Though Hillary Clinton received heavy pushback from Republicans and the national media for disparaging “half” of Donald Trump’s supporters as “deplorables,” some journalists think her comments were perfectly in line with reality.
During a fundraising event last weekend, the Democratic nominee said her opponent had welcomed “irredeemable” voters into the mainstream who are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”
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She later walked back the comment, saying that quantifying it as “half” of Trump’s supporters was an overstatement.
Here are five mainstream journalists who think she was right:
1. The New York Times’ Charles Blow, Sept. 15: “[P]lease spare me your faux outrage about Hillary Clinton’s accurate comments that many of the people supporting Trump are deplorable.” Three days earlier, Blow wrote that “Donald Trump is a deplorable candidate — to put it charitably — and anyone who helps him advance his racial, religious and ethnic bigotry is part of that bigotry.”
2. The Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn, Sept. 13: “His fervid nationalistic rhetoric has given succor to racists, homophobes, xenophobes and Islamophobes. In drawing them from the margins (back) into the mainstream, Trump is creating a social climate that increasingly threatens the progress America has made toward pluralism and multiculturalism.”
3. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, Sept. 12: “Hillary Clinton may have been unwise to say half of Donald Trump’s supporters are racists and other ‘deplorables.’ But she wasn’t wrong. If anything, when it comes to Trump’s racist support, she might have low-balled the number.”
4. The New York Daily News’ James Kirchick, Sept. 12: “Hillary Clinton was way off base Friday night when she claimed that ‘half’ of Donald Trump supporters are ‘deplorable’ racists, sexists and nativists. Unsurprisingly, Trump leapt on the remark, calling it ‘the worst mistake of the political season,’ and Clinton quickly apologized. She was right to do so. It’s not 50% of Trump supporters who are bigots. It’s closer to 100%.”
5. Slate’s Jamelle Bouie, Sept. 11: “‘[H]alf’ wasn’t wrong. ‘Half’ wasn’t a gross generalization at all. ‘Half’ was by all indications close to the truth.”
