Hillary Clinton was right about the "deplorables" -- and about the end of Roe v. Wade

[marmar]

Hillary Clinton was right about the "deplorables" — and about the end of Roe v. Wade
Still hate Hillary's guts? Fine. But let's admit that she saw all this coming — and way before the rise of Trump

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 7, 2021 6:30AM


(Salon) During her 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton warned us that Donald Trump and his "basket of deplorables" were a threat to American democracy. She wasn't a prophet. She was simply offering a reasonable analysis based on the available evidence — and she paid an enormous political price for daring to tell that truth in public.

Two things can be true at the same time. Russian interference may well have played a role in Donald Trump's unlikely electoral victory in 2016. But it is also true that Clinton's truthful but politically unwise comment about the "deplorables" helped to swing the momentum — with the help of an eager and compliant mainstream news media — in Trump's direction.

Clinton's description was in fact about much more than the disreputable people who flocked to Trump's banner. It was also a warning about the regressive politics and antisocial values that Trump's followers represented (and still do), including cruelty, racism and white supremacy, sexism and misogyny, collective narcissism, anti-intellectualism, an infatuation with violence, proud ignorance and support for fascism and authoritarianism.

....(snip)....

Hillary Clinton warned us about this as well, as Colbert King noted several months ago in the Washington Post:

I'm also sick at heart because five years ago, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton put the country on notice that this day could come.

While celebrating the Supreme Court's June 27, 2016, decision rejecting two restrictive provisions in a Texas House bill regulating abortion, Clinton warned in a campaign release that the fight for the right to access health care, and for women to make their own decisions about their bodies and their futures, was "far from over."

She stated, presciently, "The fact that our next president could appoint as many as three or four justices in the next four years" is a striking reminder "that we can't take rulings like today's for granted."

Clinton left no room for speculation. "Just consider Donald Trump, the Republicans' presumptive nominee. The man who could be president has said there should be some form of 'punishment' for women seeking abortions. He pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. And last year, he said he'd shut down the government rather than fund Planned Parenthood."

And Clinton made clear the consequences. "If we send Trump to the White House and a Republican majority to Congress, he could achieve any — or all — of these things. And that's why this election is so important."

"The outcome of November's contests," she declared, "is going to be a deciding factor in whether our elected officials and our courts defend or attack a woman's right to health care for generations to come."

Transforming a democracy into a fascist-authoritarian state is usually a process, not a singular spontaneous event. In the United States in this decade, this has taken the form of one of our two institutional political parties becoming increasingly and openly hostile toward the very idea of multiracial and pluralistic democracy. .............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/12/07/hillary-clinton-was-right-about-the-deplorables--and-about-reproductive-rights/

[RKP5637]

1. It's often hard to tell who the media in the US is working for and their intent in the

big picture ... whatever brings in the most money they seem to side with good or bad for the future of the US. Great journalism has pretty much been trashed in the US IMO. There are some excellent journalists left ... but for the most part it's not mainstream. I think Rachel Maddow and her team do a great job of researching for factual information.

[TheRealNorth]

2. A lot of RW's are in charge of the editorial decisions

So if you are a low-information voter that only browses the story headlines, you can be influenced by biases headlines.

[RKP5637]

4. Yep, exactly what happens. Headlines only readers. n/t

[Ray Bruns]

3. Yea, but what about her e-mails?

[RKP5637]

5. I think Russia gave them to Dump, oops, Ex-president