The Clinton Rules: It’s True But You Shouldn’t Say It Edition

It strikes me as obvious that Clinton’s much-discussed “deplorables” phrase was a Kinsleyian gaffe — a politician’s statement that gets criticized not because it’s false but because it represents a truth that is supposed to remain hidden. It is well-established that many of Trump’s supporters hold views that are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and/or Islamophobic. It is plain that Trump’s candidacy rests on mobilizing supporters with these views. Whether these views are “deplorable” is not an empirical question, but 1)they are and 2)most people (including most of the people attacking Clinton) presumably would agree that such views are deplorable in any context but Hillary Clinton saying it.

So what is the gaffe, exactly? I admire Barbara Ehrenreich’s writing on any subject but electoral politics enormously, but I can’t say this helps me:

If you have contempt for the alt right, that means you're an "elitist snob," apparently pic.twitter.com/mNrBOkkE0y

— Elias Isquith (@eliasisquith) September 12, 2016

So Donald Trump is a “proto-fascist.” We can safely assume that Ehrenreich considers proto-fascism deplorable. But it’s wrong for Hillary Clinton to call the views of some Trump supporters “deplorable”…why? Because we should assume that no significant faction of Trump supporter actually agrees with Trump’s proto-fascist views? I don’t think it’s Clinton who’s being the snob here.

Again, just to pre-empt an all-too-popular move, the fact that many of Trump’s supporters have deplorable views does not mean that liberals should abandon them. Expanding Medicaid in all 50 states would help some bigots. That’s fine! But spare me this idea that it should be taboo to accurately describe the views of Trump’s supporters.