Hillary Clinton made a mistake when she referred to Trump supporters as \u201cdeplorables.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump supporters aren\u2019t deplorable, they\u2019re contemptible. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I personally don\u2019t view the GOP\u2019s base with contempt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the GOP and its media ecosphere certainly do view their supporters — and the public generally \u2013 with contempt. It\u2019s not hard to come up with a long list of examples of that contempt, but I\u2019ll mention just a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For starters let\u2019s look at Fox News. It isn\u2019t a news organization, it\u2019s a propaganda apparatus for the GOP, constantly bombarding its viewers with distortions at outright lies. Astonishingly, they continue to employ Tucker Carlson, while, for example, defending his fabrications by saying that any reasonable viewer should \u201carrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism\u201d (to put it mildly).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similarly Trump lawyer Sidney Powell defended her fabrications about Dominion voting machines \u2013 which she claimed were involved in a conspiracy to fraudulently elect President Joe Biden \u2013 by saying \u201c[n]o reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So Trump supporters are viewed as unreasonable persons by Fox and Trump\u2019s team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, GOP politicians appeal to voters with statements like \u201c\u201d[Democrats] want crime because they want to take over what you got\u201d (Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R- Ala); U.S. Rep Marjorie Tayler Greene (R \u2013 SC) defended Alex Jones\u2019 horrible claims that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax by saying \u201cfreedom of speech is [f]reedom to speak words.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Statements like these are intended to mask the fact the Republicans are doing nothing to create policies that actually help the people they hold in contempt. Instead, when in power, they pass tax cuts favoring the very wealthy; do nothing to insure adequate health care for Americans; do nothing address the safety of school children; do nothing to address our crumbling infrastructure, so important to our economy and the livelihood of Republican and Democratic voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the Jan. 6 committee has shown, Trump repeatedly and knowingly lied about the results of the 2020 presidential election; with a few notable exceptions, Republican legislators at the state and federal level have refused to hold Trump account for this violation of his oath of office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In my own state of Wisconsin, our incumbent Senator Ron Johnson is attacking Social Security; ignoring Wisconsinites view that the government should not interfere in women\u2019s health care decisions; defying Wisconsinites wishes for more restrictive gun laws. He has also delined to condemn Donald Trump for his attempts to enlist Ukraine in defaming his political opponent, and for his attempt to overturn the rightful election of Joe Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally it\u2019s important to point out that extreme gerrymandering by the GOP is a sign of contempt for American democracy. They are deliberately denying a majority of Americans the opportunity to elect the federal and state legislative representatives they want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hillary Clinton made a mistake: Trump supporters aren\u2019t “deplorable,” they\u2019re contemptible. That is, the GOP and its media ecosphere certainly do view their supporters with contempt. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","cat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":692,"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions\/692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walz-chojnacki.us\/Pensees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}