Bill Clinton Delivers the 'Put Y'all Back in Chains' Moment of 2016

Former President Bill Clinton speaks during the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia , Tuesday, July 26, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

During the 2012 presidential campaign Vice President Joe Biden famously told a crowd of African Americans that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were going to “put y’all back in chains.” Now in 2016, former President–and sexual predator, Newt–Bill Clinton suggested to a mostly black crowd in North Carolina that Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan is a racist dog whistle. If you’ve read anything I’ve written here at RedState, you know I am no fan of Donald Trump’s, but this allegation from Clinton is out of line. It’s despicable in fact.

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“I’m a white southerner – I know what ‘Make America Great Again’ means, and all of you of a certain age know exactly what it means,” Clinton told a mostly African-American crowd gathered in a Rocky Mount parking lot. “I didn’t fall off this truck yesterday, I’ve heard this song a long time. It means first, I’ll give you the economy you had 50 years ago, and second, I’ll give you the society you had 50 years ago: I’ll move you up and move somebody else down.”

Clinton is a more skilled speaker, so he manages to instill racial prejudice without looking like a complete dunderhead as Biden did. In one breath, the smooth talking Lothario managed to both race bait and hammer the leftist fallacy that the economy is a zero sum game. This isn’t just political rhetoric. This is how the Democrat party keeps many black voters where it wants them to be—afraid of freedom and reliant on the federal government.

The left has a history of hypocritically twisting words to mean things they don’t really mean. During the rise of the Tea Party movement, they insisted that the phrase “Take our country back” was racially motivated. Every Tea Party event whether national or local focused on putting the federal government back within the limits placed upon it in the Constitution. It was about ending the uncontrolled spending that unfairly put burdens on generations not yet born. It was about freedom and liberty for every American, not any particular race, creed, or color.  Yet, both the political and media arms of the left made the assertion that the Tea Party meant “take our country back” from that black guy in the White House with no evidence to support it whatsoever. All of this happened despite numerous examples of Democrats using that exact phrase.

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The speech also hit another favorite talking point of leftists: infrastructure.

The Clinton campaign’s “stronger together” slogan, he said, “means connecting small-town and rural America to the successes of the American economy and giving everyone a chance to learn and earn.”

Bill Clinton called for improved roads and infrastructure and affordable broadband internet service for all school children. “You need more connection to the rest of North Carolina’s economy,” he said.

To leftist elites small towns are seen as backward enclaves completely cut off from civilization and no one ever learned anything without the Internet.

You can imagine the pith helmeted Clinton hacking through the Carolina woods with a machete and a team of porters to bring word of Hillary’s promise to deliver them from their primitive ways.

It’s not Obamacare and over regulation stifling your small business’ growth. It’s potholes and rich racist white people.

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