Let’s take a trip down memory lane.
Remember back in 2016 when then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton dished out her infamous “basket of deplorables” line about supporters of Donald Trump?
Who could forget?
The “Basket of Deplorables” Hillary Clinton labels half of Trump’s supporters as “racists.” Did Clinton go too far? pic.twitter.com/wfiwNnYMAx
— FOX&friends Weekend (@ffweekend) September 10, 2016
And while Clinton has apologized for her comment generalizing people who voted for Trump, she’s back on the “deplorables” train once again.
Clinton penned an op-ed published in The Washington Post last week titled, “To err is human, to empathize is superhuman.”
In the piece, she describes her struggle to empathize with “radicalized individuals.”
“In 2016, I famously described half of Trump’s supporters as ‘the basket of deplorables.’ I was talking about the people who are drawn to his racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia — you name it. The people for whom his bigotry is a feature, not a bug. It was an unfortunate choice of words and bad politics, but it also got at an important truth. Just look at everything that has happened in the years since, from Charlottesville to Jan. 6,” Clinton wrote.
Clinton went on the double down on her deplorables comment.
She added, “The masks have come off, and if anything, ‘deplorable’ is too kind a word for the hate and violent extremism we’ve seen from some Trump supporters.”
Hillary Clinton Doubles Down On Infamous 'Deplorables' Comment, Says It's 'Too Kind a Word' For Some Trumpers https://t.co/o0Cj50exsb
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) September 26, 2024
Clinton also said she still believes parts of her “deplorable” comment were “objectively true,”
“Talking about the ‘deplorables’ in 2016, I said, ‘Some of those folks, they are irredeemable.’ Part of me would still say this is objectively true. Just look at the lack of remorse from many of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists who’ve been convicted of sedition and other crimes. But another part of me wants to believe something else. I’d like to believe there’s goodness in everyone and a chance at redemption, no matter how remote,” she concluded.
In her original comments, Clinton said, “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
The next day, she repeated how her comment was “grossly generalistic,” though continued to attack then-candidate Donald Trump over alleged bigotry.
“I regret saying ‘half’ – that was wrong. But let’s be clear, what’s really ‘deplorable’ is that Donald Trump hired a major advocate for the so-called ‘alt-right’ movement to run his campaign and that David Duke and other White supremacists see him as a champion of their values,” Clinton also said.
Was Clinton actually sorry? Doesn’t seem like it.