Hillary Clinton still hasn’t gotten over her loss and the “deplorables” who voted against her.
Speaking in India on Monday, Clinton bragged that the parts of America that voted for her were thriving economically and optimistic about the future. The parts that didn’t are cultural backwaters and too negative about the years ahead.
“Look at the map of the United States,” Clinton told her Indian audience. “There’s all the red in the middle where Trump won. Now I win the coasts, I win Illinois, Minnesota, places like that. But what the map doesn’t show you is that I won the places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product.”
“So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward, and his whole campaign ‘Make America Great Again’ was looking backwards,” she continued. “‘You know, you didn’t like black people getting rights, you don’t like women, you know, getting jobs, you don’t want to, you know, see that Indian-American succeeding more than you are–whatever your problem is, I’m going to solve it.'”
It’s a helluva message for a major American political figure to tell a foreign audience she only lost because her country is too racist and sexist. Add in the implication that parts of America with higher GDP should have more votes, and you have the ultimate “this is why you have Trump.”
Pretty much every commentator criticized Hillary’s comments as bitter and unseemly. However, the opinion she expressed is fairly common among America’s elite. The voters who delivered Trump to the White House are people with serious concerns, but folks who need to be utterly crushed.
And it’s not just liberals who believe this.
Last week, conservative Commentary writer Noah Rothman argued that vanquishing the forces that propelled Trump and European populists to victory is a better alternative than accommodation. “We often hear about how globalism’s losers and malcontents need to be understood and mollified, but they are vastly numerically inferior and lack the firepower their opponents possess. Why don’t we just defeat them?” Rothman wondered.
In a similar vein, fellow anti-Trump conservative Tom Nichols felt the best way to defeat Trumpism is to shame its biggest supporters after the president’s Saturday rally. “Listening to this speech hardens my belief that the hard-core rally-type Trumpers cannot be reasoned with, and should instead be shamed,” Nichols tweeted.
These aren’t new sentiments. Ever since the early days of the 2016 GOP primary, anti-Trump conservatives have wanted to banish and shame Trump supporters, regardless of their legitimate concerns. The nadir of this opposition came in the form of a few anti-Trump conservatives wanting to bring back Jim Crow poll restrictions to disenfranchise the white working-class.
Fortunately, most conservatives have come to terms with Trump voters and no longer believe they should be subjected to poll tests — with a few exceptions.
Unfortunately, plenty of liberals and Democrats have taken up the view that Trump voters are not worthy of their appeals — they should only be treated with contempt, as Hillary put it. Prominent commentators like MSNBC’s Joy Reid have argued that Democrats need to ignore the white working class and just double down on yuppies and minorities.
These deplorables are dying off and are too racist to be redeemable anyway. That was the message of Clinton’s infamous “basket of deplorables” comment in 2016, a remark that hurt her with actual voters but which liberal commentators defended as speaking truth to power.
That anger against Trump voters only increased with his victory and time in the White House. History was supposed to put the first female in office, the president who would open our borders to the promised multicultural utopia.
Instead, the people who claim to be on the right side of history found themselves on its losing end, all thanks to those deplorables. Ruining Hillary’s progressive opportunity only made liberals — and some anti-Trump conservatives — hate them even more.
Like a routed army nursing its wounds, many liberals can only think of vengeance. There’s no interest for understanding. “Trump voters deserve nothing, we must beat them into submission.”
There’s a good reason why Republican voters still overwhelmingly support Trump in spite of the media lecturing them all the time why they should abandon him. They feel like Democrats only want to punish them, and relish the idea of it, too.
It’s also no mystery why America is riven with polarization and distrust of the other side.
A 2013 poll shows that only one-third of Americans trust their fellow citizens, down from half in 1972. It’s unlikely that number has increased in the last five years. Low-trust societies aren’t known for their stability and unity, even though we are lectured every day that “diversity is our strength.”
Those who express skepticism against that mantra join the deplorables who need to be silenced.
Hillary herself may no longer be relevant, but her resentment is.
Trump isn’t going away anytime soon — expect more naked contempt for middle Americans from our moral superiors.
Follow Scott on Twitter and buy his book, “No Campus for White Men.”