As Hillary’s numbers drop and Democrats scratch their heads as they try to figure out why she’s not miles ahead of Trump, Hillary demonstrates one of the many qualities that make her unpalatable to American voters: her contempt for them.
Like Kerry and Obama before her, Hillary just cannot contain her distaste for a large number of Americans. At a fundraiser, she declared that half of Trump’s supporters belong in a “basket of deplorables.”
Hillary Clinton urged supporters late Friday not to be complacent about Donald Trump’s chances of winning the election, saying half of his backers were “desperate for change” but the other half belonged in a “basket of deplorables.”Appearing at an LGBT gala fundraiser where Barbra Streisand performed, she said many of the GOP candidate’s voters were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”
Watch:
Hillary goes on to explain her “baskets full of people” theory.
NBC continues:
Addressing the issue of Trump’s popularity, Clinton said: “To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables.’ Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up … he tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.”She continued: “Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but they are not America but the other basket … are people who feel that government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures. They are just desperate for change … they don’t buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different.”There are only 60 days left to make our case and don’t get complacent. Don’t see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think ‘well, he’s done this time’,” she said.
I guess she doesn’t believe there’s anything “outrageous, offensive, [or] inappropriate” about referring to millions of Americans as “deplorables.”
The Trump campaign responded by stating that Hillary has “ripped off her mask and shown her contempt for everyday Americans.”
“Just when Hillary Clinton said she was going to start running a positive campaign, she ripped off her mask and revealed her true contempt for everyday Americans. Tonight’s comments were more than another example of Clinton lying to the country about her emails, jeopardizing our national security, or even calling citizens ‘super-predators’ – this was Clinton, as a defender of Washington’s rigged system – telling the American public that she could care less about them. And what’s truly deplorable isn’t just that Hillary Clinton made an inexcusable mistake in front of wealthy donors and reporters happened to be around to catch it, it’s that Clinton revealed just how little she thinks of the hard-working men and women of America.” – Jason Miller, Senior Communications Advisor
Apparently, the Hillary camp is still defending the comment.
In a series of tweets, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill responded to criticism that emerged online in response to Clinton’s comments.”She gave an entire speech about how the alt right movement is using his campaign to advance its hate movement,” Merrill wrote. “Obviously not everyone supporting Trump is part of the alt right, but alt right leaders are with Trump.””And their supporters appear to make up half his crowd when you observe the tone of his events,” he added.
Trump supporters, though, aren’t buying this and have taken to Twitter to express their sentiments.
Update courtesy of (and hat tip to) our very own Leslie:
Maybe it’s not a full half of Trump supporters who belong in that “basket of deplorables,” after all.
Hillary Clinton expressed “regret” Saturday for comments in which she said “half” of Donald Trump’s supporters are “deplorables,” meaning people who are racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic.
“Last night I was ‘grossly generalistic,’ and that’s never a good idea. I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong,” Clinton said in a statement in which she also vowed to call out “bigotry” in Trump’s campaign.
File under the usual “sorry, not sorry” Clinton family “apologies.”
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