- Hillary Clinton’s ‘basket full of deplorables’ sparked outrage in September 2016
- Now he says an “important truth” has been revealed about Donald Trump supporters
- READ MORE: You can follow the political developments of the day in our live blog
Hillary Clinton is not backing down from her most famous attack on Donald Trump supporters.
She drew their ire in 2016 when she said half of them belonged to a “basket full of deplorables” — comments that were later used against her to portray her as not only out of touch but also hostile toward white, working-class voters.
Eight years after losing that election, he admits the epithet was “bad politics” but questions whether he should have gone further.
“I was talking about people who are drawn to their racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia — whatever,” she writes in her new book, “Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty,” an excerpt of which was published in the Washington Post. “People for whom their bigotry is a trait, not a flaw.”
‘It was an unfortunate choice of words and a bad political decision, but it also addressed an important truth.
Hillary Clinton is not backing down from her most famous attack on Donald Trump supporters, saying she could have gone even further with her “basket of deplorables” line.
‘Just look at everything that has happened in the years from Charlottesville to January 6.
“The masks have come off, and if anything, ‘deplorable’ is too kind a word to describe the hate and violent extremism we have seen from some Trump supporters.”
At that point, most of the rest of his comments were lost in the storm unleashed by the word “deplorables.”
It became a badge of honor for Trump fans and was turned into T-shirts, hats and memes.
Clinton lost the electoral college just over a month later, but won the popular vote.
She said she felt vindicated in her analysis of the rise of hate under the Trump administration and recounted how a newspaper editor had contacted her in 2022 to see if she would use the term again in the wake of a mass shooting.
A gunman shot and killed black shoppers at a supermarket in Buffalo, apparently influenced by the “great replacement” conspiracy theory spread by Trump allies such as then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
“The paper’s editor said he and his colleagues spent a half-hour in their editorial meeting talking about the report, and “the idea that the most racist show on cable news is also the most popular stuck with many of us,” he writes.
The slur became a badge of honor for Trump supporters, turned into T-shirts and caps.
‘Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Freedom’ was published by Simon & Schuster on September 17.
“Several editors,” he said, “mentioned my “deplorable” comment and “how prophetic” it had been.”
She turned down the offer, she continues, because she didn’t want to write about it through the lens of a six-year-old controversy.
“I wish people in 2016 would have listened to the rest of my comments and not just the word ‘deplorable,'” he writes.
‘I also talked about the other half of Trump supporters, “people who feel like the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody cares about what happens to their lives and their future, and they’re just desperate for change.”
But he says he regrets having described most of the deplorables as “irredeemable.”