Clinton’s Basket of “Deplorables”

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor

15 Sep 2016

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

Hillary Clinton should include herself in her basket of “deplorables.” She’s got “racism” and "sexism” covered through her endorsement of mass Black incarceration and welfare “reform.” Killing hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Syria surely qualifies as Islamophobia, and waging war on the world is the highest expression of xenophobia -- fear of foreigners. Put that woman in a basket!

Clinton’s Basket of “Deplorables”

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

“The Black Misleadership Class pretends to have no memory of the Nineties and their own complicity in the Clintons’ 'deplorable' racism and sexism.”

Speaking to a room full of rich contributors, Hillary Clinton dumped half of Donald Trump’s supporters into a “basket of deplorables... racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it.” Actually, considerably more than half of Trump’s legions match up with most or all of those terms, which is why the Republicans have been the White Man’s Party since the Sixties, replacing the Demo-Dixiecrats. With white supremacy as their organizing principle, Republicans have won white majorities in every national election since 1968. Clinton’s husband, Slick Willie, teamed with Al Gore and other white southern Democrats to form the Democratic Leadership Council in the 1980s to stem the attrition of whites to the Republicans by mimicking the GOP on racially coded issues like welfare and crime. The former Arkansas governor reckoned he could win the White House in 1992 at the expense of Black people, who are trapped, by the very nature of the duopoly system, in the Democratic Party.

Bill Clinton appealed to the racist and sexist elements of his constituency -- and rewarded his corporate backers -- by ejecting millions of disproportionately Black women and children from the social safety net and unleashing the greatest surge of mass Black incarceration in modern history. His wife and fellow lawyer, acting as co-president, raged against young Black “super-predators” that needed to be “brought to heel” – words she has recently been forced to regret, but not “deplore.” The Clinton’s destruction of Aid to Families with Dependent Children caused welfare rights advocate Peter Edelman to resign his subcabinet post and prompted his wife, Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, to describe the Clintons as “not friends in politics.” Yet, Hillary Clinton continues to feature her youthful stint as a lawyer for the Children’s Defense Fund as proof of her compassion for poor Black children, while the Black Misleadership Class pretends to have no memory of the Nineties and their own complicity in the Clintons’ “deplorable” racism and sexism.

“Clinton raged against young Black ‘super-predators’ that needed to be ‘brought to heel’ – words she has recently been forced to regret, but not ‘deplore.’”

Hillary Clinton spares half of Trump’s supporters the shame of reduction to deplorabledom in recognition that some “basket people” feel left out by “government” and “the economy” and are “just desperate for change.” However, as the candidate of the corporate status quo, Clinton offers nothing but more of the same and must therefore -- just like Trump -- run a campaign of name-calling and demonization not witnessed since the McCarthy era. Having definitively turned their party to the Right a generation ago, the Clintons now see an opportunity to use Donald Trump’s destruction of the Republican Party as-we-knew-it to forge a unitary corporate super-party encompassing all of the Democrats’ base constituencies, Democrat-friendly Wall Street and Silicon Valley plutocrats, plus those oligarchs and “national security” and “defense” circles that have traditionally been linked to the GOP. Only the rump of Trump “deplorables” would be left outside the “Big Tent,” along with a small and disorganized Left. That’s the plan.

The lines that Hillary draws around her Big Tent are rhetorical, not substantive, since she has nothing of substance to offer to any mass constituency. The duopoly system is in terminal crisis because capitalism is no longer capable of “reform”: all is crisis and chaos under the reign of hegemonic finance capital, whose captains create nothing while monetizing everything. These are the Lords of Capital that have sustained the once-and-future First Couple with $153 million in speaking fees to keep the mansion lights burning in the interim between their tours in the White House. The Clinton Foundation is a creature of Slick Willie & Wife’s ongoing contract with the international ruling class.

“Only the rump of Trump ‘deplorables’ would be left outside the 'Big Tent,' along with a small and disorganized Left.”

Hillary’s global mission, like Barack Obama’s, is to crush the old order of sovereign nation states regulated by international law, and impose a U.S.-enforced corporate dominion over the planet. In that sense, the Trans Pacific Partnership and its trans-Atlantic counterpart flow from the same source as drone warfare, “humanitarian” regime change warfare, and jihadist proxy warfare, and are inseparable from economic sanctions warfare and the emerging battlefield of cyberwar.

In terms of deplorability, nothing else comes close. Hillary’s mission, as the public agent of multinational capital, is the triumph of capitalist Manifest Destiny -- a global nightmare that is antithetical to any vision of democracy held by any of the world’s peoples. Therefore, the mission is relentlessly pursued, but never articulated. Instead, defamation becomes the language of U.S. foreign policy. Russian president Vladimir Putin becomes “Hitler” in Hillary’s mouth -- an effective declaration of war or intent to assassinate. When Moammar Gaddafi was murdered by U.S.-backed jihadists in Libya, Hillary cackled, “We came, we saw, he died” – an execration beyond deplorable, by any diplomatic or civilized standard.

Last week, she met with a “bipartisan” group of “national security leaders” -- translation: imperial warmongers that serve both parties -- to call attention to the fact that most of the spooks, warmongers and global destabilizers are in her Big Tent. She immediately read Trump – who (sometimes, but not always) opposes “regime change” -- out of the foreign policy consensus. "National security experts on both sides of the aisle are chilled by what they're hearing from the Republican nominee," she said.

Among the “leaders” in the room was David Patraeus, the former general who advocates the U.S. openly arm the jihadists of al-Nusra, the al Qaida affiliate in Syria (until they changed their name, with al Qaida’s blessing), supposedly to fight ISIS. Clinton does not find this one bit “deplorable.” She deserves a “basket” all her own, labeled “unspeakable” toxic entity.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].

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