Hillary and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: Part 1

I had a weird weekend. I spilled motor oil all over, got stung by a hornet, and painted myself into a corner about “lesbian squirrels”. (The squirrels thing could turn out to be fun.) You know who had a terrible weekend? Hillary Clinton.

Hillary had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad weekend. She lumped me and roughly ¼ of the population of the United States into a “basket of deplorables”. Talk about a faux pas!

From my point of view it’s not a big deal because it happens all the time. I’m a curmudgeon who prefers to be left alone. This used to be acceptable. However, social engineering in America has progressed until life in 2016 is a big giant spastic incompetent group hug. For no reason at all, self-reliant people who value solitude are now viewed with suspicion. What was once “self-assured” or “comfortable with his own company” is now “antisocial” or “rural jackass who made the mistake of living in flyover country”. Politicians translate this into “idiot who should shut the hell up while their betters run things”. They’re not subtle about it either.

Politicians on the left instinctively insult me every morning before they have their breakfast cereal. Politicians on the right do the same thing. Both are hell-bent on micromanaging an America that doesn’t include me. In their eyes I should shuffle off to an ice flow and die so they can hammer America into Utopia without my meddling presence.

So anyway, when a politician implies I’m racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic there’s a word for that. It’s called “just another fucking day”. I would like to be treated better. But you toughen up after a while and it becomes just background noise.

Unfortunately for Hillary, she used the words “basket of deplorables”. What a delicious phrase! It rolls off the tongue, it lends itself to ridicule, it’s comedy gold! When you pitch things across the plate like that and they’re sure to come flying back at rocket speed. She lit the fuse on weapons grade ridicule. Very unwise because nothing is so devastating to a weak politician (or a weak person) as ridicule.

When Hillary’s staffers (or minions, or flying monkeys, or whatever they are called) started work Monday morning they found “basket of deplorables” T-shirts for sale and folks like me enjoying a great big belly laugh. It had to be a blow to their overinflated egos. In the interest of kindness, I’ll point out that other politicians have overcome similarly obtuse phrases. Ask the guy who talked about rednecks “clinging to their guns and religion”.

So Hillary’s weekend didn’t have to be that bad. Like I said, insulting a couple hundred million Americans at a time is standard operating procedure. What’s more embarrassing was passing out (or whatever euphemism you wish to apply to that act) in front of a crowd. That sucks.

As a blogger, I’m expected to pile on Hillary at this juncture. Or if I were hopelessly biased on Hillary’s side (like every journalist in the known universe) I might proactively distract attention to The Hairball’s worst traits. In the interest of lightening the mood I’m going to try an entirely different approach.

Stay tuned.