A leaked audio recording of Hillary Clinton from a high-dollar fundraiser in February shows the Democratic nominee mocking not just progressive firebrand Bernie Sanders, but also the cadre of young supporters who favored the insurgent candidacy of the Vermont Senator, a revelation that is bound to have damning ramifications for Clinton’s campaign.
Echoing the words Hillary used to describe Donald Trump’s supporters – as "a basket of deplorables" – Clinton once again showed that no matter how poll-focused her statements are she simply does not like the majority of Americans looking with a condescending view towards over half of the US.
"They’re children of the Great Recession,” said Hillary about Bernie’s supporters. “And they are living in their parents’ basement" she said mocking the financial hardships faced by the younger generation as something that makes their opinion – which during the primary election was largely in opposition to Clinton – somehow less credible than the views of older voters.
"They feel that they got their education and the jobs that are available to them are not at all what they envisioned for themselves. And they don’t see much of a future," said Clinton. 'If you’re feeling like you’re consigned to, you know, being a barista, or you know, some other job that doesn’t have much of a ladder of opportunity attached to it, then the idea that maybe – just maybe – you could be part of a political revolution is pretty appealing."
She said that she hoped her own candidacy, very tellingly, would serve as a "wet blanket on idealism" from the Bernie supporters in a line that essentially means it is her hope that her winning the White House would break the spirits of the masses so that settle for “what we can achieve now” rebranded as though it were the bigger goals the millennials dreamed of.
She went on to compare Bernie’s supporters to those of Donald Trump saying that the two shared a common stain of populism with Trump supporters fueled by xenophobia and bigotry while Bernie’s supporters were pushed forward by a desire for "free college, free health care" and the desire for the US to become "Scandinavia, whatever that means, and half the people don’t know what that means."
Donald Trump did not hesitate on Saturday afternoon to seize on Clinton’s statement tweeting out that "Crooked Hillary is nasty to Sanders supporters behind closed doors. Owned by Wall St. and Politicians. Hillary Rodham Clinton is not with you."
The Clinton campaign tried to walk back the damning statements saying that it isn’t that Clinton thinks that millennial voters who opposed her candidacy during the primary are to be mocked, but instead that her negative statements to millionaire and billionaire donors about an entire generation were her saying that she "gets why Bernie’s supporters are frustrated."
