DON’T BACK DOWN, HILLARY!

No need to apologize, Hillary!

       It was very gracious of you to apologize for your comment that half of Trump supporters belong in “your basket of deplorables.”
        I don’t think you needed to, however. In the first place, you applied that term to only half of them—a generous estimate. It was, moreover, an accurate designation, though you could have used a much stronger word. It is indeed deplorable than ANYONE could support a candidate like Donald Trump.
        You were not insulting their occupation, or their educational level, or their status in life, or their political party, as Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, accused you of doing. You were deploring their behavior, their vulgarity, their racism, their sexism, their homophobia, their nasty insults, their obscenities, the dangerous threats they have directed at you at every Trump rally. You have every right to deplore not just the failure of their leader and his surrogates to curb or condemn such behavior, but their actual encouragement of it. I deplore the fact that the other 50% are putting up with it if not condoning it with their enthusiastic applause or their silent acquiescence. How magnanimous of you to let them off the hook!
        You have every right to deplore the media’s coverage of your comment. Your opponent lies or says something outlandish every time he speaks. He insults the President of the United States and his entire administration, he insults Congress, he insults our military leaders, he insults Mexicans, Muslims, women, everyone. You make one perfectly justifiable comment, and the Trump campaign twists it to make it sound as if you insulted all Republicans, which you did not. And now some of the pundits are pondering whether it could cost you the election! That’s deplorable!
        So don’t back down, Hillary. The context of your remark was perfectly clear, and the commentators should have been applauding you instead of criticizing you. They reveal their own deplorable sexism. You made a distinction that you had every right to make. The behavior of most Trump supporters is deplorable. The obnoxious behavior of many of them is deplorable and the fact that many more of them can’t see through Donald Trump is also deplorable.
        And what is especially deplorable to me is the fact that you had to be the one to say something the media should have been pointing all out along. Why do they let Trump and his supporters keep on repeating the same old lies, the same old charges of which you have been exonerated long ago? Why do they let Trump and his spokespersons ignore the findings of the FBI investigation and keep harping on your e-mails?
        It’s more than deplorable. It’s despicable!