Hillary Clinton Was Politically Incorrect, but She Wasn't Wrong About Trump's Supporters
Clinton said half of Donald Trump’s supporters were prejudiced. If anything, her numbers are too low.
theatlantic.com
This week Matt Lauer was subject to withering criticism for his ineffectualinterrogation of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In a litany of complaints, onerose above all—Lauer’s failure to challenge Trump’s mendacious claim that heopposed the Iraq War. That Trump was lying is not a matter of opinion, butdemonstrable fact.
Lauer’s inability to cite the record was a striking journalistic failure—but onerelated to the larger failures implicit in political reporting today. Politicalreporting, as it is now practiced, is a not built for a world where outright lying isone candidate’s distinguishing feature. And the problem is not limited to the liesthe candidate tells, but also encompasses the lies we tell ourselves about why thecandidate exists in the first place.
Yesterday, Hillary Clinton claimed that roughly “half of Trump’s supporters”could be characterized as either “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic,Islamaphobic — you name it.” Clinton hedged by saying she was being “grosslygeneralistic,” but given that no one appreciates being labeled a bigot, thatstatement still feels harsh––or if you prefer, “politically incorrect.”
Clinton later said that she was “wrong” to say “half,” but reiterated that “it’sdeplorable that Donald Trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice andparanoia.”
One way of reporting on Clinton’s statement is to weighits political cost, ask what it means for her campaign, orattempt to predict how it might affect her performanceamong certain groups. This path is in line with thecurrent imperatives of political reporting and, at least forthe moment, seems to be the direction of coverage. Butthere is another line of reporting that could be pursued—Was Hillary Clinton being truthful or not?
Much like Trump’s alleged opposition to the Iraq War,this not an impossible claim to investigate. We know, forinstance, some
nearly 60 percent of Trump’s supportershold “unfavorable views” of Islam, and 76 percent support a ban on Muslims entering the United States. We know that some 40 percent of Trump’s supporters believe blacks are more violent, more criminal, lazier, and ruder than whites. Two-thirds of Trump’s supporters believe the first black president in this country’s history is not American. These claim are not ancillary to Donald Trump’s candidacy, they are a driving force behind it.
When Hillary Clinton claims that half of Trump’s supporters qualify as “racist,sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic,” data is on her side. One couldcertainly argue that determining the truth of a candidate’s claims is not a politicalreporter’s role. But this is not a standard that political reporters actually adhereto.
Determining, for instance, whether Hillary Clinton has been truthful about herusage of e-mail while she was secretary of state has certainly been deemed part ofthe political reporter’s mission. Moreover, Clinton is repeatedly—and sometimesvalidly—criticized for a lack of candor. But all truths are not equal. And sometruths simply break the whole system.
Open and acknowledged racism is, today, both seen as a disqualifying andnegligible feature in civic life. By challenging the the latter part of this claim,Clinton inadvertently challenged the former. Thus a reporter or an outletpointing out the evidenced racism of Trump’s supporters in response to astatement made by his rival risks being seen as having taken a side not justagainst Trump, not just against racism, but against his supporters too. Would itnot be better, then, to simply change the subject to one where “both sides” can berendered as credible? Real and serious questions about intractable problems arethus translated into one uncontroversial question: “Who will win?”
It does not have to be this way. Indeed, one need not even dispense with horse-race reporting. One could ask, all at once, if Clinton was being truthful, how itwill affect her chances, and what that says about the electorate. But that requiresmore than the current standard for political media. It means valuing more thanjust a sheen of objectivity but instead reporting facts in all of their disturbingreality. |
