Deplorable

Pundits on the left and right have been clutching their pearls over Hillary Clinton’s remark that roughly half of Trump’s supporters belong in a “basket of deplorables.”

Supporters worry about the political fallout ( given the media’s tendency to hold Clinton to a far higher standard than Trump, from whom they expect outrageous insults), while Clinton opponents claim to be “shocked, shocked” at the political incorrectness of it all. (Ignore those pictures of Trump supporters wearing tee-shirts saying things like “Trump the bitch” and  the videos from his rallies where supporters liberally used the “n word.” Ignore, too, the calls to “jail her” at the Republican convention. Unlike those appealing political messages, calling any voters “deplorable” is simply unforgivable.)

“Politically correct” or not, the statement was objectively inarguable. (Perhaps the percentage was off; I personally would have placed it above 50%.) A few “factoids”

Much like Trump’s alleged opposition to the Iraq War, this not an impossible claim to investigate. We know, for instance, some nearly 60 percent of Trump’s supporters hold “unfavorable views” of Islam, and 76 percent support a ban on Muslims entering the United States. We know that some 40 percent of Trump’s supporters believe blacks are more violent, more criminal, lazier, and ruder than whites. Two-thirds of Trump’s supporters believe the first black president in this country’s history is not American. These claim are not ancillary to Donald Trump’s candidacy, they are a driving force behind it.

Then there was the survey that found twenty percent of Trump supporters agreeing with the statement that Lincoln was wrong to have freed the slaves.

And there was this screenshot of Trump voters in the South Carolina primary…

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And then there are his fans in the Klan and assorted hate groups, and the White Supremacists who claim he is channeling their message….

Even if a given Trump voter isn’t actively or overtly invested in these attitudes, Charles Blow’s observation in the New York Times is on point:

Donald Trump is a deplorable candidate — to put it charitably — and anyone who helps him advance his racial, religious and ethnic bigotry is part of that bigotry. Period. Anyone who elevates a sexist is part of that sexism. The same goes for xenophobia. You can’t conveniently separate yourself from the detestable part of him because you sense in him the promise of cultural or economic advantage. That hair cannot be split.

As I have previously blogged, I’m hard-pressed to identify any Trump supporters who don’t belong in the “deplorables” basket…
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