Friday night, Hillary Clinton told a group of New York City donors that “half” of Donald Trump’s supporters came from a “basket of deplorables.”
The quote triggered a wave of outrage on social media, as Trump supporters – and Republicans – objected to Clinton’s mass characterization of around a quarter of the country. Trump himself decried the statement as a direct attack on “great Americans.”
But while it may be the biggest gaffe of her campaign, the mainstream media has spent most of the weekend arguing away Clinton’s apparent prejudice, as though they are her crisis communications team – a courtesy they didn’t extend to Mitt Romney in 2012, when he told a group of his own donors that “47 percent” of the population were a bunch of freeloaders.
Exempli gratia: the Associated Press tried to drive home that Clinton told her story of Trump’s pride and prejudice to a private event, forgetting that they breathlessly reported on Romney’s “gaffe,” (also delivered at a private event) even naming it the “year’s worst quote,” ranking it ahead of Rep. Todd Akin’s notorious comments about “legitimate rape.”
The LA Times right away made sure to dismiss the comparison to Romney’s “47%” comments, printing a list of reasons Clinton’s remarks were somehow better than Romney’s, most notably because Clinton has said Trump’s supporters were “deplorables” before; she just never gave a number before Friday night.
They also noted that while Romney’s remarks “dovetailed nicely” with (millionaire) Barack Obama’s assertion that millionaire Romney was out of touch, Clinton’s remarks were merely an “extension of her message.”
Slate called comparisons to the 47 percent comment “ridiculous.”
It “can’t be compared,” they said because, unlike Romney, Clinton was simply “calling out” Donald Trump for his racist “dog whistles,” and while she may have over-estimated exactly how many unsavory characters were in the Trump train’s ranks, “in context” the claim just “makes sense.”
David Corn at Mother Jones tried to make the case that Donald Trump and not Hillary Clinton had had the “47 percent moment.”
Mother Jones has been working this tactic for a while, trying to pin a “47% moment” on Donald Trump since at least March.
Huffington Post reporter Amanda Terkel reminded Twitter that Donald Trump supported Mitt Romney’s “47% comment,” as though that excused Clinton’s gaffe.
Huffington Post has so many angry articles referencing Mitt Romney’s gaffe, of course, you have to do an “advanced search” to find the most prominent ones in a sea of at least 11 pages of content.
Liberal outlet Think Progress said Clinton was on the right track, because Donald Trump is a racist. Or something.
And the Washington Post tried to minimize the comment’s effect by saying that while Romney had alienated his “actual supporters,” including poor whites on welfare who might vote Republican, Clinton was just speaking a popular truth to power.
Other news outlets were oddly silent. CBS News, which took a week to “fact check” Romney’s assertion about poor Americans, reported Clinton’s statement straight, oddly without bothering to question whether Clinton’s remark had any basis in fact. ABC News, which covered Romney’s remarks in detail, mentioned the comparison between Clinton and Romney in a story only about Clinton’s eventual “clarification” of her statements.
Even Obama’s top adviser David Plouffe got in on the action.
Unfortunately for the left-leaning media, social media – and especially Trump’s supporters – weren’t so easily convinced. Clinton’s may not just have coined a new word with “deplorables”. She’s also left a lot of people very pissed off.