In the course of her 2016 campaign for the presidency, Hillary Clinton committed the politically grievous and electorally unforgivable error of calling those who exhibit rude, vulgar, indecent, disgusting, and violent language and behavior as “deplorables.” But she was right. I am not alone in thinking that the language and behavior of the MAGA crowd are offensive.
America has always had its share of deplorables, but they have not always been in evidence. Their presence and visibility have been variable, depending on circumstances. When and where pressures for respectability, that is, socially sanctioned middle-class language and behavior, are dominant, deplorables are less visible. The enforcers of respectability, always middle-class respectability, have been the family, public schools, and churches or temples. The long-standing exception which proves the rule has been the Ku Klux Klan, which has often had the support or involvement of “respectables” in middle-class communities in which Lost Cause sympathies prevail. The more recent emergence of fundamentalist Christian denominations as political activists and ardent supporters of a man immoral and unmoored shows that the weakening of this triad of institutions, concurrent with the hollowing out of the middle class, has loosened the norms of what is acceptable in society.
Today, deplorables include citizens in all classes and in all locales, not just those in Dixie, who also harbor KKK-comparable racist, misogynist, antisemitic, and sometimes anti-Catholic attitudes and beliefs. Their numbers include many who have graduated from elite universities, notably Harvard and Yale law schools—I think of members of Congress and state governors in the Republican Party. Deplorables, particularly in the Deep South and Appalachia, are impolitely called “white trash.” But they have flourished elsewhere, as in South Boston, MA; Cairo, IL; and Coeur d’Alene, ID.
For nearly a decade or so, the Deplorable-in-Chief, Donald John Trump has given deplorables permission to break the restraints of respectability. A bigot from childhood and misogynist since puberty, Trump has exhibited all the characteristics of their type. Those characteristics begin with resentment of their opposites, the “elites,” those whom they deem better—in education, speech, manners, and social standing—than they; those possessing everything better than what they possess—money, homes, cars, clothing, careers, and vacations—; and those seen as excluding or denying them the benefits of elite-dom.
Trump appeals to the deplorables because of his perceived similarity to them. They see him as shunned by and resentful of elites, despite his fame and fortune. They see him approving or disapproving of people, things, or ideas as they please or displease him at a given moment, especially his scorn or distrust of expertise and experts. They share his bullying rhetoric which attacks opponents by name-calling, insults, slanders, mockery. They see him cutting corners, operating in the dark economy, cheating on taxes, cheating on women, acting the macho-man. They sense his ignorance, immaturity, impulsiveness, irresponsibility. They embrace Trump because he resembles them.
In a recent example, Trump demonstrated many of these characteristics in an account from The Hill, which I revise and shorten. A group of anti-Israel protesters outside Union Station in Washington, D.C., burned an American flag in anger about the war in Gaza. In response, Trump advocated a one-year jail sentence for those who desecrate the American flag; he scoffed at those who reply that criminalizing flag-burning is illegal. “Now, people will say, ‘Oh, it’s unconstitutional.’ Those are stupid people. Those are stupid people that say that,” the former president continued. “We have to work in Congress to get a one-year jail sentence. When they’re allowed to stomp on the flag and put lighter fluid on the flag and set it afire, when you’re allowed to do that — you get a one-year jail sentence, and you’ll never see it again.”
This response is what many people have come to expect from Trump. He dismisses the Constitution. He attacks unidentified “people” and slanders them as “stupid,” not once, but twice. He describes the flag-burning in terms meant to arouse strong feelings. No one expects Trump to offer a nuanced legal disquisition on the subject, but everyone has the right to expect a former president and current candidate to articulate a sensible statement on a complex subject in an attempt to justify legislation penalizing flag-burning as an exception to, not a rejection of, the Constitution. But Trump is incapable of nuance or cogency; if he attempted even cogency, he would collapse into incoherence.
Deplorables are no better in situations calling for discussion of issues, not one-sided diatribes. A little reverse socio-psycho engineering explains the make-up of deplorables and their inability to engage in rational discourse. Set aside their ignorance and lack of example, experience, or education in the dynamics of mature discussion. Consider their compound of bigotry—racial, gender, religious, ethnic—and resentment. Both arise in reaction to their sense of inferiority or insecurity. Their sense of inferiority manifests in a compensatory presumption of pseudo-superiority—Trump always describes himself as extraordinary or superlative in all things—and a pursuit of attention—Trump seeks the camera or the microphone at every opportunity. Their sense of insecurity manifests in rigidity, efforts to control others, and bullying with anger, bluster, and aggression. They are losers, know it, come by their sense of inferiority and insecurity for good reason, and try to hide it. Their identification with Trump is a sorry attempt to prop up fragile egos.
Those who encounter deplorables—the MAGA fanatic in a supermarket, the crazy family member at Thanksgiving dinner—usually and sensibly try to avoid or escape them or to change the subject. Anyone who is trapped or feels compelled to respond can do so only if they are willing and able to control themselves and not react in kind. First, stay calm and be polite. Second, disregard whatever is irrelevant to the topic. Three, stay on topic. If your opposite refuses to relent, then politely excuse yourself from further discussion. Four, remain cool to any inflammatory reactions. Remember this consolation: the first person to lose his or her temper has lost the argument.
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