Hillary Clinton grasped at straws while speaking at an LGBT event in Manhattan on Friday night, and wove them into clumsy metaphor that hurt the feelings of people who already hate her.
At the LGBT for Hillary Gala, Clinton made the following remark (per CNN):
“If I were to be grossly generalistic, I would say you can take Trump supporters and put them in two big baskets. 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. So just eliminate them from your thinking, because we’ve always had an annoying prejudicial element within our politics.”
Then what happened is Republicans lost their shit and tried to make the argument that this was a gaffe comparable to Mitt Romney’s 47% comments, even though they weren’t made in secret. Also, I don’t believe Clinton offended nearly 47% of Americans, the way poor Mitt did. The New York Times reported in August that 4% of Americans voted for Trump in the presidential primaries, so Clinton was really only insulting 2% of the population, at most.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus wrote in a statement responding to Clinton’s basket comment:
“By referring to millions of Americans as ‘deplorables’ and ‘irredeemable,’ Hillary Clinton is showing her outright contempt for ordinary people and proving yet again why Americans overwhelmingly regard her as dishonest and untrustworthy. Insulting everyday Americans to a group of wealthy donors shows whose priorities Clinton really has in mind and exposes the hypocrisy of a candidate whose stated desire to unite the country is clearly all for show.”
Folks, I think Reince might be in the basket.
Clinton did not back down, instead demonstrating how simple fractions can be leveraged for fleeting political gain. On Saturday, the democratic presidential nominee explained in a statement that she regretted saying “half.”
“I regret saying ‘half’—that was wrong,” Clinton said.