Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said during a town hall with YouTube stars on Tuesday (yes, that really happened) that she was “sympathetic” toward supporters of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Her sympathy would probably be more credible if Clinton hadn’t immediately followed it up by accusing Trump’s supporters of “xenophobia, the misogyny, the homophobia, the Islamophobia.”
Clinton began her remarks to YouTube stars she hopes will help spread her message to the youth (in an attempt to win them back from her still-in-the-race-but-not-really rival Bernie Sanders) by saying she was sympathetic to “a lot of the people” who support Trump’s message.
“Who are feeling really left out and left behind. They have lost faith in their government, in the economy, in politics, and most other institutions, certainly institutions,” Clinton said. “And they don’t know how they are going to create, and you all are creators, how they are going to create a better future for themselves. So I am not only sympathetic, I am looking for solutions.”
I’m not sure this comes off as sympathetic at all, considering Clinton has been involved in the government for multiple decades. She is the government/politics/institution that people are so fed up with.
I also find her comment about job creation interesting, because remember in 2014 when Clinton told women voters “Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs”? That comment, combined with her claims that she would put coal workers out of business (but somehow magically move them into renewable energy jobs) come off as tone deaf.
That was enough of Clinton’s “sympathy,” however. “The whole slogan ‘make America great again’ is code for go back to the time when a lot of people were not included,” Clinton said. “Including women, African-Americans and Latinos and a lot of other people. Go back to a time when there was more of a hierarchy, instead of a democratized economy where people are really working hard to get ahead.”
That’s … not what the slogan means at all. Bill Clinton used to say it, for example. But whatever.
Clinton then said again that she was sympathetic to job losses or those who were “upset” about immigration and trade, but went on to say she was not sympathetic to the xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, Islamophobia “and all of the other, um, sort of, dog whistles that Trump uses to create that fervor among a lot of his supporters.”
Did you get that? Clinton is super-sympathetic to you, racist haters. Kind of hard to take someone seriously when she tries to connect in one sentence and insults in the next, but this is just one symptom of Clinton’s insincerity, which most Americans have already detected.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
