| ||
---|---|---|
First Lady of the United States
U.S. Senator from New York U.S. Secretary of State 2008 presidential campaign 2016 presidential campaign Organizations
| ||
"Basket of deplorables" is a pejorative phrase from a 2016 US presidential election campaign speech delivered by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on September 9, 2016, at a campaign fundraising event. She used the phrase to describe "half" of the supporters of her opponent, Republican nominee Donald Trump, saying they're "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic". [1] The next day, she expressed regret for "saying half", while insisting that Trump had deplorably amplified "hateful views and voices". [2]
The Trump campaign repeatedly used the phrase against Clinton during and after the 2016 presidential election. Many Trump supporters adopted the "deplorable" moniker for themselves in reappropriation. Some journalists and political analysts questioned whether this speech played a role in the election's outcome. In her 2017 book What Happened , Clinton herself said that her comments on the "basket of deplorables" were a factor in her electoral loss. [3]
Throughout her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton expressed her concerns regarding Donald Trump and his supporters. The New York Times and CNN cited Clinton's earlier articulation of similar ideas to the phrase in her August 25, 2016, campaign speech at a rally in Reno, Nevada. [4] [5] In that speech, Clinton had criticized Trump's campaign for using "racist lies" and allowing the alt-right to gain prominence, claiming that Trump was "taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party". [5] [6] Clinton also criticized Trump for choosing Steve Bannon as his chief executive officer, especially given Bannon's role as the executive chair of the far-right news website Breitbart News . [7] Clinton read various headlines from the site, including "Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or Cancer?" and "Hoist It High and Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims a Glorious Heritage". [8] On that same day, Clinton posted a video on Twitter depicting white supremacists supporting Donald Trump. Within the video is a CNN interview wherein Trump initially declined to disavow white nationalist David Duke. [7]
During campaign fundraisers in August 2016, Clinton reportedly explained her divide and conquer approach to courting Republican voters by putting Trump supporters into two "baskets": everyday Republicans whom she would target for votes, and the alt-right crowd. [9] During a September 8, 2016, interview on Israel's Channel 2, Clinton said: "You can take Trump supporters and put them in two big baskets. They are what I would call the deplorables — you know, the racists and the haters, and the people who are drawn because they think somehow he's going to restore an America that no longer exists". [10]
At an LGBT campaign fundraising event in New York City on September 9, Clinton gave a speech and said the following: [11]
I know there are only 60 days left to make our case – and don't get complacent; don't see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, "Well, he's done this time". We are living in a volatile political environment.
You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Laughter/applause) Right? (Laughter/applause) They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic –you name it. And 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. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks –they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.
But the "other" basket –the other basket –and I know because I look at this crowd I see friends from all over America here: I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas and –as well as, you know, New York and California –but that "other" basket of people are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures; and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but – he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.
— Hillary Clinton, CBS News [12]
The following day Clinton expressed regret for "saying half", while insisting that Trump had deplorably amplified "hateful views and voices". [13] At the second presidential debate in October 2016, after Trump mentioned the speech in a response to James Carter, debate moderator Anderson Cooper asked Clinton: "How can you unite a country if you've written off tens of millions of Americans?" [14] Clinton responded to Cooper's question by saying: "My argument is not with his supporters, it's with him and the hateful, divisive campaign he has run". [15]
On October 20, 2016, during the 71st Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Clinton joked about the phrase, telling the guests: "I just want to put you all in a basket of adorables". [16]
Clinton's campaign pointed to a series of polls that showed that some of Trump's supporters held negative views toward Latinos, African Americans, and Muslims. [17] Clinton's campaign used the incident to try to force Trump's campaign members to denounce its extreme supporters. For example, after Mike Pence refused to call David Duke "deplorable", Clinton's running mate Tim Kaine accused Pence of enabling racism and xenophobia. [18]
Donald Trump criticized Clinton's remark as insulting to his supporters. [6] [19] In a rally at Des Moines, Trump stated: "While my opponent slanders you as deplorable and irredeemable, I call you hardworking American patriots who love your country". [17] [20] During the rest of the election, Trump invited "deplorable Americans" on stage. [21] For example, at a rally in Miami, Florida, on September 16, 2016, Trump parodied musical Les Misérables with the title Les Déplorables under the song "Do You Hear the People Sing?". [22] [23] Trump also used the label against Clinton in an advertisement, which claimed that Clinton herself is deplorable because she "viciously demoniz[es] hard working people like you". [24] On November 8, 2017, one year after the election, Trump thanked the "deplorables" for his victory. [25]
Others in Trump's campaign responded negatively to the statement. Trump's running mate Mike Pence stated in a Capitol Hill meeting: "For Hillary Clinton to express such disdain for millions of Americans is one more reason that disqualifies her to serve in the highest office". [26] Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager, had issued a statement on Twitter, claiming: "One day after promising to be aspirational & uplifting, Hillary insults millions of Americans". [27] [28]
Meanwhile, Roger Stone and Donald Trump Jr. posted a parody movie poster of The Expendables on Twitter and Instagram titled "The Deplorables", which included Pepe the Frog's face among those of members of the Trump family and other right-wing figures. [29]
In the final months of the election, the Trump campaign released official merchandise with the word "deplorable". [30] [31]
During and after the election, the "deplorables" nickname was reappropriated by many Trump supporters. [32] [33] Weeks before Trump's inauguration, various celebrations were held using the word "deplorable". One notable celebration was DeploraBall, which was celebrated by Trump supporters and several members of the right at the National Press Building from January 19 to 20, 2017. [34] [35] [36]
The day after Clinton's speech, some political analysts compared the statement to Mitt Romney's "47% gaffe" in 2012. [6] [19] [37] [38] Politico 's Rich Lowry describes conservatives' interpretation of Clinton's use of the term as "an unfair, disparaging term for people who believe reasonable but politically incorrect things (immigration should be restricted, NFL players should stand during the national anthem, All Lives Matter, etc.)". [39]
After the election, Diane Hessan, who had been hired by the Clinton campaign to track undecided voters, wrote in The Boston Globe that "all hell broke loose" after the "basket of deplorables" comment, which prompted what she saw as the largest shift of undecided voters towards Trump. [40] Political scientist Charles Murray said, in a post-election interview with Sam Harris, that because the comment helped get Donald Trump elected, it had "changed the history of the world, and he [Haidt] may very well be right. That one comment by itself may have swung enough votes, it certainly was emblematic of the disdain with which the New Upper Class looks at mainstream Americans". [41]
In an interview with CNN on December 4, 2016, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager Robby Mook said that the statement "definitely could have alienated" her voters. [42] Meanwhile, Courtney Weaver of Financial Times believed that Clinton's comment had no effect on the election, stating: "To argue that one word cost Mrs Clinton the election is foolish". However, Weaver acknowledged that the statement "did not hurt her opponent". [31] James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal wrote that Clinton only stated that she regretted saying half without indicating whether she underestimated or overestimated. [43]
Spectator columnist Charles Moore compared the impact of the statement to that of British left-winger Nye Bevan's comments disparaging British Conservative Party members as "lower than vermin" in 1948. Moore noted that these remarks sparked a similar outrage and led to the formation of the "Vermin Club". [44]
Some Trump opponents turned the phrase against the Trump administration. For example Time writer Darlena Cunha opined that several members nominated for Trump's cabinet were a "basket of deplorables" spreading racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism. [45]
In her 2017 book What Happened , Clinton said that her comments generalizing half of Trump's supporters as a "basket of deplorables" were a factor in her electoral loss, calling it a "political gift" for Trump. [3]
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is an American politician and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator representing New York from 2001 to 2009, and the first lady of the United States as the wife of Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party's nominee in the 2016 presidential election, becoming the first woman to win a presidential nomination by a major U.S. political party and the only woman to win the popular vote for U.S. president. She is the only first lady of the United States to have run for elected office.
Kellyanne Elizabeth Conway is an American political consultant and pollster who served as Senior Counselor to the President in the administration of Donald Trump from 2017 to 2020. She was previously Trump's campaign manager, having been appointed in August 2016; Conway is the first woman to have run a successful U.S. presidential campaign. She has previously held roles as campaign manager and strategist in the Republican Party and was formerly president and CEO of the Polling Company/WomanTrend.
The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, commonly known as the Al Smith Dinner, is an annual white tie dinner in New York City to raise funds for Catholic charities supporting children of various needs in the Archdiocese of New York. Held at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on the third Thursday of October, it is hosted by the Archbishop of New York. It is organized by the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation in honor of Al Smith, who grew up in poverty and later became the governor of New York four times and was the first Catholic nominated for president by a major party as the Democratic nominee in the 1928 election.
The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket of former secretary of state and First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton and Virginia junior senator Tim Kaine, in what was considered one of the biggest political upsets in American history. It was the fifth and most recent presidential election in which the winning candidate lost the popular vote. It was also the sixth and most recent presidential election in U.S. history in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1860, 1904, 1920, 1940, and 1944.
The post-presidency of Bill Clinton began on January 20, 2001 following the end of Clinton's second term as president. Clinton was the 42nd president of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. After he left office, he continued to be active in the public sphere, touring the world, writing books, and campaigning for Democrats, including his wife, Hillary Clinton, who served as the junior U.S. senator from New York between 2001 and 2009 and the 67th United States Secretary of State between 2009 and 2013, on her presidential campaigns in 2008, in which she was runner-up for the Democratic nomination, and in 2016, when she lost the election to Donald Trump. After Clinton left office, he ended up forming a close friendship with George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush, and later, with their son George W. Bush.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton ran unsuccessfully for president of the United States. An experienced Democratic politician, Clinton served as the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator representing New York from 2001 to 2009, and the first lady of the United States as the wife of Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. She was defeated in the general election by the Republican candidate, businessman Donald Trump.
The 2016 presidential campaign of Gary Johnson, the 29th Governor of New Mexico, was announced on January 6, 2016, for the nomination of the Libertarian Party for President of the United States. He officially won the nomination on May 29, 2016, at the Libertarian National Convention in Orlando, Florida, receiving 56% of the vote on the second ballot. Former Massachusetts Governor William Weld was endorsed by Johnson for the Libertarian vice-presidential nomination, which he also received on May 29, 2016.
In the 2016 presidential campaign, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders sought the Democratic Party's nomination in a field of six major candidates and was the runner up with 46% of the pledged delegates behind former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who won the contest with 54%. Sanders, the junior United States senator and former Representative from Vermont, began with an informal announcement on April 30, 2015, and a formal announcement that he planned to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States on May 26, 2015, in Burlington, Vermont. Sanders had been considered a potential candidate for president since at least September 2014. Though he had previously run as an independent, he routinely caucused with the Democratic Party, as many of his views align with Democrats. Running as a Democrat made it easier to participate in debates and get his name on state ballots.
The 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump was formally launched on June 16, 2015, at Trump Tower in New York City. Trump was the Republican nominee for President of the United States in the 2016 election, having won the most state primaries, caucuses, and delegates at the 2016 Republican National Convention. He chose Mike Pence, the sitting governor of Indiana, as his vice presidential running mate. On November 8, 2016, Trump and Pence were elected president and vice president of the United States. Trump's populist positions in opposition to illegal immigration and various trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, earned him support especially among voters who were male, white, blue-collar, working class, and those without college degrees. Many voters in the Rust Belt, who gave Trump the electoral votes needed to win the presidency, switched from supporting Bernie Sanders to Trump after Hillary Clinton won the Democratic nomination.
On March 3, 2016, U.S. Republican politician Mitt Romney delivered a major speech for the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the Libby Gardner Hall in the University of Utah. In that speech, he denounced Donald Trump, who was then the front-runner in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries. He urged citizens to use tactical voting in the remaining primaries and caucuses to maximize the chance of denying Trump a delegate majority.
The Never Trump movement is an ongoing conservative movement that opposes Trumpism and U.S. president-elect Donald Trump. It began as an effort on the part of a group of Republicans and other prominent conservatives to prevent Republican front-runner Trump from obtaining the 2016 Republican Party presidential nomination.
Social media played an important role in shaping the course of events surrounding the 2016 United States presidential election. It facilitated greater voter interaction with the political climate; unlike traditional media, social media gave people the ability to create, comment on, and share content related to the election.
On October 7, 2016, one month before the United States presidential election, The Washington Post published a video and article about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and television host Billy Bush having a lewd conversation about women in September 2005. Trump and Bush were on a bus on their way to film an episode of Access Hollywood, a show owned by NBCUniversal. In the video, Trump described his attempt to seduce a married woman and indicated he might start kissing a woman that he and Bush were about to meet. He added, "I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything." Many commentators and lawyers described such an action as sexual assault. Others argued that the remarks were an assertion that sexual consent is easier to obtain for the famous and wealthy.
In March 2016, the personal Gmail account of John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff and chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, was compromised in a data breach accomplished via a spear-phishing attack, and some of his emails, many of which were work-related, were hacked. Cybersecurity researchers as well as the United States government attributed responsibility for the breach to the Russian cyber spying group Fancy Bear, allegedly two units of a Russian military intelligence agency.
Donald Trump, the President of the United States from 2017 to 2021, was the subject of segments featured in episodes of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver during Trump's 2016 Republican primary and general election campaigns and presidency, most of which were discussed in the show's opening news recap segment. The ones listed have received prominent coverage from other media, and feature Trump or his actions as part of the main segment.
The DeploraBall was an unofficial inaugural ball event organized by GOTV group MAGA3X and held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on the evening of January 19, 2017, to celebrate the victory and inauguration of Donald Trump. The event fomented controversy due to its alleged association with members of the alt-right, and triggered violent protests outside the venue while the event went on as scheduled inside. In addition to the MAGA3X event, the "DeploraBall" name has also been used to refer to additional events for Trump supporters in Washington, D.C., and other locations. The name is a play on Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comment made during her 2016 presidential election campaign.
What Happened is a 2017 memoir by Hillary Clinton about her experiences as the Democratic Party's nominee and general election candidate for president of the United States in the 2016 election. Published on September 12, 2017, it is her seventh book with her publisher, Simon & Schuster.
Media coverage of the 2016 United States presidential election was a source of controversy during and after the election, with various candidates, campaigns and supporters alleging bias against candidates and causes.
From 2017 through 2021, Donald Trump was the 45th president of the United States; he is the only American president to have no political or military service prior to his presidency, as well as the first to be charged and convicted with a felony after leaving office. In scholarly surveys he is ranked among history's worst when compared to other presidents of the United States.
Her remarks on Friday were a more pointed version of her earlier criticisms of the movement her opponent has spurred.
Although Clinton has accused Trump of racism before, she has never explicitly called him a racist. Last month, she delivered a major speech in which she accused Trump of aligning himself with far-right extremists and saying he 'built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia'.
Prof. Jennifer Mercieca, an expert in American political discourse at Texas A&M University, said in an email that the 'deplorable' comment 'sounds bad on the face of it' and compared it to Romney's 47 percent gaffe. 'The comment demonstrates that she (like Romney) lacks empathy for that group', Professor Mercieca said.
Republican pollster Frank Luntz described Clinton's comments as her '47 percent moment', a reference to Republican Mitt Romney's remarks at a private fundraiser in the 2012 campaign.
The remarks also remind of inflammatory remarks in recent presidential elections on both sides – from Barack Obama's assertion in 2008 that people in small towns are "bitter" and "cling to guns or religion", to Mitt Romney's 2012 statement that 47 percent of Americans vote for Democrats because they are "dependent upon government" and believe they are "victims", to his vice presidential pick Paul Ryan's comment that the country is divided between "makers and takers" ... Clinton's remarks, like Obama's in 2008, smacked of liberal elitism — liberals talking to liberals about a group of people they don't really know or hang out with, but feel free to opine about when talking to each other.
On the other hand, it's not clear whether this comment, even if people don't like it, will have anywhere near the effect that Romney's "47 percent" comment was supposed to have. That's especially because Clinton has backed away from saying it applied to half of Trump supporters and, as I noted two weeks ago, the fact that Romney's comment might have alienated people who actually might have voted for him. Clinton's comment was about people already backing her opponent – a key difference.