Clinton Says Trump’s Backers Are in ‘Basket of Deplorables’

Yes, these are Hillary Clinton’s words. The Democratic presidential nominee believes that roughly half of Donald Trump’s supporters are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic” and fall squarely into what she calls “the basket of deplorables.”

Admitting that her claims are “grossly generalistic,” the Democrat lumped half of her opponent’s enthusiastic supporters into one insulting category during a speech Friday evening at an LGBT-focused fundraiser in New York City with singer and actress Barbra Streisand.

“Unfortunately, there are people like that,” said Hillary Clinton. “And [Trump] has lifted them up.”

“You know, just to be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables,'” Clinton said. “They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — 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 offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.”

Clinton then proceeded to describe the “other basket” of Trump supporters.

“That other basket of people are people who feel that 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 a change,” Clinton continued. “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.”

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But no amount of pitiful attempts at smoothing over her bold statements regarding the “deplorables” could smooth over the impact of what Clinton really said Friday night. In dismissing half of Trump’s supporters in one fell swoop, the former secretary of state dismissed the concerns of a large swath of American voters by implying that they weren’t valid or important enough to address.

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For those who care about strengthening U.S. borders, enforcing immigration laws already in place and putting U.S. citizens’ well being over the well being of others, Clinton labeled them as “racist” or “xenophobic.”

Using the stereotype of a pro-life white male Republican, Clinton called half of Trump’s supporters “sexist.”

If anyone happens to support traditional, heterosexual marriage as the bedrock of society — well, Clinton deems those people “homophobic.”

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And for those who fear the threat of radical Islamic terrorism after a  year filled with attacks by such forces, Clinton dismissed them out of hand as “Islamaphobes.”

Instead of offering solutions for Americans’ concerns and promoting detailed policies that will strengthen the U.S. and put its interests first, Clinton used the copout of vilifying her political opponents with an emotional and irrational string of insults.

Trump himself offered a response to Clinton’s insults on Saturday morning, tweeting, “Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hardworking people. I think it will cost her at the polls!”

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It didn’t take long for some to note that Clinton’s insulting dismissal of half of Trump’s voters resembled 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s infamous and damaging dismissal of the “47 percent” of voters who he claimed would blindly support President Obama’s reelection no matter what.

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. 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 — that that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them,” Romney said back in 2012. “And they will vote for this president no matter what … These are people who pay no income tax … [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

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“Tonight, Hillary Clinton just had her ‘47 percent’ moment,” pollster Frank Luntz tweeted Friday evening. “If Trump continues his upward climb in polls and wins on November 8th, tonight will be seen as the turning point of the race.”

But Clinton’s flat dismissal of a significant portion of potential and likely voters also eerily echoes the political climate surrounding the United Kingdom’s vote on June 23 to leave the European Union. Before the vote, many globalist elites dismissed the populist vibes of a significant portion of U.K. voters, labeling any concerns regarding border security, clamping down on refugees and protecting the U.K. against threats of Islamic terrorism as “racist” and “xenophobic” and “Islamaphobic.”

But when these citizens took to the voting booths on June 23 to validate their concerns and put into effect the Brexit movement — critics were stunned.

Clinton may have unleashed a whirlwind of fury and frustration that may prove itself to be her undoing on Nov. 8. On Saturday morning she seemed to express regret for her comments, but that may be far too little too late.