Clinton, describing (half of) Trump supporters tonight: “Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it”.
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On Friday, Hillary Clinton ignited a firestorm within the Republican Party when she called “half” of Donald Trump’s supporters a “basket of deplorables” and said they were “irredeemable” due to their racist, sexist, and xenophobic tendencies.
Calls half of Trump supporters misogynists, Xenophobes, Sexists and racists. Alienating voters, no matter how distant they already are, isn’t a winning strategy – but any sane person shouldn’t dare question whether Clinton’s comment was a legitimate one. And he has lifted them up.
Some of those people were irredeemable, she said, but they did not represent America. There was even a mock account called “Hillary’s Basket”, with the handle @TheDeplorables, deriding the former first lady and United States senator. And his Republican allies blasted Clinton throughout the day.
She said she regrets only half of her statement, emphasizing that it is “really deplorable” that Trump is affiliated with people from the right-winged “alt-right movement”, and that “David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values”.
Twitter user Basketeer Vendetta, under the account Vendetta92429, tweeted out a photo of Trump supporters wearing campaign T-shirts and hats, adding: “Proud to be part of the #BasketOfDeplorables with my fellow Americans”. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric.
As I said, many of Trump’s supporters are hardworking Americans who just don’t feel like the economy or our political system are working for them.
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters”, Trump said at a campaign rally in Iowa last January.
She reiterated that point in her statement Saturday, saying many of Trump’s supporters are “hard-working Americans” who feel marginalized.
“She is the corrupt establishment”, Trump said.
And Trump himself tweeted out: “Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of wonderful, hard working people”.
Hillary may be concerned because she appears to be losing momentum and national polls.
And her running mate, Sen. The Trump campaign went ballistic at the gibe, with his chief aide Kellyanne Conway asking “Why does she have such disdain for people?” and his spokesman Jason Miller saying it “revealed her true contempt for everyday Americans”.
Clinton’s comments amount to startlingly blunt talk for a candidate that is usually measured in her assessment of the Republican nominee. “#CrookedHillary”, he tweeted, using one of his father’s favorite insults for describing the Democrat.
Many of Clinton’s fundraisers have been closed to the media, but her Friday remarks, preceding a performance by singer Barbra Streisand, were open to journalists. “She could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching”, Trump said mimicking a gun with his hand, “right smack in the middle of the heart and she wouldn’t be prosecuted, OK?”
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Clinton’s campaign spokesman Nick Merrill downplayed the former secretary of state’s remarks, tweeting that she was referring exclusively to “alt right” supporters.
