"I understand how some of what I said upset people and can be misinterpreted. I meant no disrespect to any individual or group," Hillary Clinton said in a Facebook post. "And I want to look to the future as much as anybody."
That is from a Daily Mail article on Hillary Clinton's attempt to do damage control after even fellow Democrats are distancing themselves from her damaging remarks about women voters and a vast segment of the American heartland,which she apparently regards as backward and racist.
Mrs. Clinton's non-apology takes "if I offended anyone" to a new level. And there is just no nice way to interpret her comments.
But Mrs. Clinton kept digging:
On Saturday Clinton explained that in India she was asked if Trump was a 'virus' or if his election was a 'symptom' of something deeper going on in the United States.
'Like most Americans, people overseas remain shocked and dismayed at what they are witnessing daily,' she began. 'My first instinct was to defend Americans and explain how Donald Trump could have been elected.'
She told those in India that the places doing better economically tend to vote Democratic, while those doing worse off vote Republican.
'That doesn't mean the coasts versus the heartland, it doesn't even mean states,' she said. 'In fact, it more often captures the divisions between more dynamic urban areas and less prosperous small towns within states.'
Well, glad that's cleared up. She went on to say:
'As I said throughout the campaign, Trump's messages was dark and backwards looking. I don't need to list the reasons, but the foundation of his message, "Make America Great AGAIN" suggests that to be great we have to go back to something we are no longer,' Clinton said. 'I never accepted that and never will.'
Like many voters, I wish President Trump would tweet less. He picks unnecessary twitter fights. But he has never given the slightest indication that he looks down on regular citizens. Quite the contrary. He's at his most exuberant when talking about "our" miners or "our" steelworkers.
Mrs. Clinton's condescension is all the more distressing in light of her very nearly having become President and leader of the people she regards as so hopeless.
Steve Hilton explains what should really bother us about what Mrs. Clinton said:
The really important part of Hillary’s “Deplorables 2” moment, however, and one that we really should pay a lot of attention to, was her description of America itself – especially our economy and how it relates to politics. In many ways, her analysis was exactly right. It was her response that was so deeply, disturbingly wrong.
Here’s how she put it: “If you look at the map of the United States, there’s all that red in the middle where Trump won. I win the coasts. But what the map doesn’t show you is that I won the places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product. So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward.”
Put aside the total lack of empathy or compassion for the parts of America that are not “moving forward.” The important point is that for the last few decades, it is absolutely true that America has become more and more divided when it comes to economic progress. Not just between the coasts and the heartland – although that is certainly a big part of it. But between big cities and smaller towns and rural areas.
This is not inevitable, or the result of some force beyond our control, like the weather. It is the logical outcome of an ideological policy agenda that has been pursued consistently over the past few decades by a ruling elite in both main parties, supported by big business and a growing army of technocrats and bureaucrats who have seized the levers of power.
Mrs. Clinton seems to be more comfortable with celebrities and thus will fit in nicely at Tina Brown's Women in the World Summit in April, where she will discuss the MeToo movement with a straight face.
It will be a glittering gathering with no unsightly regular folks.
Meanwhile, IWV President Tammy Bruce talks about the tendency on the left to dismiss women who don't toe the liberal line, as reflected in Mrs. Clinton's recent remarks.