Hillary Clinton’s ‘deplorables’ speech shocked voters five years ago — but some feel it was prescient
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
www.washingtonpost.com /lifestyle/2021/08/31/deplorables-basket-hillary-clinton/
Hillary Clinton’s ‘deplorables’ speech shocked voters five years ago — but some feel it was prescient
Roxanne Roberts 12-15 minutes 8/31/2021
Let’s start with the obvious: “Basket of deplorables” is a weird turn of phrase. There are baskets and there are deplorable people, but pairing the two is the oddest of linguistic odd couples.
Hillary Clinton said those three words in the final months of her 2016 presidential campaign, making rhetorical and political history. There were two kinds of Donald Trump supporters, she explained: Voters who feel abandoned and desperate, who she placed in one metaphorical basket, and those she called “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic” — her “basket of deplorables.”
Trump — the same man who announced his candidacy by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” — clutched his proverbial pearls, aghast that his opponent had uttered such a shocking slander. His campaign turned that insult into an asset; supporters wore hats and shirts proudly declaring themselves deplorable. Pundits seized on the phrase, debating who does and doesn’t deserve to be called that. Five years later, many believe “deplorables” — figuratively and literally — are here to stay.
This is not a cautionary tale: Clinton probably didn’t lose the White House because of a figure of speech. But it’s a lesson in how politicians make unforced errors. And, in a nation where half the country thinks the other half is wrong and possibly even deplorable, it’s about how we talk about each other.
"To just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the 'basket of deplorables,'" Hillary Clinton said. (Video: The Washington Post / Photo: AP)
On Sept. 9, 2016, Clinton was the opening act for Barbra Streisand at a glitzy fundraiser in New York City. A group of LGBTQ supporters were gathered at Cipriani restaurant, and the Democratic candidate had one job: to fire up her donors.
“I am all that stands between you and the apocalypse,” Clinton told the cheering crowd. She launched into all the things she found “deplorable” about Trump: He threatened marriage equality, cozied up to white supremacists, made racist and sexist remarks — all things she found “so personally offensive.”
She warned there were two months left in the race and no one should assume he wouldn’t be elected anyway. “Just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” There was laughter and applause.
The people in this basket, emboldened by Trump’s tweets, were “irredeemable,” she said. But there was another basket: Trump supporters who just felt the government had let them down and wanted change — and Democrats had to empathize to win these voters.
“Basket of deplorables” was not in Clinton’s prepared remarks. She often improvised in speeches. Reporters jumped on it, as did the Trump campaign, which immediately slammed Clinton for not running “a positive campaign.”
Clinton apologized the next day in a very Clintonesque manner: “I regret saying ‘half’ — that was wrong,” she said in a statement. What was the magic number? She didn’t say. She did, however, double down on calling out Trump’s bigotry and racism.
“It’s very hard to say you have a message of civility and then turn around and talk about how essentially a quarter of the country is, in your view, a basket of deplorables,” said Jonathan Allen, author of “ Shattered ,” a study of Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “That is a screeching conflict of her overall message, which is we have a civilized country and we need to be stronger together — that this should be a kinder, gentler, unified country.”
It’s easy to get careless at fundraisers: The crowd is pumped up, the mood hopeful. In April 2008, Barack Obama told a San Francisco donor audience that working-class voters in the Rust Belt “cling to guns or religion” as a way to express their frustrations. (Clinton, in the last days of her failed bid for the Democratic nomination, said she was “taken aback by the demeaning remarks Senator Obama made about people in small-town America. His remarks are elitist and out of touch.”)
Mitt Romney got into trouble for his “47 percent” slip, which was secretly taped during a 2012 fundraiser that was closed to the media. The Republican nominee explained to wealthy donors that almost half of American voters would pick Obama because they were dependent on government handouts. “I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” he told the crowd.
Clinton made the classic campaign mistake of playing pundit by explaining strategy to donors. She wasn’t writing off all Trump supporters; those who were scared and jobless might be won over. It was a delicate rhetorical dance: Have compassion for some , be afraid of others.
Trump repeatedly mocked Clinton voters, but his fans never worried it would hurt him. In fact, they loved him for it, as well as his attacks on the media, the candidates in his own party, John McCain’s war record and the judge in one of his lawsuits. “The more offensive and insulting he could be, the happier he was with it,” Allen said.
That was Trump being Trump. Clinton’s deplorables comment, Allen said, seemed to reveal a private thought that she had never dared state in public. In that way, it “ended up being symbolic of one of the things that her critics said they hated about her, which is that they believed that she’s inauthentic. And oddly, I think that was a pretty authentic moment.”
When asked about “deplorables,” Nick Merrill, Clinton’s spokesman, said she was never afraid to denounce racism — just two weeks earlier, she gave a significant speech deconstructing the alt-right and the “quest to preserve white maleness” in America. “The deplorable comment may have been politically less than ideal, but it has been proven right again and again over the last five years.”
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump arrive onstage at Washington University in St. Louis for a presidential debate in October 2016. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
More sophisticated than “disgusting,” more biting than “unforgivable,” “deplorable” carries judgment with a side of self-righteousness. It comes from Latin, then reemerged in 17th-century France, where throwing shade is a national sport.
Clinton would use “deplorable” in statements when she was secretary of state, but as an adjective, not a noun. Washington jargon traditionally puts things in “buckets,” Clinton shifted that to “baskets” in the month leading up to the Sept. 9 fundraiser.
She used “deplorables” the day before her speech, in an interview with Israeli TV: “You can take Trump supporters and put them in two big baskets. There are what I would call the deplorables — you know, the racists and the haters.”
“It’s worth remembering that when Hillary Clinton comes up with a phrase she likes, she tends to repeat it a lot and she can be very biting and she can be quippy,” Allen said. “It would have been different if she had said, ‘Half the Trump voters are behaving deplorably.’ It’s a small thing, but it’s a big thing.”
In Slate, linguist Ben Zimmer speculated that “baskets of deplorables” was inspired by a “parade of horribles” — a legal term that Clinton would be familiar with, referring to the negative consequences of a judicial decision. Several weeks later, Clinton joked about it at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner: “I just want to put you all in a basket of adorables.”
“I knew the first time I heard that phrase that she was very, very stupid for using it,” Republican strategist Frank Luntz said. “It is as insulting as any word in the English language. To be deplorable means you have no excuse as a human being. If you’re a deplorable person, it is saying that there is no redeeming quality to you whatsoever.”
Luntz knew it would be an opportunity for Trump to galvanize his base. “I thought she had committed a potentially fatal error: Insult your opponent, attack your opponent, criticize your opponent, even condemn your opponent, but never, ever, ever condemn your opponent’s supporters because you need their votes.”
Luntz tested “deplorable” in focus groups and found that it didn’t make voters more pro-Trump. “But it hardened opposition to her instantly as someone who had no heart, who was too ideological and dismissive of people who disagreed with her.”
A consultant to Clinton’s campaign agreed. Writing in the Boston Globe shortly after the election, Diane Hessan said that she tracked undecided voters and their reaction to “deplorable” was stronger than the controversy over Clinton’s emails or FBI Director James B. Comey’s comments about them. “There was one moment when I saw more undecided voters shift to Trump than any other, when it all changed, when voters began to speak differently about their choice,” she wrote.
In “ What Happened ,” Clinton’s memoir of the campaign, she acknowledged that generalizing was almost always unwise and wrote that she regretted handing Trump “a political gift” by insulting well-intentioned people. “But too many of Trump’s core supporters do hold views that I find — there’s no other word for it — deplorable.”
Of course, voters are notoriously harder on female politicians, regardless of what they say. As Rebecca Traister stated in a 2017 New York magazine profile of Clinton , “A competent woman losing a job to an incompetent man is not an anomalous Election Day surprise; it is Tuesday in America. To acknowledge the role sexism played in 2016 is not to make excuses for the very real failings of Clinton and her campaign; it is to try to paint a more complete picture.”
In hindsight, how did “deplorables” play into all this? “It is impossible to say, ‘People reacted this way because of sexism,’ ” Traister said this week. “That’s not how it works. But you also cannot take sexism out of the equation whenever you’re talking about Hillary Clinton.”
Donald Trump says Hillary Clinton “talks about people like they are objects, not human beings.” (The Washington Post)
And Trump? The Republican nominee, always looking for an applause line, said he was offended on behalf of all his supporters. “While my opponent slanders you as deplorable and irredeemable, I call you hard-working American patriots who love your country,” he told his audience at an Iowa rally. The campaign rushed out an ad in battleground states: “You know what’s deplorable? Hillary Clinton viciously demonizing hard working people like you.”
Mike Pence jumped into the fray: “For Hillary Clinton to express such disdain for millions of Americans is one more reason that disqualifies her to serve in the highest office,” he told reporters. During an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Pence condemned Clinton but, when pressed, declined to call any Trump supporter deplorable, even, say, former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, who endorsed Trump. “No,” answered Pence. “I am not in the name-calling business, Wolf.”
MAGA fans could buy official “deplorable” merchandise from Team Trump — and they did happily. The term was “so mean that the only way for them to respond was to actually embrace it,” Luntz said. “And that’s how I realized she was in real trouble: If your strongest attack against your opponent is embraced by your opponents, that removes the sting.”
Five years later, you can purchase hats, T-shirts, hoodies and other gifts for the deplorables in your life. Patriot Depot, one of several online stores selling to Trump fans, offers a “Deplorables Club — Lifetime Member” cap for $19.95, The sales blurb explains: “Being a Deplorable is now a mark of pride among God-fearing, gun-loving, hard-working Americans.”
Clinton’s unusual turn of phrase foreshadowed an increasingly polarized America. We’re not just divided along ideological lines — we don’t even like each other very much.
The Pew Research Center found that from December 2016 to September 2019, the shares of both parties that viewed members of the other “somewhat” coldly or “very” coldly increased, as did the percentage that viewed them as “immoral.”
Those assessments were undoubtedly influenced by the 2017 Charlottesville rally and have been hardened by pandemic restrictions, Black Lives Matter protests and the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol.
“I’m proud that Secretary Clinton called out racism and bigotry in 2016, especially when that wasn’t the politically safe thing to do,” campaign speechwriter Dan Schwerin said.
Now, many of her fans believe she was prescient about “half” of Trump’s base.
“After four years of President Trump,” Allen said. “I think that there are a lot of Democrats and some Republicans who would say that was an undercount.”
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Everyone knew even at that time that Hillary was right.
Her mistake was in thinking that the rest of the nation would care that half of Trump's support was deplorable and then coalesce against such a candidate. She didnt realize that the "middle" isnt effected by a little thing like a major presidential candidates political base being nationalism, white grievance, misogyny, ignorance and conspiracies.
The five years since just proved that Hillary knew what she was talking about.
Your sweeping generalization still isn't true.
The Dems are losing the middle (independents), big time
HRC was full of horse manure when she made that deplorable comment and she has not changed one single bit!
There are many many Trump supporters who are indeed deplorable. We see that in racism, we see that in xenophobia, we see that in misogyny.
But it is even easier than that to see. We see it in the people who went to the Capitol Building on Jan 6th. Every single one of those people is deplorable. I dont care if they got inside the building or not. By Jan 6th Trump had already lost 60 cases in state courts related to election fraud. All of the relevant states had already had hand recounts. Trumps own attorney general said there was no voter fraud. But the Trump deplorables were going to "stop the steal" because they believed the biggest pathological liar in American history.
No Hillary was not wrong, at all.
Then I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. Have a good evening John.
"Now, many of her fans believe she was prescient about “half” of Trump’s base."
She was off by 'half'.
That’s for sure!
I wear being called a deplorable by that woman as a badge of honor and am proud to be a bitter clinger, a deplorable and a chump and intend to continue to be the worst of what those people who created those terms thought of us. Unrepentant and unmovable.
'“Basket of deplorables” is a weird turn of phrase.'
I thought it was calculated to convey attitude while concealing allusion to the issue of social class.
I think we were all blindsided by how much of the electorate fits the "deplorable" description. We thought, "No way can a guy like Trump get almost 50% of the vote and win the electoral college." We read endless articles about the imminent collapse of the GOP and endless inaccurate polls told us Trump would lose in a landslide.
Now we have seen how Joe Biden barely pulled off a victory against Trump in a deadly pandemic that Trump obviously mismanaged and made worse.
I had to stop watching MSNBC because of the general disconnect from reality. They won't shut up about Trump and gawking at the man gets in the way of figuring out how to keep the Democratic Party from what resemble complete collapse in 2022 and 2024.
Trump voters and supporters might be deplorables but that is heads and shoulders above the traitorous pond scum Biden supporters and voters.
Trump didn't ABANDON Americans and leave them for vile terrorists to do with as they please. THAT IS ALL ON BIDEN. And he revels in that knowledge.
I don't think there is any doubt of that. The rest of your comment is off topic deflection, but not unexpected as many on the right are desperate to distract from their own weakness, failures and their tacit support for those who attacked our nation on January 6th. The consequences from the follow through of Trumps withdrawal timeline from Afghanistan are a indeed a huge distraction gift for the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic bigots who continue to support the twice impeached former President so it's no wonder they are screaming at the top of their lungs in hope that everyone forgets what a worthless bunch of vile criminals were in the white house previously.
Hysterical exaggeration, hateful spew.
When they know nothing other than hate and vitriol, they use the tool they know. I'm surprised it took this long for the "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic bigots" cards to be played. I will allow that their deck of cards is getting bigger. Formerly it only had the Ace of Racist card.
What are you talking about? That was the topic of the seed and taken straight from Clintons comments back in 2016. I just steered your off topic rant back on track to the discussion of 'deplorables'. We know who they are, they can't hide it, they gnash their teeth in seething hatred for those they have deemed 'others' or 'sinners' but they can go fuck themselves because they aren't true Americans, they're worthless scum who cling to the fantasy image of some pristine white Christian patriarchy ruling America and they are, just as Clinton pointed out, deplorable.
The whatshisname criminal enterprise of an 'administration'.
I see the usual projectors, deflecters, and deniers are here.
Deplorable, bitter, hateful, clingers . . . .
Not hateful or bitter but proud to be called clinger, deplorable, chump by the domestic opposition.
'Hysterical exaggeration, hateful spew.'
What is it if Obama describes a policy as putting 'lipstick on a pig' and the GOP runs a campaign on the premise that he was referencing not a policy, but a person substituted in the place where he made the rhetorical remark? He didn't reference the 'Wasilla word salad;' Obama referenced policy. That is not what was represented by campaign defenders. So what is that called?
The "But Trruuummmmppppp!!!!!" articles are exploding in numbers aren't they?
Seems the Democrats and their minions want to deflect attention away from the current moron in chief occupying the White House.
They also seem to think their shit doesn't stink. They spent the last 5 and half years plus demonizing anyone that didn't agree with them; and now they are upset that:
They need to take a long look in the mirror about who is responsible for the current political climate. The alt left took things to extremes never seen before; and then they are shocked when the alt right tries to match them?
Little things like the highly partisan Jan 6th investigation. The current two tier justice system where BLM and Antifa rioters are released after assaulting federal officers, destruction of federal property, arson, looting, and even taking over several city blocks; meanwhile the DOJ is holding some Jan 6th rioters that did nothing more than trespass (and even that is debatable since police never stopped them from entering after the riot was over). Are further dividing the country as the Democrats seek to punish all those that have the temerity to question their rule.
The deplorables are completely incapable of self-reflection.
Are you now claiming the mantle of a deplorable regarding "self reflection" Mr. Russell?
Vampires can't see their reflections in mirrors
But Trump!
But Secularists!
Trump set the timeline. Trump had already surrendered and was planning to pull out May 1st.
Of course not!
Name the conditions, and name the conditions that the Taliban met.
Prove it. I said name the conditions, not just blurt out what you think is a condition.
Biden stood up and ended a war that Trump was too chicken shit scared to. He made a hard decision, knowing that it would not be pretty.
Trump's biggest decision was whether he should push his Diet Coke button before or after he wiped his ass.
If Biden didn't like Trump's plan, he could have changed plans. Why didn't he?
Was it just so he could blame Trump?
Trump's plan was a May 1st exit from Afghanistan. Was that changed?
Why, yes, yes it WAS changed, which merely begs the question:
WTF is Biden blaming the Trump Admin. for when he could have changed anything he didn't like?
THAT is the whole point here--if Biden didn't like what Trump agreed to, he could have changed it instead of passing the blame on to someone no longer in control.
So there you go. Now your 2.3.7 question looks foolish since you already knew he'd changed Trump's plan.
And you now know what is going to be next, right? Your evidence of Biden blaming Trump.
Let's see it.
Would you please point out where Biden specifically blamed trmp?
Implied by bringing him into it. It was all things that were set up, supposedly, prior to Mr. Biden taking office that were at fault.
The only thing I see is him talking about letting taliban prisoners go. And that's barely like he's blaming him.
I guess it depends on your perspective
Was it then "projection, deflection, and denial">
Implied??? Wow, you are doing a lot of stretching to try to cover Texan1211's stupid claim.
see it??
wtf?
do you watch the news???
Yes I do, which is how I know your claim is bullshit. You also know your claim is bullshit, or else you would have proven it by now.
Jeez, if you REALLY watched the news, I would expect you to be better informed and not asking for proof that you have personally seen.
My mistake.
But, since your Google is broken:
Biden blames Trump for Afghan pullout — then takes credit for it (nypost.com)
Successful Failure: Biden Takes Credit, Blames Trump for Afghanistan (freebeacon.com)
Biden blames Afghans and Trump for Afghanistan debacle - The Washington Post
'Shameful': WSJ Blasts Biden for Placing Blame on Trump for Afghanistan Crisis (ijr.com)
Biden Defends Afghanistan Decision, Blames Trump for Empowering Taliban (newsweek.com)
Biden pins partial blame on Trump during first address to nation since Afghanistan withdrawal (msn.com)
Let me know if you need any more sources--there are plenty of them.
Funny that a simple search could turn up so many when you couldn't find even one!
A bunch of fucking right wing opinion pieces does not prove your claim. Provide the quote where Biden blames Trump by name.
Is it any wonder that the once Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln is now known merely as the gop?
What are the initials of the Grand Old Party? What do they make when assembled in order?
Might be a little too hard for TDS-addled brains to see.
She was spot-on. Then the deplorables feigned shock and outrage over it, furthering their deplorability.
We did not. We happily to this day took her name upon ourselves and proudly wear it and all she intended by it as a badge of honor and wear it proudly to taunt her for creating it. Proud to be called a deplorable by all on her side of the aisle. That a left wing rag now thinks she was right makes it all the better to us. Call us that all you want! We could not possibly care less.
Lol. So the right did not feign shock and outrage when Hillary called a spade a spade. Got it.
Give her some credit for grace in this case. She was willing to acknowledge that there were good people who had good reason to vote for someone like Trump. As for the basket of deplorables, she wasn’t wrong, but saying it that way was like serving up a meatball to the opposing batter.
You want to be careful to not go out of your way to shit on part of the electorate, even if they deserve it. Even if you don’t think you need their votes, appearing holier-than-thou never looks good. She could have made the acknowledgement without spending time on the jerks.
Trump had the opposite problem. He was so afraid of alienating anyone who might vote for him that he had to be pushed even to condemn the KKK. When the terrible people are actively endorsing you, then it’s time to speak up. It’s a lesson he never learned because the jerks of the world still support him and he still embraces them, mainly because they support him politically.
Sigh. And now pause to take away credit from this author for misrepresenting what Trump said. Unnecessary anyway.
Why is anyone posting this seed?
Is it some vain attempt to make Hillary relevant again?
Are Democrats seeing the writing on the wall and realizing that keeping the WH won't be as easy as they thought before?
Can they see that Harris isn't qualified?
As the saying goes there are none so blind as those who will not see!