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Continuing her campaign rhetoric in which she called half of Donald Trump's voters a "deplorables," Hillary Clinton rolled out a bill of particulars this week enumerating their exact sins. In doing so, she demonstrated her utter contempt for those who voted for Trump in the last election.
While she claimed for herself the support of the more economically advanced states filled with "dynamic" people who were "moving forward." She characterized her opponents' supporters as "looking backward."
She played up the states that supported her as more economically advanced than the states that voted for Trump, calling them "dynamic" and "moving forward." Then she again suggested that Trump supporters were motivated by bigotry and prejudice.
She claimed that she won "places that represent two-thirds of America's GDP. So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward." She added "and this whole campaign, 'Make America Great Again,' was looking backward. You know, you don't like black people getting rights; you don't like women getting jobs; you don't want to see that Indian-American succeeding more than you are...whatever your problem is, I'm gonna solve it."
So there, baldly stated, we have the full description of the contempt in which the Democratic Party leaders and candidates feel for half of America. For all the venom of a used up politician, Hillary's eruption accurately captures what the rest of the Democrats feel but don't say. The late Murray Kempton, columnist for The New York Post, wrote in 1968 that "Richard Nixon was just elected president of every place that doesn't have a book store." Now they have Barnes and Nobles and, of course, Amazon, but the coastal dissing of Middle America remains.
Such an explicitly cultural appeal to a section of America is totally incompatible with a national candidacy. The scorn and derision Clinton directs at those who voted for Trump reflects her core intolerance and, by the way, the absurdity of her own slogan, "Stronger together."
Clinton's rhetoric ultimately leads to a situation in which one suspects everyone. Robert Owen wrote, "All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer." This kind of introverted, twisted, self-pitying thinking often culminates in the plaintive cry of defeated despots that the people of his country don't deserve him.
Americans sharply reject her critique. A Washington Post/ABC poll found that 47 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of independents and 84 percent of Republicans reject the characterization of Trump voters as deplorables.
Most just see them as their fellow Americans.
Dick Morris, who served as adviser to former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and former President Clinton, is the author of 16 books, including his latest, Screwed and Here Come the Black Helicopters.