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In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders: Its a tragic mistake to dismiss anti-establishment voters as deplorable [View all]LAGC
(5,330 posts)When you are running to be president of ALL Americans, not just those of your own party, you simply don't write off and alienate huge swaths of people like that. Her "deplorable" comments, no matter how truthful and accurate they were, played a big role in energizing the Republican base and really bringing out especially rural voter turn-out which so surprised everyone on Election Day. Quite a few of these folks would would have likely sat it out and stayed home, but her hostile words galvanized many on the right to GOTV. It really was the turning point in the election, when polls really first started to tighten despite her early considerable lead.
Just like Romney, she thought she was speaking in "friendly" company, so she didn't anticipate her words being cherry-picked for nasty soundbites by the media. But when you have Alex Jones out there rallying all his followers to proudly wear "I'm a Hillary Deplorable" T-shirts and revel in their unashamed racism, xenophobia, and misogyny, it's not a pretty picture... especially once you add all the fake news into the mix.