Hillary Clinton puts a name to that category of Americans that Democrats most despise: “the deplorables.”
These are the “haters,” those whom liberals deem to be sexist, homophobic, racist, xenophobic, and Islamophobic. To take those ideological and psychological terms as liberals use them, those who question feminism, don’t believe in gay marriage, take the cops’ side in the “Black Lives Matter” demonstration, worry about illegal immigration, and believe Islam has a role in Islamic terrorism are all put into “the basket of deplorables.”
Mrs. Clinton said these deplorables are not American and are “irredeemable.” Those are especially dehumanizing words to apply to someone you disagree with. They don’t belong in America. (That’s what xenophobes say!) They can’t be redeemed. (That’s what religious bigots say!) Any Christian deplorables probably think they are redeemed, but Mrs. Clinton says they are not. In the secular usage, the word means that these people can never change, and there is no hope for them.
“Half” of Donald Trump’s supporters, she said, are “deplorables.” The other half are people with economic problems who deserve Democrats’ pity. She is now trying to walk back her classification.
From Clinton expresses regret for saying ‘half’ of Trump supporters are ‘deplorables’ – CNNPolitics.com:
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.The Democratic presidential nominee sparked an uproar late Friday when she described Trump’s supporters at a fundraiser.“To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Clinton said. “Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”She added, “And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.”Clinton then said some of these people were “irredeemable” and “not America.”She described the rest of his supporters as people who are looking for change in any form because of economic anxiety and urged her supporters to empathize with them.
