Vivian Medithi
Is the Ku Klux Klan deplorable? I wish that in 2016, this wasn’t a topic for debate. Yet, when asked on Sept. 12 whether Louisiana Senate candidate David Duke, the former grand wizard of the KKK, was deplorable, Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence said he wasn’t “in the name- calling business.”
This question was, of course, presaged by Hillary Clinton’s comments on Sept. 9 at a fundraiser in which she characterized half of Trump’s supporters as belonging to a “basket of deplorables,” racists, homophobes, Islamophobes, sexists, and other bigots who don’t represent America. She’s used the metaphor in the past, but like Mitt Romney’s 47 percent remarks in 2012, most took offense to the quantification of her metaphor, rather than the words themselves.
Clinton has backtracked from her comment ever since, while Trump has been repeating it ad infinitum to press the advantage. Certainly, Clinton’s statement lends credence to the widespread sentiment that she does not relate to the everyday American. Still, Clinton doesn’t consider “deplorables” everyday Americans, either. Clinton said the other half of Trump’s supporters are everyday Americans who feel let down by the system and see Trump as offering some hope, however small it may be.
Clinton’s statement was a gaffe; how it will affect her standing in the election will play out in the coming weeks. But more disturbing is the eagerness to misconstrue her words, both in the media and the general electorate, as though the content of her statement were wrong. Her numbers might be off, but she is 100 percent correct about the two major groups of Trump supporters: disillusioned everyday citizens and open bigots. We should call these bigots deplorable, because they are. To say that they are not is tantamount to validating their worldviews and suggests that their opinions are equal in worth to the lives of those their hate is directed.
Pence’s unwillingness to call Duke deplorable and Trump’s refusal to openly rebuke white nationalists who support him have been interpreted as tacit approval not just by the “politically correct left” but by white nationalists themselves.
Frankly, even the second basket, the voters Clinton wants to reach out to, are deplorable, too. Trump’s campaign is built on explicit bigotry against Latino, Muslim, black, and LGBTQIA communities. Trump himself is deplorable as well, and his public actions over the last year have led to rebuke even from hard-line Republicans. From public fights with Gold Star families to the wide range of racism he’s espoused, deplorable almost seems too kind a word.
Politics requires a certain degree of finesse, appealing to one’s base constituency with harder policies while wooing middle America with more moderate language. At the same, sometimes things can be labeled in a manner that reflects what they are truly are, and a basket of deplorables is a basketful of deplorable people.