Credibly
With Clinton resting, Trump launched some of his sharpest attacks yet against her. He said in a speech Monday in Baltimore that her “deplorables” comment “disqualifies” her from being president — and that if she does not retract it, “I don’t see how she can credibly campaign any further.”
That disqualifies her – that one word, said one time – but the constant repetition of “Pocahontas” doesn’t disqualify him? “Mexicans are rapists” doesn’t? “Blood from her wherever” doesn’t? The bankruptcies don’t? The unpaid contractors don’t? The unpaid workers don’t?
Meanwhile, over the weekend the very right-wing governor of Kentucky said some things:
When conservative Christians gathered in Washington, DC, this past weekend for the annual Values Voter Summit, prominent Republicans, including Donald Trump and Mike Pence, delivered a series of tirades against transgender and abortion rights and pledged to defend Christian values from a Hillary Clinton presidency. But it was a speech by Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, in which he stated that bloodshed might be necessary if Clinton is elected, that emerged as perhaps the most shocking address from the weekend event.
“Whose blood will be shed?” Bevin said. “It may be that of those in this room. It might be that of our children and grandchildren. I have nine children. It breaks my heart to think that it might be their blood that is needed to redeem something, to reclaim something, that we through our apathy and our indifference have given away.”
Onward Christian soldiers.
On the contrary, Trump, you pathetically transparent disaster of a human being, I’m not sure anyone who _doesn’t_ call you out for normalizing what you have, emboldening the worst among us, enflaming the discourse to the point that white nationalists just seem oddly à propos–I’m not sure anyone so easily sleepwalked into ruin as that has quite the ethical centre days like these apparently demand of us. So Ms. Clinton, in speaking of ugly truths, just rose in my estimation, on balance; haggle all you like over just _what_ proportion of your supporters are in what basket… and do let’s also talk also about those apparently not sufficiently put out by your unvarnished stirring of hatreds, and those they now find themselves standing beside…
Ah, but that you would try to rule directing attention in this direction out of bounds so shamelessly, well, listen, pal: just consider it added to your rap sheet, I guess.
.. Oh. But I’d like to apologize for that, actually. To qualify a mite, even. As I may have misspoken, in my haste…
… yeah, please add ‘disgusting’ between ‘transparent’ and ‘disaster’ above…
(… all in the name of precision, see.)
I wonder if this gaffe is actually a problem… the deplorables would never vote for her anyways and she wouldn’t lose any existing supporters over it I’d imagine. Is anyone that finds that statement mean someone who could’ve been swayed in the first place.
Blood Knight, interesting question.
I wonder if he’s more trying to drive people away from discussing this because he fears those among his supporters who’ve only provisionally reconciled themselves to the company they’re now keeping waking up and walking out. Humans are social beasts, and I think to a large degree his survival to now has relied upon a redefining of acceptable boundaries. Anything that snaps them out of this, breaks the spell, too directly addresses what he really is could be trouble, so he’s trying to give _them_ room to think, oh, _that’s_ what’s out of bounds, calling our associations what they actually are.
So no, it’s not meant to buy him new supporters. It’s to preserve room for those feeling uncertain about all this to stay.
“Calling me an unpleasant word disqualifies you from the presidency, you bitch!”
You know, Blood Knight, there is a group of people that might believe she is talking about the entire working class, and making a statement on a par with Romney’s 47% (in fact, there have already been some who have suggested that). People who believe Trump’s supporters are good-hearted people that he has led astray because he promised to bring jobs back.
Then there are those who will seize on this as just another data point in how corrupt and awful Hillary is because she said something that wasn’t totally polite.
@iknklast:
People that believe Trump’s supporters (as a whole) are good-hearted people are also deplorables. Again, I dunno what effect this is gonna have (especially compared to the pneumonia bit); I’d like to see what 538 comes out with next week.
I don’t even get what Trump’s point is. Calling your opponent (or your opponent’s supporters) an insulting name might be bad politics, but why would anyone think it disqualified someone from running for office?
Trump and the Deplorables will latch on to absolutely anything if they think they can wring some advantage from it.
Not to mention a large dose of pot/kettle/black on Trump’s part there.
Ben – Trump and his supporters seem to think everything about Hillary disqualifies her from running for office. They latch onto things that to most of us would be merely faux pas, and in many cases not even that, and claim they disqualify her from running for office. It really comes down to one thing, I suspect – she is not male – but they are just in touch with reality enough to realize that they really can’t quite come out and say that, so they use the disqualifying language for everything but her being female.
The loony right has been talking secession and assassination against every Democratic president since Clinton. We didn’t have social media to fan the hysteria…AND we didn’t have the media playing ‘fair and balanced’ or ‘reporting the controversy’ around deranged trolls.
When they come for us will they be wearing red crusader crosses on their chests? could be a bit dangerous for them wouldn’t you think?
@John the Drunkard
We did have that second thing. We had Whitewater and endless accusations endlessly discussed on the cable news networks. Joe Conason called it The Hunting of the President.
I remember watching the rise of Ann Coulter on cable news in horror and amazement. And if you’ve read David Brock’s Blinded By the Right, you’ll know she was an active player, behind the scenes, in The Hunting.