Basket of deplorables

Based on Wikipedia: Basket of deplorables

The Phrase That Launched a Thousand Memes

In the annals of American political gaffes, few phrases have ricocheted through the culture quite like "basket of deplorables." Hillary Clinton uttered these three words on September 9, 2016, at a campaign fundraiser, and within hours they had escaped her control entirely, becoming a rallying cry for the very people she meant to criticize.

It's a fascinating case study in how language works in politics. Sometimes the words you use to attack your opponents become the flag they wave with pride.

What She Actually Said

The context matters here, and it's more nuanced than the soundbite suggests. Clinton was speaking at an LGBT fundraising event in New York City, addressing supporters about the challenge of the remaining sixty days until the election. Here's what she said:

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.

But she didn't stop there. This is the part that got lost in the firestorm:

But the other basket—the other basket—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. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

So she was actually drawing a distinction. Half, in her telling, were motivated by prejudice. The other half were hurting economically and felt abandoned. She was trying to say she understood the second group.

But nuance doesn't travel well in politics. "Basket of deplorables" traveled very well indeed.

This Wasn't a Slip of the Tongue

Here's something that often gets overlooked: Clinton had been working toward this framing for weeks. It wasn't an improvised gaffe. She had given a major speech in Reno, Nevada, two weeks earlier, on August 25, laying out her case that Donald Trump's campaign was elevating fringe elements of the right into the mainstream.

In that speech, she'd criticized Trump's hiring of Steve Bannon, who had run the website Breitbart News. She read Breitbart headlines aloud to the crowd, including gems like "Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or Cancer?" and "Hoist It High and Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims a Glorious Heritage."

She was building an argument about the alt-right—a loosely organized movement of online activists who embraced white nationalism, anti-feminism, and deliberately provocative rhetoric. And she was trying to tie that movement to Trump's campaign.

The "basket" metaphor was apparently part of her stump speech at private fundraisers. She'd used the two-baskets framework before, including in an interview with Israel's Channel 2 the day before the infamous speech. The idea was a political strategy: divide Trump's coalition into those who were reachable and those who weren't, then court the reachable ones.

The problem was that calling half of any candidate's supporters "deplorable" was always going to be incendiary. And once it escaped the friendly confines of a New York fundraiser, it exploded.

The Immediate Fallout

Clinton moved quickly to contain the damage. The next day, she issued a statement expressing regret for "saying half"—a carefully worded partial walk-back that acknowledged she'd overestimated the proportion without renouncing the underlying critique. She continued to insist that Trump had "deplorably amplified hateful views and voices."

But the damage was done. Trump pounced immediately.

"While my opponent slanders you as deplorable and irredeemable," he told a rally in Des Moines, "I call you hardworking American patriots who love your country."

This was politically astute. Clinton had given Trump a gift: she'd said something that could be characterized as contempt for ordinary people. And contempt is a powerful thing in politics. People can forgive disagreement. They don't forgive being looked down upon.

How Deplorables Became a Badge of Honor

What happened next was remarkable. Trump supporters didn't just reject the label. They embraced it.

Within days, you could buy "Deplorable" t-shirts, hats, and bumper stickers. People started calling themselves "proud deplorables" on social media. The Trump campaign itself eventually released official merchandise featuring the word.

At a rally in Miami on September 16, Trump staged what can only be described as political theater: supporters came onstage to a parody of "Do You Hear the People Sing?" from Les Misérables, re-titled "Les Déplorables." The imagery was potent—the downtrodden rising up against the elite.

Donald Trump Jr. and Roger Stone posted a parody movie poster on social media, modeled on The Expendables action film franchise. It was titled "The Deplorables" and featured faces of Trump family members and right-wing personalities, along with Pepe the Frog—an internet meme that had been adopted by alt-right communities.

This is a phenomenon linguists and political scientists call reappropriation. When a group takes an insult hurled at them and transforms it into a source of pride, they neutralize its power. The gay community did this with "queer." African Americans have done it with certain terms. And in 2016, Trump supporters did it with "deplorable."

The 47 Percent Problem

Almost immediately, commentators drew parallels to Mitt Romney's infamous "47 percent" comment from the 2012 election. At a private fundraiser that year, Romney had been secretly recorded saying that 47 percent of Americans "believe they are victims" and would vote for Barack Obama no matter what because they depend on government benefits.

The comparison is instructive. Both comments were made at fundraisers. Both seemed to write off large swaths of voters. Both became defining moments of their respective campaigns.

But there's a crucial difference. Romney's comment portrayed his opponents' supporters as moochers. Clinton's comment portrayed her opponent's supporters as bigots. The first is an attack on character related to economics. The second is an attack on character related to morality.

Which is worse? That depends on your perspective. But both comments shared a common flaw: they confirmed suspicions that the candidate looked down on ordinary people.

Did It Change the Election?

This is where things get murky, and honest analysts have to admit uncertainty.

Diane Hessan was hired by the Clinton campaign to track undecided voters throughout the election. She later wrote in The Boston Globe that "all hell broke loose" after the deplorable comment. She saw it as the trigger for the largest shift of undecided voters toward Trump during the entire campaign.

Political scientist Charles Murray went further. In a post-election interview, he suggested the comment might have "changed the history of the world" by swinging enough votes to elect Trump. That's a strong claim, but Murray was making a point about how cultural contempt alienates people.

Clinton's own campaign manager, Robby Mook, acknowledged in a post-election interview that the statement "definitely could have alienated" voters. That's a telling admission from someone who had every incentive to downplay the damage.

On the other hand, Courtney Weaver of the Financial Times argued that blaming one word for Clinton's loss was "foolish," given the multitude of factors at play—the email controversy, the Comey letter, the electoral college math, and much else.

The truth is probably somewhere in between. The "basket of deplorables" didn't happen in a vacuum. It fed into an existing narrative that Clinton was an out-of-touch elite who disdained ordinary Americans. Whether it was decisive is unknowable, but it certainly didn't help.

Clinton herself came to see it as significant. In her 2017 memoir What Happened, she called her deplorables comment a "political gift" to Trump and acknowledged it as a factor in her defeat.

A British Parallel

History rhymes more than it repeats, and there's an interesting British echo to this story.

In 1948, Nye Bevan—a prominent left-wing Labour politician and architect of Britain's National Health Service—gave a speech in which he described members of the Conservative Party as "lower than vermin." He was specifically attacking Tories who had opposed the creation of universal healthcare.

The reaction was fierce. Conservatives were outraged, and some embraced the insult, forming what they called the "Vermin Club." They wore vermin badges with a certain perverse pride.

Columnist Charles Moore drew this parallel after Clinton's speech, noting how disparaging remarks can backfire spectacularly. When you call your opponents vermin—or deplorables—you risk uniting them against you while validating their suspicion that you see them as beneath contempt.

The Irony of Reappropriation

After Trump won the election, celebrations using the "deplorable" theme proliferated. The most notable was the DeploraBall, a celebratory gathering of Trump supporters and right-wing figures held at the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., from January 19 to 20, 2017—coinciding with Trump's inauguration.

Think about that for a moment. Clinton used the word to stigmatize and marginalize. Less than five months later, the people she'd stigmatized were throwing a party called the DeploraBall at the National Press Building, celebrating their victory.

One year after the election, on November 8, 2017, Trump tweeted his thanks to "the deplorables" for his victory. The insult had completed its transformation into a term of endearment.

The Lasting Legacy

The "basket of deplorables" became more than a gaffe. It became a symbol of something deeper in American politics: the chasm between different groups who don't just disagree about policy but view each other with something approaching mutual incomprehension.

Clinton had pointed to polls showing that significant portions of Trump's supporters held negative views toward Latinos, African Americans, and Muslims. Those polls were real. But the way she framed the issue—sorting people into baskets, labeling half as irredeemable—came across as clinical and dismissive.

This gets at a fundamental tension in democratic politics. How do you call out prejudice without seeming to condemn the people who hold prejudiced views? Is there a way to challenge racism while still appealing to people who might be persuadable?

Clinton tried to thread that needle with her two-baskets approach. The first basket was irredeemable; the second deserved empathy and understanding. But the nuance collapsed under the weight of that one vivid phrase.

At the second presidential debate in October 2016, moderator Anderson Cooper pressed Clinton on the issue: "How can you unite a country if you've written off tens of millions of Americans?"

Clinton responded: "My argument is not with his supporters, it's with him and the hateful, divisive campaign he has run."

But by then, the damage was done. Millions of voters had heard themselves being put in a basket and labeled deplorable. No amount of clarification could undo that first impression.

A Final Joke

In October 2016, Clinton attended the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a traditional charity event where presidential candidates are expected to roast themselves and each other. It's a white-tie affair in New York, a chance for candidates to show they can laugh at themselves.

Clinton addressed the wealthy crowd and joked: "I just want to put you all in a basket of adorables."

It got a laugh. But it also underscored the original problem. At a glittering Manhattan fundraiser, surrounded by the wealthy and connected, Clinton was relaxed and funny. In the heartland, with people who felt left behind by globalization and cultural change, she struggled to connect.

The basket of deplorables endures as a cautionary tale about political language. It reminds us that in politics, your opponents will often use your words better than you can. It reminds us that contempt is corrosive, even when aimed at genuinely problematic views. And it reminds us that the people you dismiss have a way of showing up at the polls.