Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said Friday that 50 percent of Donald Trump supporters are nothing more than a “basket of deplorables,” which means she considers about 25 percent of America to be “irredeemable.”
“To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Clinton said, according to CNN. “Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”
Numerous polls have put Trump’s support numbers at around 45 percent. Half that is 22.5 percent–the exact slice of America with which Clinton seems to have a serious problem.
“And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up,” Clinton added. “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.”
In this particular statement, Clinton was referring to Trump’s tacit encouragement of the alt-right. She complained in August that Trump is “taking hate groups mainstream.”
For Clinton, who delivered the remarks at an LGBT fundraiser, the other half of Trump supporters aren’t so bad and happen to escape from falling in the “basket of deplorables.” Instead, these other Trump supporters just feel the government has let them down and also that nobody cares about them.
Clinton’s speech somewhat resembles comments made by GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney during the 2012 election, in which he told a private audience of donors that 47 percent of voters will inevitably opt for President Barack Obama, as they are rely on government handouts.
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what,” Romney said. “All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.”
Follow Jonah Bennett on Twitter
Send tips to jonah@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.