"You know, to just 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 ... Now some of these folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not Americans."
What are we to do think of this? Is it even right? When Hillary Clinton stated this on a campaign stop, she was sick, clearly fatigued, and likely fed up with all spiteful rhetoric coming from the other side. We get that. But one wonders if it's ever a good thing when a candidate, especially for president, to speak about voters in such toxic words -- even claiming some aren't Americans. It's not because the customer is always right, it's just that the voting citizen is usually holding the power to decide who wins in such a vital campaign.
But there's a larger story here and it's a global one. As politics in the affluent West continues to flatten out and lose its lustre and support from average citizens, people become divided, sometimes to the extremes. Gender inequality, poverty, immigration, refugees, austerity economics -- these and much more are pressing voters in countries around the world closer to margins of intolerance and it gets us to some things unthinkable a generation ago. Normally tolerant people are getting frustrated with the inability of their political leaders to ease the tension points of modern life.
When the politics of resentment comes from the Left, the Right, and even the Centre, the road to democratic decline appears like an open freeway.
Millions, for good or ill, might be fascinated by Donald Trump, but the fissures dividing the various populations across the European continent show the extremes all this can lead to. In places like Austria, France, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Italy, and Finland, right-wing nationalism is on the rise as growing disillusion with the European Union, millions of refugees, and sluggish economies induces normally centrist nations to veer to the right.
Such movements, spread across a large number of nations, have caused many to wonder if Europe's progressive tolerance is sliding back into a more extreme age. It certainly appears that way, and as the number of European elections is played out in these next two years that sentiment might actually be confirmed in troubling terms. Normally liberalized populations appear tired of affirming that certain liberties must be placed aside for the common good. Right now they are seeing nothing common or good in what is going on and their voting priorities are shifting, at least temporarily.
In many of these countries, the intolerance was speeded up by spokespeople from the status quo "tolerance" camp and their denunciations of many of their citizens as xenophobes, Islamophobes, homophobes -- in short, the language Hillary Clinton used in her campaign speech.
When civilized society feels OK about demonizing others in the name of tolerance, you have a problem that doesn't necessarily require Donald Trump to become president to alienate much of the population. When the politics of resentment comes from the Left, the Right, and even the Centre, the road to democratic decline appears like an open freeway.
Even if Hillary Clinton was right in her definition of Trump's followers, she was wrong to exacerbate tensions already at a boiling point.
The current politics of labelling and resentment is dangerously coming from all sides of the political spectrum. Citizens themselves will hold hard to opinions across that spectrum as well and this must be respected. But what we require is a context where our differences are discussed with respect and a sense of compromise. Donald Trump has delighted in blowing that pretense out of the water. Making alienated people even angrier is his modus operandi, but it's a foolish game to utilize similar techniques on the opposing side.
Many Democrats and Independents are feeling isolated, too, but the majority are progressive in their leanings and should those they look to for leadership dumb down the conversation into heated name calling, not of the opposing candidates, but citizens themselves, then the fight for a common place of respect is finished. That will be true in coffee shops or in Congress itself, as we have seen in recent years.
Even if Hillary Clinton was right in her definition of Trump's followers, she was wrong to exacerbate tensions already at a boiling point. At least she apologized for a portion of her remarks. America can't be a light to the world if it continues to present itself as a divided house falling into civic darkness. Since both Clinton and Trump speak frequently of how they respect Abraham Lincoln, they should hearken to his words: "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
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