Racist, xenophobic and misogynistic language has been the cornerstone of Donald Trump's campaign since he began running for president, allowing white nationalist groups and the white people who love them to come out of the woodwork to express how they really feel about blacks, Mexicans, Muslims and women.
Friday night, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called out that segment of Trump’s base during a fundraiser in New York City.
“You know, just to be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that,” Clinton said. “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 their offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.”
She went to note that the other half of his supporters are good, hardworking Americans who felt that the government had failed them economically. “Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well,” she said.
Of course, some Trump supporters, missing the full context of her statement, eagerly jumped on the “basket of deplorables” comment and assumed that the description was directed at them personally:
Others on Twitter came to Clinton’s defense, noting that a little truth hurts: