Hillary Clinton was asked today why she believes 52% of white women voted for President Trump in the 2016 presidential election despite offensive rhetoric by Trump such as aggressive and demeaning statements he made in the “Access Hollywood” tape. Clinton responded by saying pressure from close family members sometimes causes women to change their votes.
“We do not do well with white men and we don’t do well with married, white women. And part of that is an identification with the Republican Party, and a sort of ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should,” Clinton said.
She also accused Donald Trump of running a backwards-looking campaign. “I won the places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product. So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward. And his whole campaign, ‘Make America Great Again,’ was looking backwards,” Clinton said.
She said Trump’s message to voters was: “You know, you didn’t like black people getting rights, you don’t like women, you know, getting jobs. You don’t want, you know, to see that Indian American succeeding more than you are.” Clinton made the comments while on a trip to India.
In the closing months of the 2016 election Clinton famously called some voters who supported Donald Trump “deplorables” accusing them bigoted views.
You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that,” she said.
“Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America,” she added.
Many Trump voters came to wear the label as a badge of honor, even making up t-shirts with the word “deplorable” emblazoned on them.
Critics of Clinton’s used the remarks at the time to paint her as someone who was out-of-touch with an economically-hard-hit segment of the population. The hashtag #BasketofDeplorables began trending on Twitter, and President Trump, at a subsequent political rally, greeted the crowd by yelling, “Welcome to all you deplorables!” At the time he was standing in front of a giant background that had the words “Les Deplorables” printed on it.
Asked whether the deplorable comments hurt her with potential white voters, former Campaign Manager Robby Mook acknowledged that it may have. “I think it definitely could have alienated some voters and that’s why she got out there right away [and apologized],” Mook said in an interview after the election.