already has a significant lead. Added to the coal comment, it serves to further distance Clinton from a large swath of West Virginia voters who are already skeptical of her.
Additionally, the comments also make it increasingly difficult for Democrats running for office, who struggle to strike a balance between sharing West Virginia values, while also supporting the candidate at the top of the ticket.