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cycledancing's avatar

Another excellent article Mr. Boehlert. This one inspired me to join your community. When Clinton made that "deplorables" speech I was overtaken with pride. She nailed the phenomena of the alt right as portrayed in Breitbart News and as modeled by Steve Bannon, at the time Trump's Chief Executive Officer of his campaign. Interestingly the connection between "deplorables" and "alt right" has been lost since the entire Trump base seems to have taken on the qualities. When Clinton identified them they were only an influential splinter extreme.

Another aspect of this is that Trump's base and Republicans in general (where does one stop and the other start?) have taken to ridiculing the word. Clinton meant it in a specific description, not a general one. The base weakened the accusation by saying Clinton meant them all.

Thank you for your wonderful writing and analysis. I really enjoy reading your newsletter.

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Michael Green's avatar

Well, yes, but she also could have called them treasonous bigots and misogynists who were supported a bigoted traitor and rapist. Either statement would have been equally correct, and the media would have, um, deplored them equally. Because, as it turns out, the true deplorables are in the political media.

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