Hillary campaign released this video on September 13, 2016 pic.twitter.com/LrojmcsSjA
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) August 15, 2017
Now CNN’s Dan Merica figures it out…
Many of Hillary Clinton’s top aides sat nervously a year ago this month as their boss stepped up to a podium in Reno, Nevada to decry then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, accuse him of “taking hate groups mainstream” and come close to labeling him a racist…
There was a deep internal debate within the Clinton campaign on whether the former secretary of state should give a speech that directly challenged Trump’s views on race, according to interviews with more than 10 former top Clinton aides, some of whom asked to speak anonymously because of their current roles in Democratic politics. As Trump contentiously defended the alt-right on Tuesday, though, these former aides were left feeling with one overriding sense: Hillary Clinton tried to warn us.
“This is what I want to make clear today,” Clinton said, flanked by American flags at Truckee Meadows Community College. “A man with a long history of racial discrimination, who traffics in dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far reaches of the Internet, should never run our government or command our military.”
She added: “He says he wants to make America great again, but, more and more, it seems his real message is Make America Hate Again.”…
Clinton responded to the violence in Charlottesville by tweeting Saturday that “the incitement of hatred that got us here is as real and condemnable as the white supremacists in our streets,” adding in a later message that “every minute we allow this to persist through tacit encouragement or inaction is a disgrace.” Clinton has yet to respond to Trump’s news conference Tuesday, but to the aides and advisers that helped shape her August 2016 speech, her response was given a year earlier.
There was deep debate between a wide array of aides whether a speech from the candidate on Trump and race would be well received and whether the message could be delivered without it being cast as nothing more than an already subterranean political discourse going lower.
Clinton, according to an aide, said at one meeting about the speech that she was not prepared to call Trump a racist, something reporters would later ask her directly.
“I don’t know what is in his heart,” Clinton told her top aides, “but I want to lay out the facts.”…
Best practice, if you’re trying to persuade people: Not He is a racist — that leads to derailing arguments — but That was a racist thing he said/did/lived. Because it doesn’t matter what Donald Trump ‘believes in his heart’, whatever Ivanka or Sarah Huckabee Sanders might say; what matters is what he says, and does, and enables.
Maybe Trump wasn't duped, and hired a campaign full of alt-right leaders & Russia allies b/c he has his own affinity for alt-right & Russia?
— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) August 15, 2017
Or—just as damning—he’s not bothered by their ideology, so he hired people whose overt racist beliefs made them unemployable w other R’s https://t.co/6kzUMcFvir
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 15, 2017
um, yes of course. E.G. this from Clinton staffer whose job was monitoring Trump https://t.co/QpTmswLgOI
— MyNameIsStillWithHer (@FakeEmily65) August 15, 2017
Not every Trump supporter was deplorable, but just about every deplorable was a Trump supporter.
And likely still is.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 16, 2017
Mike in NC
Deplorables is much too benign a word, when “fucking assholes” would fit a lot better.
Major Major Major Major
Yeah… man, this last year and a half has really resulted in me not having any respect for most so very many people’s political opinions. Including those who were more concerned about ‘optics’ than the fact that Hillary was accurately describing a white supremacist campaign (and doing so pretty mildly at that).
My Berner friends weren’t even aware of her alt-right speech. Neither were my non-Berner friends for the most part, because the media is useless. They were probably covering an empty podium or something.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
Has SHS sort of disappeared lately? KA Conway is on more again. Does Katrina Pierson have an official role?
fuckwit
I remember hearing about that speech when it happened. And reading the pearl-clutchers, and looking at the quotes, and thinking she didn’t go far enough.
“basket of deplorables” my ass. They’re NAZIs.
Shalimar
@West of the Rockies (been a while): I haven’t seen Sarah Sanders since Trump went on vacation, but i’m assuming that means she didn’t travel to New Jersey and isn’t giving press conferences while he is gone.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
Ah, that would make sense.
Ruckus
@West of the Rockies (been a while):
Any answer for any question of something the drumpf maladministration may have done or of any personnel changes will never make sense. Whatever logical answer may make the most sense will turn out to be wrong, if only because drumpf’s world is always nonsensical. No normal human being will ever answer any question or make any decision that makes less sense than drumpf’s entire cadre of morons.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: The media should get rid of their political operations(reports and editors) and replace them with entertainment staff. Or did that already happen?
Arclite
Of course WE’RE all appalled. Flyover states? Not so much.
Also, I bet the blacks are all: “Oh, a white girl dies and NOW you fucking get it?”
(Not us at BJ, but MSM, totebaggers, etc.)
Amir Khalid
This is an example of a thing that still mystifies me about Hillary’s candidacy. She did say all the things that people claimed they needed to hear her say. Indeed, she’d been saying much of it for many years. Yet so much of what she said hardly got reported at all, and she wound up getting a lot of crap for failing to say it. It was a disadvantage she didn’t deserve. I have to hope the next Democratic nominee for President has as much to say as Hillary did, and gets treated better.
Gvg
@Amir Khalid: we have been complaining about the media for many years and it goes a lot further than Hillary reporting. Supposedly it is caused by news not making money because craigslist killed the newspaper classified funding of papers but that doesn’t really explain tv news. It’s seen as entertainment. I hate it but I don’t know how to fix it.
Funny how many seem to have woke up since Trumps election. Maybe they need to be needed really urgently in order to learn to do their jobs. Prosperous times maybe ruined them.
NotMax
Very early feelers to Anne Laurie, if you would be so kind, regarding a NYC meet-up sometime on Labor Day weekend.
First off, would Friday, Saturday or Sunday night of the holiday weekend work best for people? Partial to Sunday myself, as that would likely provide a less crowded locale.
Villago Delenda Est
Oh, we know what is in his heart. He’s exposed it, like a flasher in a trenchcoat. What is in his heart is ugly. For anyone who calls themselves a “Christian” to support him is to tell Jesus to fuck off and die.
Viva BrisVegas
@Amir Khalid:
Republicans spent 25 years traducing Hillary and it worked.
It was one of the most successful media disinformation campaigns in modern history. Right up there with Nixon’s Southern Strategy.
There were enough people in enough states who had over 25 years completely absorbed the right wing messaging about Hillary. They cannot be convinced that she is not the devil incarnate any more than you can convince the average North Korean that the sun and the moon don’t shine out of Kim Jong Un’s arse. Both groups have become enveloped in a fantasy world constructed by master propagandists.
At the time of the election I thought that not enough credence was being given to how hard was the hill she was climbing.
Even though I was dumfounded by her loss, there was still a voice in the back of my head that said “It really worked. 25 years of tireless effort to bring down one person, just on the off chance she might end up a candidate. That’s a degree of obsession that sane people just can’t match.”
sharl
@Arclite: The black folks I’m seeing on twitter – especially those living in Charlottesville – are deeply respectful of, and full of praise for Heather Heyer. I think the distinction here is that Heyer put herself in harm’s way, despite being worried how the day might go (that came out in subsequent interviews with friends and family).
The thing that causes groans and head-shaking of the type you described among black folks and other POC, is when CNN and similar outlets exhaustively report on a cute young white blonde coed injured or killed in a shark attack, while somewhere else a POC mother of three, or her kids, or all of them, go missing under suspicious circumstances, and the story gets buried on page A-6 as a two-paragraph brief note in a newspaper no one reads.
What black folk say quite a bit is that permanent and widespread relief from systemic racism will only happen in a significant way when us white folks become engaged in that struggle, since from a racial perspective we paleskins still represent the dominant “culture”, and numerically we are at least the largest plurality in the U.S. if not (still) the majority.
If there’s movement in Charlottesville to rename that infamous park after Heather Heyer, I predict there won’t be many objections from black folks, at least not from those who live in the area.
NotMax
@sharl
Indeed, she is as much a casualty of racism as were Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman during the 60s.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Viva BrisVegas: It’s been going on longer than 25 years, Republicans in Arkansas were scared shitless that Hillary would be President. This started when Bill was Governor.
Cacti
She was right about everything.
They are deplorable.
Bernie was full of shit. There’s no economic message that will make them stop hating.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
I swear this is how it will go in 2020:
WWC: “We don’t care about identity politics. We just want jobs.”
DEMS: “Ok, here’s our plan for jobs.”
WWC: “Thank you for listening to us.” [votes for Republicans]
Kathleen
Hillary had the courage to speak the truth about racism. For Bernie and his cult to accuse her of being corrupt and the Dem party of being “spineless” is egregious, especially considering he’s never put himself at risk politically. Never.
Kay
I love him for insisting on continuing to bring this up because he’s right and they’ve never admitted it- the coverage was ridiculous. Bad. Obsessive. Inherently misleading because the obsession elevated the email issue ABOVE all the other issues.
They can continue to deny it but the fact is there’s X amount of total coverage in a campaign span and choosing to obsess on one thing means they AREN’T covering something else. Take your pick on what that “something else” is. It doesn’t even have to be “one candidate is an unapologetic and blatant racist”. It’s ALSO “we didn’t cover healthcare. At all. Because we would not fucking shut up about her emails”.
I would go further. I would say The New York Times specifically, led on this obsession, this obsession that led to excluding coverage, that led to not covering anything else, and they should admit it and apologize and fire some people.
If they’re working 8 hours a day and they’re spending 6 hours out of 8 talking about emails that means they AREN’T doing something else. They’re wrong when they say the email obsession didn’t EXCLUDE covering other issues. OF COURSE it did- they don’t have unlimited time and space. They prioritize. They have to. They decided to cover Hillary Clinton’s email server INSTEAD of health care for 28 million people. Instead of Trump’s racism. Instead of trade or environmental issues.
Nate Silver brings this up once a month because 1. it’s true and 2. he’s show it to be true by adding up the total coverage of the respective issues and comparing that to email coverage, 3. they’ve never admitted it’s true.
Kay
I mean think about what they’re saying when they say “we didn’t cover Trump’s unfitness because we didn’t think he would win”
WTF is that? Who told them it’s their job make that call and adjust their coverage accordingly? He wasn’t some fringe 3rd Party candidate. He was the nominee of one of the two major parties and he was polling w/in 2,3,4 points of her. “Oh, health care for 50 million people isn’t REALLY at risk so let’s spend another work day speculating on the character implications of Hillary Clinton’s email server management practices”.
They looked at these two candidates and “email server management” was the CHARACTER issue they thought should trump all other character issues. They’re bad judges. They make poor decisions.
It really is like there was a 4 alarm fire raging down the street from the offices of the New York Times and they were obsessed with covering something less important so they missed it. Because they can’t cover everything. 6 hours a day on one thing means something else doesn’t get done.
NorthLeft12
And this from a woman that many, many Americans thought could not speak without lying. It took a lot of courage to make that speech, and I guess it is cold comfort to be proven right.
She would have made a very, very good President IMO.
NorthLeft12
@BillinGlendaleCA:
It
THIS^^^^! A million times THIS^^^^! They have been spreading lies and hate about this woman from the moment they knew about her. She scared them shitless, and they did everything in their power to smear her. Effing Republicans.
NorthLeft12
@Viva BrisVegas: Reminds me of the scene in the Two Towers when Théoden despairs, “What can men do against such reckless hate?”
Kay
@NorthLeft12:
Hindsight is 20/20 and the Benghazi coverage should have been a tip-off. We shouldn’t have run her because they are incapable of covering her in any way that makes sense or isn’t completely insane. This is the reality we live with and we should have known not from the emails but from Benghazi, because Benghazi coverage preceded email coverage and it sucked too.
CNN led the garbage Benghazi coverage, specifically Jake Tapper, and then the NYTimes led the garbage email coverage and everyone else followed those two outlets.
NorthLeft12
@Kay: Yes, even up here in Canada we would hear the bleatings from our own “liberal” media about the political problems that those two issues posed for Hillary Clinton. And I remember thinking “but its all bullshit”.
Kay
@NorthLeft12:
We know she would have been a normal President. She would have been within the norms of the general society and generally accepted Presidential practice.
“Fit or unfit?” is a much lower standard than “good or bad?” He doesn’t even reach “good or bad”. With these two we don’t have to wonder whether she would be good or bad because he’s below that whole tier and there were only two.
Baud
@Kay:
We should have been there for her. It was petulant whining on our side from Day 1. Had our own side acted with some maturity, she would be president.
But maybe our side can’t change and we need to take that into account in our decision-making.
Kay
@NorthLeft12:
Here’s the worst part. I think the coverage of both Benghazi and the emails was influenced by which outlet “broke” them. Jake Tapper did the interview with the Susan Rice that (supposedly- it was complete bullshit) found the Susan Rice Smoking Gun and that’s why they flogged it. The NYTimes broke the email story and that’s why THEY flogged it. This was about product promotion, not Right wing bias. The product they produced was those stories and they were “placed” more prominently than all others- like displaying the cereal you want to sell on the middle shelf instead of above or below. Generic cornflakes feed a lot of people but Post Blueberry Squares are a branded and promoted new product so they’re in the display in the middle of the aisle.
Kay
Here’s all I want. If you’re running a political debate- one hour- and you make a decision to spend 21 minutes on emails then you made a decision. You decided NOT to ask about health care. Yes, yes you did because there were 60 minutes not “an unlimited number” of minutes. Campaigns are just really long debates. They could admit that and then we could all move on, but they won’t.
satby
@Baud:
I totally agree. And totally disagree that she shouldn’t have run. She was more qualified by experience than her husband and Obama, as both pointed out. We let the bullies in the media and in public smear her without a huge backlash because we knew it was bullshit and we assumed other people saw through it too. After 30 years, we relearned that propaganda is effective and we had ceded the field to the liars.
Kay
If Mueller finds Trump campaign collusion with Russia then will anyone in political media admit that they missed the biggest story of the 2016 election? Because they will have done so. They failed to uncover that one candidate was colluding with another country to influence an election. That’s a big godammned story. To uncover it AFTER the guy is elected is a failure.
They failed to uncover it even after the other candidate TOLD them it was happening. “Putin’s puppet” is what she said and “she” happens to be the former Secretary of State of the US so she might have known something about that. She would be credible on that allegation. It certainly met the “we should look into this” standard.
They better hope Clinton wasn’t right about everything, because if she is then they all missed what should have been the central question of the 2016 campaign, “is Donald Trump working with Russian criminals?” Wow. Big miss.
Kay
So if Mueller finds collusion, it’s like Watergate, except it’s like if a former Senator and US Secretary of State told all of media that Watergate happened and they all ignored her. So like the opposite of Watergate really. Where media steadfastly refused to inquire into the break-in until there was a government-led investigation.
Kay
And Clinton really doesn’t lie a lot, in comparison to everyone else. We won’t compare her to Trump because that’s too low a standard – “pathological daily liar” is it’s own category- but within the realm of normal people Hillary Clinton is IN FACT not a liar.
“Putin’s puppet” is what she said and she’s in a position to know, as a former Sec of State and his opponent in that campaign. I would argue she was in a better position to make a credible allegation on that than just about anyone else. Talk about “inside”- she had inside info! I’m betting she wasn’t lying and I think that’s a safe bet.
Kay
@satby:
Just to be clear I didn’t say it was “right” or “fair”. I said it was. It existed. Prior. And not in the distant past. With Benghazi.
gene108
@Kay:
Benghazi happened during Obama’s first term, and yet for the media there was nothing weird about it still being an issue in the 2016 campaign.
It is not like there might be some resolution as to what happened four years later. There wasn’t that much attention paid to 9/11/01 or Iran-Contra.
Lurking Canadian
@NorthLeft12: Twice since the election I have been struck dumb hearing Canadians (men, obviously) saying some variant of “Well, sure, Trump is awful, but at least he’s not Hillary .”
What the hell is wrong with people?
msdc
@Baud: Yes, this.
We ran her because a solid majority of Democratic primary voters looked at all the candidates and decided she was the best one for the job. That estimation of her character only looks better and better in hindsight. The people responsible for the terrible media coverage, the outside interference, and the self-destructive purity politics, they are the ones who own this presidency. I’m not going to second-guess the only people who got the call right.
RedDirtGirl
@NotMax: Oh, bother! I’ll be out of town starting on Friday, the first!
Another Scott
From 9 years ago now… Jay Smooth – How to tell someone they sound racist (2:59).
Jay told us, Hillary told us. We all knew, if we were willing to listen.
FTFNYT thought it was more important to speculate about clouds and questions and locations of computers. They really never will live that (or Iraq) down…
But we have to keep pushing forward.
Cheers,
Scott.
Nicole
@Kay: I have to respectfully disagree that running Clinton was a mistake. She won the popular vote. The majority of voters did pick her. The fact that she lost the Electoral College is a sign that our political system is not functioning properly anymore (it was the 2nd time in 16 years; that, I think, indicates that we have a problem). But if we had run a white, Christian man (which, most likely is the only way we could have won the Electoral College) we’ll just keep digging deeper into the very system of prejudice that handed the WH to a racist.
Historically, she was up against it- it’s very hard for one party to hold the White House for three terms in a row, and America took a big step forward by electing a black man, and politics is a pendulum, not a straight upward line. And she’s a woman. But if we spend our time telling ourselves we have to run the “right” candidate, not the best one, we’ll end up with white men running our nation forever. And she was the best candidate. As the majority of voters made clear.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: To sum up, there was an election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump that turned on the issue of honesty, and the person who was treated as more honest and rode that impression to victory _was Trump_. Think about how fucked up that is.
FlipYrWhig
@Nicole: I’m pretty certain that if Sanders had won the nomination, the election would have come down to who was tougher, Sanders or Trump, and Trump would have won that argument, and the postmortems would rue that the Democrats didn’t run someone who could go toe to toe with Trump on toughness, someone like Hillary Clinton, and the second preoccupation of the postmortems would be that voters were turned off by the spectacle of two old white guys shouting all the time.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
Ugh. On the other hand. all of her predictions are coming true so whether The New YorkTimes believe she is a good person matters less and less.
“Facts on the ground” and all.
She didn’t say “influenced by Putin” or “colluding with Putin” which implies both men knowingly working toward some common goal. She said “Putin’s puppet” which means the dope got played. I’d bet money on that outcome.
Kay
@Nicole:
I don’t go that far, though. They have a particular obsession with Hillary Clinton. They cannot cover her in any kind of reasonable way. There is now a whole generation of political media who grew up assuming the worst about Hillary Clinton. It’s all but part of the institutional culture at the NYTimes.
I need more to go that far. Let’s run Gillibrand/Warren/whomever and find out. Fine with me. The only potential candidate I’m opposed to is Cuomo. I just don’t like him. I think he would be a bad President. I’m tired of the whole tough-guy genre, frankly. Moving on.