with the message articulated four years ago by none other than Secretary Clinton herself.
Unfortunately, many missed it, because it came as part of the "deplorables" message, in the coverage of and reaction to which it got largely lost or obscured. But I encourage everyone to take a moment, if they've forgotten or never knew, and really read through ALL of what our beloved Secretary actually said in that speech...
"You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? [Laughter/applause]. The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.
But this next part is where she addresses exactly the people of whom you are speaking...
"But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroine, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."
It
is important that we impress upon people the fact that
why one votes for an evil man does
not lessen their culpability for the evil that ensues, but at the same time, we should be very mindful that that very same "why"
does determine whether or not they could become a worthy and sincere ally, given proper outreach. And particularly right now, when the entire Republican Party is self-immolating, it could be a very beneficial thing indeed to more properly assess who should be condemned and who should be rehabilitated.
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