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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   34098 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 29, 2024

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but it likely cost Dems the 2016 election

I wasn't fully tuned in back then (nor am I now), but I don't remember the Dems going high back then. "Basket of deplorables" comes to mind. But maybe my perception was skewed because back then I was listening to a lot of conservative outrage bait.

"Basket of deplorables" was such an anodyne remark. Especially since she hedged it by admitting she was being "grossly generalistic" and then went out of her way to clarify Not All Trump Supporters. And then proceeded to backpedal even further almost immediately and apologize for saying even that much. "Some of my opponent's supporters are bad" is probably near the mildest sentiment a politician running for office can express without total rhetorical capitulation.

She said "about half".

So if she had said "1/3" surely there would have been no complaining and right-wingers wouldn't have ridden the "THEY CALLED TRUMP SUPPORTERS DEPLORABLES" hobby horse for the next several years.

  • -11

1/3 is still a large amount. Either one is pretty clearly a lot stronger than "some of my opponents supporters are bad".

I don't believe there was some smaller number she could have used that would have failed to inspire the same reaction her actual comments did. It was just the usage of "Trump supporters" and "deplorables" in the same sentence which made for a great soundbite. About comparable to Mitt Romney's "47%" remark.

If she had said 0.1 percent, it would have probably failed to inspire the same reaction.

Doubt it, the following (calling them racist, sexist, homophobic, islamophobic and implying "some" of them were irredeemable) was just too juicy to pass up.

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