Bill Clinton claimed Wednesday that Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan is a none-too-subtle dog whistle to tobacco-chewing, gun-toting white southerners.
“I’m a white southerner, I remember what it was like when somebody said they were going to make America great again,” Clinton said Wednesday at a campaign stop in Indianola, Iowa. “They’re basically said, ‘Here’s your tobacco, here’s your shotgun, you’re in charge.'”
This isn’t the first time that Clinton has suggested Trump’s campaign slogan is a subtle dog whistle to white voters, even though Clinton himself used the term when he was running for president in 1992.
“One candidate says, ‘I’ll make America great again,'” he said in September during at a campaign stop in Pittsburgh. “Hey, folks. I’m a white southerner. I know exactly what that means.”
When the GOP nominee says he wants to “make America great again,” what he is really saying is, “‘I will give you what you had 50 years ago in the economy and I’ll move you back up on the social totem pole and give you somebody to look down on,'” Clinton said.
“One person is making you mad every day and says, ‘Blame somebody else,'” said the former president, who was born and raised in Arkansas. “And I grew up among the people who seem to like that the best.”
Clinton has also grown increasingly comfortable with using particularly unflattering imagery to describe the GOP nominee’s base.
“The other guy’s base is what I grew up in,” Clinton said this week at a campaign stop in Fort Myers, Fla. “You know, I’m basically your standard redneck.”
On the occasions Clinton has questioned the true meaning of Trump’s campaign slogan, he has also been careful to say that — as an Arkansan — he understands and empathizes with the frustrations of the GOP nominee’s base.
Bill Clinton has also said repeatedly that the Democratic nominee will work to win over frustrated voters who’ve gravitated towards Trump even after she wins the White House.
