Trump condemns Clinton’s ‘deplorables’ label on his backers

“How can she be president of our country when she has such contempt and disdain for so many great Americans?” a Trump statement asked.

A group of people backing the Republican nominee is “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it”, Mrs Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, said at a campaign fund-raiser on Friday at Cipriani Wall Street, an upscale Italian restaurant in NY.

Traditional values and religious teachings appear to have no place in a “progressive” America led by Hillary Clinton.

Clinton expressed regret only for generalizing that this group amounted to “half” of Trump’s supporters, which equates to millions of Americans.

That’s where I’ll caution Clinton and her supporters. We are living in a volatile political environment.

The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic-you name it. At the NY restaurant, Clinton bemoaned the people she described as “deplorables”, saying “unfortunately there are people like that. 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.

Speaking at an evening fundraiser in NY, the former USA secretary of state said Trump had given voice to hateful rhetoric from such individuals through his behavior as a candidate for the White House.

“So let me just say from the bottom of my heart: Hillary, they are not a basket of anything”.

Trump’s remark was reminiscent of a comment he made in January, when he said he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” but still not lose any support.

Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comments have drawn immediate comparisons to Mitt Romney’s 2012 line about 47% of Americans on government dole supporting Barack Obama and Obama’s 2008 characterisation of downtrodden Pennsylvanians as clinging to guns and religion. There are what I call the deplorables-the racists, you know, the haters, and the people who are drawn because they think somehow he’s going to restore an America that no longer exists.

On social media, the #BasketofDeplorables was trending as angry Republicans slammed Clinton for the comments.

It is important for Clinton – and others – to speak clearly about the danger posed by the ugliness unleashed by Trump, because no matter what happens in November, we all will have to deal with the fallout. Democrats like to accuse Republicans of using “code words” to cover for racism and anything else they disagree with, so is “phobia” just a “code word” for “deplorable”?

Republican strategist Ana Navarro, who has been highly critical of Trump, said Clinton might have crossed an important line. “They are Americans and they deserve your respect”, he said. Clinton would certainly love for her voters to be excited about her, but American elections often aren’t just – or even mostly – about voting for someone.

Republican rival Donald Trump is not now scheduled to attend. In the so-called apology, she didn’t actually say that she regretted calling a number of Trump’s backers racists, homophobes, xenophobes, and misogynists.

On Friday night, Hillary Clinton suggested that half of Donald Trump’s supporters belong in a “basket of deplorables”.

Obviously, the reality we actually live in bears little resemblance to the one Trump is referencing in these fanciful comments.

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill did not back away from the comment, reviving Clinton’s charge that Trump’s campaign has become a vessel for the alternative right, members of which frequently resort to ad hominem attacks based on race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.