As I write this, the political world and internet are all abuzz over Hillary Clinton's statement, at a Friday evening fundraiser in New York, that, "To be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the 'basket of deplorables.' Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it." Clinton's comments have received swift condemnation, not only from Trump supporters (for whom such condemnation requires a striking degree of cognitive dissonance about their own candidate's statements) but also from commentators across the political spectrum (such as President Obama's Director of Rapid Response Lis Smith).
I don't think candidates for office ever have much to gain by attacking significant swaths of the voting public, as Mitt Romney and many others have amply demonstrated. Yet at the same time, the challenge facing Clinton is distinct from those prior candidates have confronted. Donald Trump and his supporters have consistently expressed the most deplorable views we've ever seen in a national political campaign, and those comments demand response. To cite just a handful of such incidents:
Trump launched his presidential campaign with a press conference in which he said, of Mexican immigrants to the U.S., "They're not sending their best. ... They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists." He later stood by and extended those comments, asking, "What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States."
In the 15 months since that launch, Trump has used similarly deplorable language to describe any number of fellow Americans. That has included Clinton herself, to whom he has constantly referred as "Crooked Hillary"; he has also repeatedly called her "a pathological liar" and argued that she "does not look presidential," among many other insults. He has mocked a disabled Washington Post reporter. He has said, while watching video footage of primary opponent Carly Fiorina, "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?" And he has repeatedly impugned entire American communities, such as his anti-Muslim American, false claim that on September 11th "thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down."
Moreover, Trump rose to political prominence in the 2012 primaries by championing the Birther conspiracy, continuing to call President Barack Obama a liar, fraud, and con man for at least two full years after that campaign. It's no coincidence that over 60% of Trump supporters believe Obama was born outside of the U.S., while two-thirds believe him to be a secret Muslim. As illustrated by polls such as that one, fringe conspiracy theories seemingly define the worldviews of a majority of Trump's voting base.
Those extremist views are actually among the more moderate and less deplorable held and publicly expressed by Trump supporters, however. In one poll, nearly twenty percent of Trump supporters believed that the Confederacy's slaves should not have been freed by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War (another seventeen percent were not sure). White supremacist groups such as the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan have explicitly identified Trump's candidacy as a unique opportunity for their movements and agendas. And Trump's campaign staff now includes CEO Steve Bannon, who while chairman of Breitbart News made the site into a haven for white supremacist bigotry and hate.
Finally, there are the thoroughly deplorable views of Hillary Clinton expressed by Trump supporters. At the Republican National Convention, the crowd responded to Trump's acceptance speech (and throughout the convention) with repeated chants of "Lock her up"; at recent events, the language has been ratcheted up even further, with documented, frequent refrains of "Kill the bitch" among other gems. Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson has publicly diagnosed Clinton with a rare form of brain damage. And on Friday, Congressman and Trump supporter Louis Gohmert joked that "whether you like her or not, Hillary Clinton has made clear she is mentally impaired."
This is but a very small fraction of the comments and views we've heard from Trump, his staff and spokespeople, and his supporters over the course of this historically horrific campaign. I'm not sure deplorable is a strong enough word to describe such words and perspectives, but it certainly isn't inaccurate. It's entirely understandable that Hillary Clinton, herself the specific target of much of this ugliness and in any case the political opponent of the man at its epicenter, would respond. Indeed, it's imperative on her and her campaign to do so.
Yet precisely because the language and ideas being expressed by Trump and his supporters are so repugnant, it's vital for all of us who would challenge and oppose them to keep the focus on that debate, on why these comments are so unacceptable and un-American, and on what we would argue instead. As Hillary did so impressively in her August 25th speech in Reno, we must call out the "prejudice and paranoia" themselves, naming the extremist and dangerous views and making clear the consequences for our nation and community if they go unchecked.
It's a fine and difficult line, critiquing deplorable ideas without attacking those who hold them. "Why do you advocate for tolerance but not tolerate those with whom you disagree?" is a response I've gotten to many pieces and positions of mine, and to a degree I take the point. We're all part of the national community, and we can't and shouldn't exclude anyone entirely from our conversations. Yet at the same time, we can't and must not tolerate bigotry and hatred, not without calling those views what they are and challenging them with every idea and argument we can muster. It would be deplorable to do otherwise.