Sidebar TGIF 9/2/22: Barack and Hillary Were Right, Too

President Biden's comments in Philly got me thinking back to when two other prominent Democrats got themselves into hot water talking about Republicans.

Here's what Barack Obama said that got him into hot water with the media and the Republicans, who purposefully ignored the most important part of his point: that people who are either ignored by politicians, or who are repeatedly given promises that are not kept, and to at least some degree, were never intended to be kept, are rightfully and understandably angry and frustrated with politicians. 

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

And, here's is what Hillary Clinton said that got her into hot water with the medial and the Republicans, who gleefully ignored the most important part of her point: not all of Trump's supporters are worthy of disdain, and that only a Trump supporter can put themselves in a basket.  

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? [Laughter/applause]. The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — 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 offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.

But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

Both statements are inelegant, at best, but they are not the evil, hateful statements they were cracked up to be by the media, the punditry, or the Republicans. 

The media, which has an obligation to report the truth, and to separate news articles from opinions, didn't do a good job with either of these statements. Too often, they would report on the most inflammatory parts and, if you read the rest of the article, you could probably find a link to the entire quote. Of course, they know how few people read the entire article, right? Oh, hell - let's be honest - they know how many people read only the headline. 

The pundits, with no such obligation to the truth, blatantly ignored anything other than the most incendiary words - it was as if the rest of the quotes were not even spoken. I remember watching clips from the talk shows and the cable shows, and if anyone tried to mention the full breadth of the comments, they were shut down immediately: "Yeah, but he said..." "Yeah, but she said..."  "Yeah, but no one's going to remember that part, they're only going to remember the part that we're talking about..." "Yeah, but..."

The real villains here, in all three cases, IMO, are the Republicans who whole-heartedly embraced the soundbite, particularly Clinton's 'deplorables' comment. They owned it! They put themselves in that basket, they put their colleagues in that basket, they put their donors in that basket, they put their constituents in that basket, and they put everyone who voted for any Republican in that basket.  

It was almost as if they didn't even know there was a whole nother basket of Republicans who were not "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic - you name it." And if they knew those people existed, they sure didn't care about them when they accepted the title of "deplorable" or, in the case of Obama's comment, when they accepted the title of "gun-clinger," "religion-clinger," "antipathist," "anti-immigrant," or "anti-trade."

I remember talking with Republican friends who said Clinton called them a deplorable, and when I explained only they could choose the deplorables basket, they were confused. And silent.

And the Republicans who were not the people Obama and Clinton were talking about? That so many of them stayed quiet while their party leaders and elected representatives called them names is something I still don't understand. 

And the same thing is happening with Biden's comments, which were talked about as if he had smeared every Republican in the country, when he very carefully said he was talking about only a specific subset of the GOP: Trump's MAGA Republicans - the ones I call RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only. 

RINO, of course, is the name he gives to Republicans who disagree with him, or who don't vote with him, or who don't beg for his endorsement... you get the drift. If you don't put him first, you're not MAGA, you're a RINO. And, if you're with him, you're an American; if you're not with him, you're definitely not one. Don't believe me? Check out a recent survey question from Trumpworld.

No one - no one - in the past seven years has said worse things about Republicans generally, and about specific Republicans, than Donald Trump. No one - no one - in the past seven years has done more damage to the reputation of the Rs than Donald Trump and his supporters.

Don't blame Barack Obama. 

Don't blame Hillary Clinton. 
Don't blame Joe Biden. 

The Republicans who are spitting mad about Joe Biden calling out Donald Trump, MAGA Republicans, and MAGA extremists today have no one to blame but themselves. 

And no one said it better than Trump-defending Sen. Lindsey Graham: 

You did. You did. And you do.

Random Thoughts 6/1/21

This is the first post I've managed to write in over three weeks. It's not for a lack of trying - I've spent quite a bit of time researching, outlining, and then deleting posts, feeling little compulsion - and less ability - to put thoughts to screen in any useful way.

The news of late is disheartening, disconcerting, and discouraging. My frustration level with the goings-on in various red states and with Republicans politicians is through the roof, and not being able to dump all of that out of my head has been interfering with my mental health.

Fortunately, I've had ample time in my garden over the past several weeks, which has been my saving grace. Weeding, planting, transplanting, deadheading, mulching and the like - the simple tasks - keep me moving forward. Major transitions in the garden - moving and installing structures, paths, and edging, allow me to prove to myself that I can finish things, and that my writing paralysis is not an all-encompassing inability to function.

And while I do get help from My Sweet Baboo now and then, my garden is 'my' garden, and it's up to me to make it work. I know that it does, because people regularly stop to check it out. I see smiling people, looking closely at different plants, pointing at flowers and what not, and I hear them talking, to themselves or whoever might be with them, about the garden.

If' I'm outside working, they'll call to me, and tell me how much they like the flowers, all the different plants, and how it makes them happy. They'll call me over to tell me they make a point to walk by at least once a week, to see what's new.

They tell me about their gardens, their mom's garden, their grandmother's garden. They ask for help, what to do with such-and-such a weed, or what the purple plants are, or that big bush over there, can they grow one of those, too? I've even been asked, more times than I can count, if I live in the house, or if I'm 'the gardener.' I smile and say it's both. They don't mention the weeds, and they don't see the long list of tasks I have yet to start, and that helps me smile, too.

There's room for everything in my garden. Bulbs, perennials, and annuals. Ground covers and vines. Trees and shrubs. Colorful flowers and glorious foliage. Aromatics and unscented blooms. Plants for all seasons, from very early spring to the last breath of fall. Plants that thrive in full sun, in full shade, and somewhere in between, which is where I thrive, too.

With all the hours I've been spending in the garden, I've come to the realization that I've been looking at Republicans all wrong. They're not evil people from the dark side, from some bizzaro world, a parallel America. Well, maybe they're that, but they're also gardeners. It's true.

Look at all the time they've spent - years, when you think about it - sowing seeds. Seeds of doubt. Seeds of hate. Seeds of fear. Seeds of anger. Seeds of rage. Seeds of control. Seeds of division. Seeds of conspiracy.

They're gardeners, carefully tending their crops, nurturing their harvest, and reaping the rewards.

They are passionate about ripping out plants that are the wrong color, the wrong zone, the wrong fill-in-the-blank. They are passionate about making sure they only nurture the right plants, the ones that will thrive under their particular care. Poor performers? Tossed. They cover their crops with manure, layers deep, and feed them a regular, stringent diet designed to achieve uniformity, nature be damned. And invasive species that dare set foot in the garden? The only method they know is a path of scorched-earth eradication. They've no patience with trying to understand, nurture or rehabilitate; no understanding that one man's weed is another man's flower.

They're gardeners. Just like me.

Except I'm growing love, sharing joy, spreading happiness. I've got the garden that a man told me he walks an extra mile with his dogs just so he can stop and look. I've got the garden that a woman just had to tell me about some flowers she saw a couple of streets over, and gave me the name of them because she thought they'd be a great addition to my collection.

Now, before you get your trowels and hoes all up in arms, I'm not throwing every single Republican onto the woodpile. That would be unfair, and I don't want to label them; I'd rather let them label themselves. Think back to Hillary Clinton's 'deplorables' comment. We've heard it a million times, but people forget she said half of Former Guy's supporters were deplorables - so if someone chose the label, they probably owned the label.

The same is true here. Are all Republicans the kind of gardeners who sow divisive, hateful seeds? Of course not, any more than all Democrats or non-affiliated people (that's what I am, these days) garden the way I do - hopefully, impulsively, inclusively, imperfectly. But if you do choose the label, if you are one of those deplorable Republican gardeners, I feel sorry for you.

If you're a Republican and you walk around your party's garden, and you see the goals and the methods and practices used to try and achieve them, I really wish you would ask the folks tending the garden why they have chosen to plant so much darkness and fear, so much anger and bitterness.

At the very least, I hope you know that there are other seeds your party could be sowing.

Trump in Transition (v41): Transition Complete

The president continues to try and convince us he's not a racist. "Not a racist bone in his body" we're told, even though his comments over recent years could inspire a person like me to think otherwise.

What's a person like me? Someone who was born here, someone who votes in every election, someone who tries to pay attention to what's going on locally, at the state level, and in Washington DC. Someone who understands that she has a right to complain about the state of things in this country - a guaranteed right to do exactly that, in fact. Someone who is proud of her country, even as it frustrates her.

Three of the president's four most recent targets were born here - they originally were from America, just like I am. The fourth came here as a child refugee, and has been a citizen longer than the First Lady.  All four of them are duly elected representatives of the districts they live in, whether the rest of us like it or not. They are entitled to their policies, their opinions, and they have the absolute right to express them, just like I do. And just like the president does. (I said the women are his most recent targets; the of them is long, I can assure you; here's one example if you need refreshing.)

But let us, for a moment, take a stroll down memory lane, to a time in the not-so-distant past, when the words you see below were considered to be beyond the pale, so far beyond the pale that they helped cost Clinton the election.

We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, just to be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables, right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic - 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 have only 11,000 people - now have 11,000,000. He tweets and retweets their offensive, hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks - they are irredeemable but thankfully they are not America.

Almost three years after Hillary Clinton's comments were leaked, where do things stand?

• Trump continues to act deplorably, to the delight of his deplorable supporters. I will repeat, "just to be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters"  - not all of them - into that bucket. They are the vocal segment of his people, the ones who repeat and expand upon and embellish his hateful comments like the ones he made the other day. 
• Not only do his deplorable supporters expand upon those remarks, Trump himself expands upon them. For example, when asked if it concerns him "that many people saw that tweet at racist and that white nationalist groups are finding common cause with you on that point" Trump answered "It doesn't concern me because many people agree with me." There was more expansion and escalation, but that one comment pretty much sums things up.

In an opinion piece in The Week last October,  in the aftermath of the bombing at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and the pipe bomb mailings, Damon Linker addressed some of this, saying in part

Every president is elected by a distinct electoral coalition, and the coalition that elected Trump included an unusually large number of people with virulently illiberal, extreme right-wing views - the kind of people who normally find both major-party nominees far too blandly centrist to inspire much enthusiasm. 

Trump's messages - birtherism and his denigrating comments against Mexicans and Muslims included - spoke to the deplorables, and he's still talking to them today. Linker also pointed out that Trump speaks to his voters with "what one might call his habits of mind" including hostility to the media, his embrace of conspiracy theories, and his "refusal to distance himself from far-right people and ideas." They love him for that, and he loves them for loving him.

The problem with his habits is the impact they have on the rest of us. Going back to Linker's piece,

We can never know what's truly in another person's heart - and that's especially true when the person lies with the unrestrained abandon of our current president. The question of Trump's "true views" is utterly irrelevant. What matters is what he says, and its effect on the country. And on that there can be little doubt. Trump spews his hateful poison into the civic culture of the country day in and day out.

I think it would be hard for someone to spew this stuff day after day, week after week, month after month, without actually believing it. I don't believe he is an actor of any skill, any more than (at least so far) he's proven himself to be a great deal-maker, or that he's shown he can "act presidential."

He believes what he says, I'm sure - and he believes in what he says, I'm equally sure. And in that regard, his transition is complete. Trump is the president of the deplorables.

He may still be the president of some (or all) of the other 50% that Clinton mentioned, but we will only know them by their condemnation of his blatantly racist tweets.