You will have heard about Hillary Clinton’s infamous “deplorables” remark.
“To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Clinton said. “Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”
Of course, actual Trump supporters, who whine incessantly about “political correctness,” threw a fit and complained that Clinton wasn’t nice to them. Meanwhile, they’re assaulting Trump protesters again. Those who are not Trump supporters think that “half” is way too low an estimate.
However, I think “pitiful” is more accurate than deplorable.
Here’s a New York Times story that was published a couple of days before the “deplorable” remark. It’s one of those “educated well-paid East Coast reporter spends time with hick southern rednecks, tries to be sympathetic” stories. For example:
Far from the metropolitan hubs inhabited by the main beneficiaries of globalization’s churn, many people feel disenfranchised from both main political parties, angry at stagnant wages and growing inequality, and estranged from a prevailing liberal urban ethos. I heard a lot about how Obama has not been supportive enough of the police, of how white lives matter, too, and of how illegal — as in illegal immigrant — means illegal, just as robbing a bank is. For anyone used to New York chatter, or for that matter London or Paris chatter, Kentucky is a through-the-looking-glass experience. There are just as many certainties; they are simply the opposite ones, whether on immigration, police violence toward African-Americans, or guns. America is now tribal, with each tribe imbibing its own social-media-fed ranting.
I’m hearing him say “This species homo ignarus is like us, only opposite.” But maybe I’m not being charitable.
Hazard is in Perry County, where unemployment is above 10 percent. On a bench opposite the county courthouse, on the Starbucks-free Main Street, I found Steve Smith and Paul Bush. Smith used to work underground at the Starfire mine. He earned as much as $1,500 a week, but was laid off a while ago. His unemployment has dried up and he has four children to feed. His family scrapes by on his wife’s income as a nurse. He’d been in court over a traffic offense; now an idle afternoon stretched away.
“Trump’s going to get us killed, probably!†he told me. “But I’ll vote for him anyway over Hillary. If you vote for Hillary you vote for Obama, and he’s made it impossible to ship coal. This place is about dried up. A job at Wendy’s is the only thing left. We may have to move.â€
Trump has promised he will get the coal industry up and running again, but of course that’s not going to happen. A very long time ago someone should have been explaining to coal mine workers and their dependents that coal is going away and not coming back. And politicians in the state should have been pro-active in bringing in industries or something to replace coal. But nobody did that, and nobody ever talks to these people except to exploit them.
Jenny Williams, an English teacher at Hazard Community and Technical College, told me it’s past time to get over divisions between “Friends of Coal†— a popular movement and bumper sticker — and anti-coal environmentalists to forge a creative economy around agriculture, ecotourism, education and small-scale manufacture. Coal, she observed, was never going to last forever. “How could any idiot support Trump?†she said. “But when you’ve been on $70,000 a year in coal mines, and your life’s pulled out from under you, who else can you be mad at but the government?â€
This has been beyond obvious for a long time. But while the Trump supporters blame Obama, they should have been blaming the local and state officials and their U.S. Congress critters who did nothing to address the inevitable end of coal going back 20 and 30 years. Even now, according to the article, those same officials are asking for something to be done to save coal.
“We need Trump for a reasonable Supreme Court and an E.P.A no longer skewed against fossil fuels,†Bissett argued. “A lot of jobs here still depend on coal and cheap electricity. That’s why Clinton is toxic right now.â€
They still aren’t facing reality.
Back to the guys in front of the courthouse:
He was awaiting his son, in court on a drug charge for the painkiller Percocet. A retired operator of heavy equipment for the Road Department, Bush said his son did nothing, “just a few odd jobs.†He continued: “Obama’s probably never known hardship. He and Hillary don’t get it. At least Trump don’t hold nothing back: If he don’t like something, he tells you about it.â€
His son’s girlfriend emerged from the courthouse. “They locked him up,†she said.
“Why?â€
“He failed one of the drug tests.â€
“Well, ain’t nothin’ we can do about it,†Bush said.
 Like Trump ever suffered hardship, but let’s go on … The small-town and rural South and Midwest are being eaten alive by drugs. Not only is it one way to make money; it’s easier to set up a meth lab or whatever that won’t get noticed if you’ve got lots of woods to hide in, as opposed to a city. And you’ve got a population of people who don’t see a future for themselves, all too willing to self-medicate.
What’s happened to eastern Kentucky is devastating, but far from unique. At France’s diner, another popular Hazard hangout, Daniel Walker, who works from home for a medical software company, told me: “Look, I lived for a while in Mansfield, Ohio, and General Motors moved its stamping plant there to Mexico, with the loss of thousands of factory jobs. The decent middle-class life is gone.â€
This is the real complaint, and it goes beyond coal. Somehow, politicians saw that these big global trade deals would boost the economy overall, but they ignored the part about cutting middle-class workers out of the deal. All those factories closed; people were just supposed to find other jobs. But there were no other jobs, or at least, not jobs that paid at the same rate.
I can remember when George W. Bush promised Americans that it was okay to ship manufacturing jobs to India, because that would just create more jobs here in America. It was absurd, but I suspect he believed it. I suspect all of the people he ever talked to about economics believed it. Outsourcing creates new foreign markets; new foreign markets meant that companies here made more money. Obviously there would be jobs.
But doing what, exactly? That’s where the dots don’t connect. American companies made more money but had no work for American workers to do.
There are communities like Hazard County all over America, where there was once a factory or a mine or some sort of industry that paid good wages. Fifty years ago the boys could graduate from high school one day and get a secure, decent-paying job the next day. And with the money they made they bought cars and houses and kept money flowing through that community. That way of life is pretty much gone in the U.S., and nobody prepared the working class for it or even gave serious thought about what would happen to those workers when the industrial jobs dried up.
“Nobody” includes politicians of both parties. As long as their investment portfolios were doing well, everything was hunky-dory.
In a way, I can’t blame them for preferring the candidate promising change, narcissistic humbug though he may be, over the one who exemplifies the status quo. Yes, a lot of these workers are racist and xenophobic and badly educated, and they have no clue what’s really going on in the world. But who’s telling them anything about what’s really going on? Politicians? News media? Um, nobody, that’s who.
There’s a hell of a lot that politicians and captains of industry have to answer for when it comes to the hollowing out of opportunities for the working class to make a decent living. But the story is more complicated.
An anecdote: I graduated from high school a long time ago, from a school in the thinly populated “high desert” of southern California, and went off to an elite polytechnic. I must have been a sort of affirmative action case, because I was woefully unprepared. My high school was one where there was a single physics class offered…a single trigonometry class offered…but by gawd, if you wanted to take auto shop or metal shop or wood shop, you had a zillion choices. Not a single one of my friends went to college. They joined the military, or went to work doing construction, or working in a print shop, or pumping gasoline, and maybe took a few classes at a community college. One wound up getting busted, a few years after graduation, for dealing cocaine, and did time in prison. They were all from solidly working-class families, as was I. So what was different? It was this: my parents were very clear that they did not want us following in their footsteps. We were going to college, by gawd. My friends’ parents did not share this attitude.
My spouse grew up in a different part of the country, but her story parallels mine.
Why do these differences in attitudes exist? Why do some parents say to themselves that they want their kids to get an education, while others say to themselves that a job down at the mill should suit their kids just fine? I’ve got my ideas about this, but I’m not going to get on a soapbox.
Joel Dan Walls — I could tell a similar story, but “getting an education” is not the one-size-fits-all answer to this problem. That’s extremely short-sighted. Read this for an explanation. We either develop an economy that generates a mix of employment opportunities with decent wages, or we start talking about a guaranteed minimum income.
These folks aren’t stupid, or necessarily ignorant, or deplorable…”
Or, purposely bigoted.
They are ‘lost in space.’
A ‘space’ that is narrowing, and shrinking.
They are – rightfully – scared.
And Donald t-RUMP is playing to their fears – and promising antidotes and anecdotes to make them even more fearful and hateful.
That’s what dick-tators of all stripes do.
Yes, “It CAN Happen Here.”
Help GOTV in your area.
Only ‘WE the people,’ can stop it!
I, for one, can’t wait for this idiotic election to be over.
If t-RUMP wins, we will fully deserve the shit-storm tsunami of “TEH STOOOOOOOPD” that will ensue.
Please.
Help GOTV.
It’s the one thing Trump got right: trade does NOT benefit America (it does, however, seem to benefit a small subset of Americans, including, as we have seen, The Donald).
What’s with the picture? Don’t tell me that our national anthem is being played while that picture was taken. Kind of ironic considering the glaring desecration of the American flag in the forefront with make America great again emblazoned across it . Wow, just a big wow. I guess they don’t know any better.
Every month when the jobs report for the prior month is released the number of job openings is also announced. In August there were 5.8 million job opening in the United States. There are jobs available. Unfortunately the unemployed may have to move or retrain to get one.
Excellent article. To comment on two of the points made, I work in Pittsfield, MA, which is one of the hundreds of communities being ravaged by the heroin epidemic. General Electric and General Dynamics abandoned the town in the last 20 years, drying up about half of the existing jobs. It is interesting (and frightening) to hear where people point the blame: Obama, minorities, political correctness (!), political parties, etc. Nothing about “the System”, nothing about trade deals, globalization, environmental decimation (Pittsfield has a number of horrendously toxic sites as a reminder of the industries that abandoned them), etc. As for the drug problems, the comment I mostly hear is that the young people are “weak.” It is rare that I hear someone mention the loss of hope, the bleak job outlook that afflicts these abandoned towns.
During the primaries, there was a speech to West Virginia voters in which Hillary made the “mistake” of mentioning that coal jobs were going to vanish, and that the government should try to replace them with green energy jobs. The media treated this as a gaff, and she had to walk back her comments, which happened to be the truth. This is where we are, unfortunately.
Again, excellent article.
Chocura – “… the unemployed may have to move”… Seriously? You think that’s a real option for the people in that article about eastern Kentucky?
1. do they have thousands of $ saved for…
– moving expenses
– first, last, & deposit on housing
– living expenses between moving & getting 1st paycheck?
2. most of those 5.8M jobs (source?) are probably…
– at/near min wage
– part-time
– no benefits
3. and most of those jobs are probably in/near (coastal?) cities where…
– living expenses are much higher than the rural norm
– housing costs in particular are much higher, so…
– they could only afford to live in poor areas, among (brown?) people they distrust
– they have no family or social contacts/support, hence no safety net
– their accents & culture would mark them as alien
– they couldn’t augment their diet by fishing & hunting
I’m sure I could think of more problems, but I’ll wait until you come up with a way to answer these.
elkern — thanks; I was going to make the same points. As an Ozark Mountain girl who eventually ended up in Brooklyn — with lots of stops in between — I know what the adjustment is. Some of the young folks could do it; the older ones would be absolutely miserable. What it takes to live in a decent little house with a sizable yard in the Ozarks would maybe get you a rat- and cockroach-infested 5th floor walk-up studio in Brooklyn. And yes, they’d be very socially isolated even in the midst of all those people, when they are used to living someplace where their families have lived for generations.
I’d also argue that it’s worth trying to preserve communities. What happens to a sense of community if we’re all supposed to pull up stakes and move every few years to follow where the jobs are moving? What happens to money invested in schools? What happens to extended families? You don’t see it if you live in an urban area, but between loss of jobs and economic parasites like Wal-Mart the smaller towns where generations of people have lived are being sucked dry. Just telling people to move isn’t helping.
The article from the NYT was disturbing in a lot of ways. It’s pretty hard not to get a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach when you think about people losing their jobs and security. Anyone who’s ever lost a job will know the feeling well. Long ago, I read an article that said the sense of loss that people feel when they lose their jobs is equivalent to losing a loved one. That makes a lot of sense to me, maybe it’s a little more complicated because the loved one you’ve lost is yourself. When you lose a job, suddenly and unwillingly, you’ve become a different person, one in search of an identity.
But, as tragic as all of that is, technology and change are the genies that we continually let out of their bottles, and if we don’t do it, someone else will. There’s not much of a choice involved.
I found myself thinking about the Zimbardo experiment yesterday, and the idea of situationally attributed behaviors. You can project the experiment and its findings far more broadly. In a sense we are all shaped by the role we have. There is continual feedback, so our personality and sense of identity are progressively shaped to conform with our role, that is what we do, how others perceive us and what is expected of us. As time goes by, we become more and more accustomed to the situation.
When something goes haywire in the feedback loop, like the loss of privilege or livelihood the guards have to face the possibility of becoming prisoners, and things can get nasty.
Asheville is fairly close to us. It has the reputation of a progressive town, sometimes it’s compared to San Francisco because it has long had a free and visible gay and hippie remnant population. It’s a place for craft beer, vegan restaurants and shops that smell like patchouli.
We were spending a weekend there when Caribou Barbie made a campaign stop. A sudden chill came over the town as sidewalk commandos wearing camo came out of the hills to set up their T-shirt booths and hawk McCain/Palin crapola. In short, we got a glance beneath the window dressing. The incidents with the Trump campaign have definitely bumped it up a notch.
To comment on the purely political aspect of the “basket of deplorables” remarks: who the hell thought that that was some sort of catchy phrase? Who in the world would ever use such a phrase in real life? It sounds like a poor translation of something Marie Antoinette might have tossed out between bon-bons, and HRC used it not just once but twice. If you’re going to go the route of attacking some of your opponent’s supporters as a way of attacking your opponent (never a first choice, I wouldn’t think), it needs to be done better than that.
CH..I don’t think it was intended to be a catchy phrase. Hillary was faced with the problem of trying to separate the sheep from the goats among Trump supporters. The reality is that there are many Trump supporters who are misguided but well intentioned and support him with honorable motives. But there is an even greater element of the Trump supporters who support him for reasons and motives that are deplorable. Although it can never be ascertained to what degree that “basket of deplorables” holds sway over Trump’s support, it can’t be denied it is a viable presence. And Hillary was right to point that out.
Sorta like the Christian adage…Hate the sin, but love the sinner. Except in Hillary’s case she should have said.. I hate the bigotry, xenophobia,racism, homophobia and denigration of women that Trump promotes, but I love the Americans who respond to his message.
Donald Trump revealed that his medical check-up has him weighing in at 267 lbs.. Wow, that goes to prove I was correct when I said he was a big bag of shit. I could be going out on a limb here as I have no formal medical training, but given Trump’s 70 years of age and excess poundage coupled with his reddish complexion he very well could heading in the same direction as Ariel Sharon (medically speaking)went. The heart can only take so much. Also add to that the fact that Trump lacks any real physical exercise and has a fondness for fast foods and diet coke. Mr. Creosote move over?
I have not yet read the previous comments, putting the cart before the horse perhaps, but here goes. My wife and I just got back from a two night mini vacation in S.W. Florida ; Naples is where we stayed, visiting the lower keys, Everglades City, and Sanibel Captiva on the way home. If you want to be blown away, visit Naples. The city has THOUSANDS of estates on manicured Jungle sites, many the size of several city blocks. There are quite a few currently under construction. The same is happening in the lower keys and on Sanibel / Captiva islands, where the mansions have names. At any rate, if you think America sucks, you may be a wage earner or a small business owner. The mega wealthy are doing just fine. My wife took some photos, I’m tempted to get my gopro and do a film on the inequality that exists in Florida. Don’t get me wrong, I like nice things, but estates the size I saw in Naples ( which are probably winter residences) are a bit “over the top”, especially when we can’t get people to understand that fifteen bucks an hour is no longer a luxury. Got to go.
Deplorable – I’d call the leadership that, which includes all their plotters and schemers and strategizers of a dogma that cannot fail but only be failed (unless you’re a power insider). Pitiful are the masses who can never seem to learn what’s deplorable.
I’ve known both deplorable and pitiful in the same. There’s a righty blog that tries to rationalize the disparity between Jesus and Darwinian ‘freedum and liberdy’ with a sort of philosophic deepness. Now, I’ve worked in fairly technical fields. I learned that if I come away from any explanation with a confused unsatisfied feeling, after trying hard to ‘get it’, the issue is usually with the explainer, not me. Something doesn’t jibe. A square peg is being jammed into a round hole somewhere. And Einstein did once say that if one can’t explain something to a six year old, they probably don’t understand it themselves. It sure seems like the author of said blog is self-obfuscating. More to the topic, he blames all the new youthful liberalism on public schools. Where I see young people coming to view the system for what it is – rigged against the outsider, he sees a hidden brainwashing agenda brought on by devil inspired liberals. His rationalistic thinking is pitiful, his behavior towards anybody who disagrees, deplorable.
Swami: From what I have heard about Trump, he eats fast food, doesn’t exercise, only sleeps 4 hrs./night. This seems like a heart attack waiting for the right time. On the other hand, he doesn’t smoke or drink and that could be in his favor. My mother never exercised, wouldn’t drink water (she preferred coffee) and ate whatever she wanted and lived to be 94yo. I thought I would follow in her footsteps but also led what I determined to be a healthy lifestyle, didn’t smoke or drink etoh in excess, ate healthy food and drank plenty of water. I think my only vice was coffee. I certainly never planned on having a heart attack but it happened. The experts tell me it was family history that got me. So there are a lot of variables in a person’s life that influence what happens. Then too, Trump may do things we don’t know about. Anyway, he is not who I want as President.
Erinyes: If there is any justice in the world, a hurricane or the rising sea will demolish all those fancy houses you saw.
Speaking of not paying taxes on expensive homes, the Epipen scandal CEO will be testifying before a house panel tomorrow. Be interesting to see how much deplorable is in her pitiful comments (or the reverse). Be nice to get her daddy up there too, but that might be wishing for too much.
Grannyeagle, I’m quite sure they are well insured. Remembering when Hurricane Charlie grazed Sanibel / Captiva in 2004; the place was swarming with Mexicans doing the clean up work. Everything that would bite, sting, or irritate a person was out exponentially, it was extra hot and humid. It took a couple of years for the jungles to re grow, but tropical plants have evolved to do just that quickly.
Bill. so good. I have written a bit of a comment and the typical players have been so good but your input is a bit new and deserves credit. No one yet, has shown insight into the alt-right. Swami has insight about the “Christian” hypocrisy. I think Hillary wimped out. Pathetic was the proper term not a basket of…. (pick a better damn synonym).
Do any of you understand that America has already lost in world opinion with our nomination of the King of the pathetic. We do not need to double down on stupid.
Trump kicked off his campaign with some of the most vile, racist hatred ever spoken in public by a public official of that stature, finding the sweet spot of support on the right. He built on that approach, adding violence, David Duke and white supremacy along the way, and won with it.
Some try to mitigate his supporters by saying they are frustrated over the economy, but it can be fairly said that this campaign is all about hate:
1. Some support him because they hate the economy because “those people” seem to be benefiting at their expense.
2. Others support him because they hate “illegals” and Muslims, and those not like them.
3. And many of his supporters are with him not because they love him but they hate Hillary; because she’s a woman, a Clinton, or just because.
These feelings wouldn’t change in a booming economy. They might not be as prevalent, but they would still be there.
This is a campaign of hate, by a hateful narcissist driven by jealousy whose public life has never shown any signs of love or positivity for anyone or anything, outside of himself. Even his own family is not exempt from abuse.
Psychoanalyzing the reasons his supporters are with Trump in order to mitigate their obvious moral trade offs in supporting someone like this is charity they don’t deserve. These are people steeped in a prideful, willful ignorance, animated by fear and hatred, so much so that customs and rules they have judged others by (“family values”) now don’t matter.
This is why Trump is their GOP nominee, and the deserve each other. And this is why Clinton MUST step it up and not just win this election, but run away with it.
“I must have been a sort of affirmative action case, because I was woefully unprepared.”
The purpose and real time application of affirmative action has never been to address the “woefully unprepared” but those whom society has woefully denied the opportunity to compete on a level playing field, through racial, gender or other forms of social discrimination.
As for jobs and the economy, political leaders on both sides of the aisle have been derelict in preparing solutions for this time when jobs would be fewer, and in some locales vanish, due to globalization, technology and population growth. Telling people to move where the jobs are is not a solution, and its not as simple as it sounds.
I moved a year ago to take a job in a smaller city. Not because I had to move, but because I liked the job that was offered and the location. I earn what would be considered an upper middle class income, but even with that it was a burden. The cost was well over $6K and I’m still paying for it.
I can’t imagine the frustration of being trapped in “coal country” or some other economically depressed area, and having to live with the implication that its your own fault for not having a job because you won’t simply move to where the jobs are.
Yeah, it’s not these pathetic kings / bags of shit, who’ve always been everywhere. It’s the faith such large follower groups place in them after long they should’ve been dismissed and laughed away as the self-serving troublemakers they are. You can’t do much to change a shitbag since they’re basically incorrigible. But I struggle for some sort of cultural antidote for their pitiful followers, who are far greater in number. If the shitbags are tapping into some kind of animal instinct found in the susceptible, how does one de-program the zombie believer? I’d think realistic answers would also be useful for dealing with schoolyard bullies, workplace mobbing, destructive CEOs, trillion dollar “quick operation†war POTUS’ where reputable predictions of disaster were compelling… anywhere where the single power-crazed yet incompetent sociopath operates. How does one counter whatever it is they do to get so much power?
Trump kicked off his campaign with some of the most vile, racist hatred ever spoken in public by a public official of that stature, finding the sweet spot of support on the right.
Trump cast a net of fear and paranoia when he launched his campaign. Like a fisher of men he drew in the multitudes of spiritually diseased souls.. The bigots,the racists, the xenophobes, the homophobes, the sexists, and every assortment of moral degenerates that could be found in the spiritual realm.
He did it all with just the simple pronouncement of.. “They are sending”. There is no they. The “they” that Trump refers to is a threshold crossing into the principality of fear and insecurity. The people who found solace in Trump’s message are battling with their own demons while Trump represents the only avenue of victory for them in their diseased minds.
There is a passage in scripture that says.. Don’t distress yourself with imaginings. And that reminds me of the old Kentuckian who voiced his fears back in 2008 when President Obama was making his first run for that office. The old man said he wouldn’t vote for Obama because he didn’t want to ride at the back of the bus.
The coal lies told are one of the things that bug me in a special way. Coal jobs have been shrinking due to better technology, and probably due to the advent of mountain-removal mining (I reckon you don’t need as many people to help dig and shore up the mine shafts when you’re going to just level the mountain).
Coal just isn’t a good fuel – it’s plentiful and that’s about the best you can say about it. It’s no wonder the market is shrinking.
But rather than tell these people “look, no matter who’s in office, coal is going away” they blame it on someone who has nearly no influence on these factors.
And yeah, yeah, politicians lie all the time, and they blame the other side for things they didn’t do. But there’s something especially nauseating about leading people on, pretending to give a damn about them, all the while knowing that every single thing you’re telling them about the issue that’s most important to them is a tissue-thin lie.