Much has been made of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of the phrase “basket of deplorables” as a way to describe “half” of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s supporters over the past couple of days.
At a private fundraising event last Friday, September 9, Clinton said:
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables.’ Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people — now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.”
Clinton walked back her comment the next day saying in a written statement that, “it was wrong.” She went on to say:
“But let’s be clear, what’s really ‘deplorable’ is that Donald Trump hired a major advocate for the so-called ‘alt-right’ movement to run his campaign and that David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values.”
The full statement is here:
"I won't stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign." —Hillary pic.twitter.com/C3Z7GybJ53
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 10, 2016
But perhaps she didn’t need to walk back her comment at all.
German Lopez from Vox makes the case that according to polling data, not only was Clinton not grossly generalistic, but her math may have been considerably off in the wrong direction!
Lopez cites polling data from Reuters and Ipsos, the Texas Politics Project, Gallup, the Pew Research Center, and YouGov, which all point in the same direction. Namely that a great many of Trump’s supporters think Muslims should be banned, that Mexican immigrants are criminals, and that black people are more violent and less intelligent than white people. Excuse me while I wretch.
Lopez continues to lay out the case that the underlying fear among Trump’s supporters seems to be related to fear of diversity. They don’t want an American “melting pot,” but rather they prefer a single ingredient: perhaps flour or sugar…something pure white.
He states among others:
“A Pew Research Center survey from April and May demonstrated this: The biggest factor associated with ‘warmer feelings’ toward Trump was the sentiment that a ‘growing number of newcomers from other countries threatens US values.’ That surpassed identifying as a Republican, worries about Islam, and fears over minority Americans’ population growth in signifying the likelihood of backing Trump.”
I have news for those in the large basket of deplorables. Racism is not an American value. Xenophobia is not an American value. Homophobia is not an American value. Bigotry is not an American value. Misogyny is not an American value. I invite these insecure people to climb out of the basket and reflect on their fear and anger. Trump did not cause these people to believe what they believe, but he has given them a very loud and very repulsive seat at the table.
Here’s a video of Trump appealing to the basket of deplorables:
Featured image from YouTube video.
