Hillary Correctly Calls Half of Trump’s Supporters "A “Basket Of Deplorables"

The Republican Party loves to slander and stigmatize members of minority groups, "liberals," gays and many others, but the proved how thin skinned they are when Hillary Clinton rightly called out the misogyny that motivates a significant portion of Donald Trump's base of support.  Specifically, at a New York City LGBT gala fundraiser where Barbra Streisand performed, Clinton said many of the GOP candidate’s voters were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”  All in all, a 100% accurate description of many rank and file Trump supporters, especially those who call themselves evangelical Christians.  It got even better when Clinton said, as Joe Jervis reports, the following:

Clinton urged the crowd to volunteer for her campaign, saying: “If you know anybody who’s even thinking of voting for Trump, stage an intervention.” . . . She joked: “That may be one conversion therapy I endorse. Just remember: friends don’t let friends vote for Trump.”

The wailing, whining and crocodile tears now coming from Trump and the GOP underscores the hypocrisy that has become a leading hallmark of today's Republican Party.  They believe they can say all kinds of foul things about Hispanics, blacks, Muslim, gays and anyone else who isn't a part of their white "average American" crowd of Neanderthals and that is all perfectly fine.  Just don't call Trump supporters out for what they truly are.  The New York Times looks at the hypocrisy and feigned outrage.  Here are excerpts:

Mrs. Clinton’s comments Friday night, which were a variation of a sentiment she has expressed in other settings recently, came at a fund-raiser in Manhattan.

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” she said to applause and laughter. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

By Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Clinton had acknowledged her stumble. “Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea,” she said in a statement. “I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong.”

She then used the opportunity to double down on her criticism of her opponent. “It’s deplorable that Trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia,” she said, “and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including by retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people.”

A spokesman for the Trump campaign, Jason Miller, said what made Mrs. Clinton’s comments particularly off-putting was that she made them “in front of wealthy donors” and that the setting and statement, “revealed just how little she thinks of the hard-working men and women of America.”

Mrs. Clinton made a similar remark on Israeli television on Thursday, saying “We’ve always had a kind of paranoiac, prejudicial element within our politic.” But she did not specify how many of Mr. Trump’s supporters fit into that category.

It was the characterization of “half of Trump’s supporters” on Friday that struck some Republicans as similar to the damning “47 percent” remark made by their own nominee, Mitt Romney, in his 2012 campaign against President Obama.

Her remarks on Friday were a more pointed version of her earlier criticisms of the movement her opponent has spurred.

Last month in a speech in Reno, Nev., Mrs. Clinton devoted an address to criticizing Mr. Trump for “taking hate groups mainstream” and “helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party.”

In talking points given to surrogates on Saturday, and obtained by The New York Times, the campaign advised anyone speaking about the “deplorable” issue in the news media to reiterate that while Mrs. Clinton intended to say “some” instead of “half,” Mr. Trump, as she had pointed out in the past, “has clearly brought the alt-right’s hate into his campaign and into the mainstream.”

The talking points advised that anyone who is pressed on the “deplorable” remarks should assert that the news media was holding Mrs. Clinton to a different standard than Mr. Trump, with this suggested rejoinder: “Are they going to make more out of this story than they made out of the racist, misogynistic Trump comments that got us here in the first place?”

True to form, some in the media are carrying water for the GOP on the issue and ignoring the groups Trump insults at nearly every one of his rallies, engaging in their routine false equivalence of Trump's daily outrageous remarks and one by Clinton that is all too accurate.  Part of the motivation for this, of course is due to the undeserved deference given to Christofascists who wrap their hatred of others in the cloak of religion.  Hate is hate, no matter what the excuse given to justify it.  Much of Trumps base is made up of people who simply put are NOT nice or decent people. Hillary got it right.  

Is Florida Even a Swing State Anymore?

While Virginia has been often called a "swing state" in presidential elections, this cycle, the polls are showing Hillary Clinton running well ahead of Donald Trump.  Indeed, the chairman of the RNC recently more or less conceded that Virginia was a lost cause for the GOP in 2016.  Now, a piece in The Daily Beast suggests that Florida is poised to follow Virginia and become a blue state in 2016 and beyond.  The facts set forth make sense and ought to strike terror in what's left of the so-called Republican establishment.  Here are story highlights:

Remember a couple months ago when Reince Priebus tweeted that electoral college map showing how he thought Donald Trump could get to 270?

The RNC chairman had Trump winning Ohio and Pennsylvania. And Michigan. And Wisconsin. And Minnesota. Yes, Minnesota. Which is going to be such a blowout that no one’s even polled it since April.

There was lots of chortling about all that, as you might expect. But the chortlers missed what was by far the most interesting thing about Priebus’s map: He ceded Virginia. The chairman of the Republican Party acknowledged that Virginia is gone. It’ll still elect Republican governors, of course, but for presidential election purposes, Virginia is now blue. To give you an indication of how blue: Hillary Clinton has temporarily stopped running ads there.

You know what they say about Florida: must-win state. The urgency is there even in the way they say the word, is it not? Close your eyes now and conjure with me the image and sound of Wolf Blitzer saying: “And breaking news from the must-win state of Flo-rida...”

Actually, it’s only a must-win for Republicans, as I’ve noted before. Democrats have plenty of paths to 270 without Florida. Republicans, none.

You will also hear them say a kajillion times until Election Day that Florida is a swing state. Well, yes. It has been historically. But the combination of massive demographic changes since 2012 and Trump’s anorexic performance among college-educated whites makes me wonder if Florida is a swing state this year at all. And while the Republicans might nominate a normal candidate in 2020, the state’s demography is galloping away from the GOP.

In sum, 2016 could be the year that Florida stopped being a swing state.

First, demography. Florida’s minority population is now above 40 percent, with the Hispanic population at around 25 percent (PDF). In addition, Hispanics are registering to vote in large numbers, and they’re heavily Democratic.

This is partly because younger Cubans lean strongly Democratic, an obviously sharp departure from their grandparents. All South Florida Cubans support the normalization of relations with Cuba, for example, except those older than 65, and even among them it’s awfully close. . . . And the change is also because of a huge influx of Puerto Ricans into the state. 

One recent Florida poll put Trump at 13 percent among the state’s Hispanics. If that’s close to right, Clinton gets 80 to 85 percent of the fifth of the overall vote that’s Latino, and 95 percent of the 14 percent that’s African American. That’s 30 percent right there, and it would mean she’d need only around 35 percent of the white vote to win, maybe even a little less. [S]aying that it will take an unusual occurrence for Trump to have a good shot of winning Florida—is significant. It’s basically saying that at least in presidential years—clearly not in off years, until Democratic constituencies vote in larger numbers—Florida leans blue. And although the Republicans presumably won’t nominate a sociopath in 2020, the demography is just going to be that much worse for the white people’s revenge party.

Because everybody knows that if Florida is over, the race is over, and no one’s going to care, and ratings will suffer, and ad revenues will tank. So it’s of vital importance, to the cable news nets especially, that Florida be held in the “too close to call” category for as long as possible, which means that—you’ve seen this movie before—there may be six polls showing Clinton up by seven to 12 points, but when that one comes along showing it at four, it’ll get 17 times the airtime as the other six combined.

The second moral has to do with the Republican Party and Reince Priebus. Just as I was finishing up this column Monday afternoon, I saw that the chief spokesman of the Florida GOP, a son of Honduran immigrants, was quitting his post to pursue a “new opportunity to continue promoting free-market solutions while avoiding efforts that support Donald Trump.”

The cowardice of Priebus and the whole GOP establishment this past year has richly earned them defeat in Florida. Once upon a time, the GOP at least came close enough in Florida that they could steal it, banana-republic style. Looks like those days may be gone.

Hillary Up By 10% as Trump's Mental State Dominates Campaign Chatter

The last two days have been a self-inflicted cluster fuck for Donald Trump as his erratic behavior has some Republicans talking about replacing him as the nominee after he drops out of the race.  Simultaneously, some reports have senior GOP officials purportedly taking Trump to the woodshed for a thorough thrashing.   While all of this is going on, a new Fox News - that's right, right wing Fox News - poll has Hillary Clinton up by 10 points over Trump.  If we (actually, the nation) are lucky, Trump is entering the beginning of his long overdue implosion.  First, these highlights from Fox News:

Sixty-one percent of voters think Hillary Clinton is dishonest, yet she’s opened up a big lead over Donald Trump in the latest Fox News Poll.

Here’s why: majorities think Clinton is nevertheless qualified to be president, and has the temperament and knowledge to serve effectively. It’s the opposite for Trump: over half feel he is not qualified, and lacks the temperament or knowledge to lead the country. And his 62 percent dishonesty rating tops hers.

After the conventions, the Clinton-Kaine ticket leads the Trump-Pence ticket by 10 points (49-39 percent) in the race for the White House. Clinton’s advantage is outside the poll’s margin of error. A month ago, Clinton was up by six points (44-38 percent, June 26-28).

Since last month, Clinton’s position is improved with most groups, as she gained ground among men, women, whites, Democrats, young voters, and seniors.

The Democrat is winning among the so-called “Obama coalition,” the key voting blocs that secured his re-election. Clinton is favored among women by 23 points (57-34 percent), blacks by 83 (87-4 percent), Hispanics by 48 (68-20 percent), and voters under 30 by 18 (49-31 percent).

As if this latest polling isn't enough to terrify Republicans, now one of the prevailing memes across the main stream media is that Trump is mentally unstable and that and intervention is needed to save the GOP from disaster in November.  NBC News looks at this aspect of the GOP's self-inflicted conundrum.  Here are excerpts:

As Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's verbal gaffes have mounted and his penchant for lashing out at his political opponents has continued to escalate, it's become in vogue for critics to earnestly raise questions about Trump's temperament and his mental stability.

Terms like "narcissist" and "sociopath" have been attached to his name as routinely as Trump attaches that name to his buildings. Many of Trump's GOP allies have been publicly apoplectic about his unorthodox (some have argued virtually non-existent) campaign, his contradictory statements regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin and his critical remarks about the Muslim-American parents of a slain Iraq War hero.

The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson even wrote a column this week asking:"Is Donald Trump just plain crazy?"

On MSNBC Tuesday, Joe Scarborough said he's heard similar questions from party insiders. "I fielded calls all day yesterday, from conservatives, from Republicans, from officials, people that the media would call right-wing bloggers ... and everybody was asking about his mental health," the "Morning Joe" host said. "It was all everybody was talking about yesterday ... everybody was calling me saying, 'What's happening to him?', 'What is wrong with him?'"

Dr. Justin A. Frank, a Harvard-educated psychiatrist and author, knows a little something about the mental states of presidents. . . . Frank sees Trump as a "brilliant" salesman and showman who has more in common with theatrical performers like Judy Garland or the fictional lead character in "All That Jazz" than anyone with a pathological disorder. So far it seems Trump's unpredictable instincts have served him well in business and in the 2016 campaign, and although Frank compares the GOP candidate's behavior "to somebody who is under 10 years old," it's actually Trump's followers who have Frank more unnerved.

According to Frank, Trump's repetition of phrases ("believe me") and pledges to single-handedly absolve the fears of the electorate have struck a chord, and have appealed to voters who crave reassurance regardless of the facts. Frank says this dissonance has inspired a "hot" internal debate within the psychiatric community about whether its appropriate to be more outspoken regarding troubling aspects of Trump's public persona.

[Trump] has already started to float a conspiracy theory that the general election will be"rigged" against him, which some have interpreted as a way to cast doubt on a potential defeat. Others have speculated that Trump's entire campaign may simply be an elaborate launch for a new media empire. Scarborough suggested Tuesday that Trump doesn't actually want to govern, he simply wants to emerge victorious, a theory Frank finds plausible.

Some of us who said Trump was crazy and dangerous months ago now seem to have had foresight on the issue.  As for Trump's base of support, it consists of hate and fear driven Christofascists, white supremacists and those who would rather embrace ignorance rather than face having to think and/or deal wit a changing world and society,  If there has been any positive aspect to Trump's campaign, it has been to expose the moral and mental rot of evangelical Christians who have been only too happy to rally to his hate and lied filled campaign. ,