Hillary Clinton perhaps made the biggest gaffe of her campaign when she said half of Donald Trump’s supporters fit into a “basket of deplorables”. Her foolish statement backfired immediately. Not only was Clinton bombarded with backlash from the media; Trump supporters turned her statement into a big league rallying cry. His supporters immediately added “Deplorable” in front of their name on their Twitter handle in droves and merchandise with the phrase popped up all over online. Also, a famous war image from “Les Miserables” -- with the Broadway show’s title in the photo replaced with “Les Deplorables” -- went viral all over social media. Trump happily stoked the flames and rode out this wave by displaying the iconic image on a screen as he walked out during a campaign rally to the musical’s famous freedom fighting song “Do You Hear The People Sing”. However, all fanfare aside, Clinton’s statement got me thinking about what Trump has done over the course of his campaign to attract such a deplorable group of people.
When Trump embarked on his presidential campaign, the issue that quickly put him ahead as the GOP frontrunner during the primary season was his bold stance on illegal immigration. Early in his campaign, Trump visited the Mexico-U.S. border in Laredo, Texas where he met with border patrol agents. They expressed their concerns directly to him about their inability to do their jobs due to the nation’s broken system. Trump famously said at the beginning of his campaign that America needs to “build a wall” to help solve the problem. Not only has Trump given frustrated border patrol agents a voice, he’s also given a platform to families who have lost loved ones at the hands of an illegal alien. During some of his rallies, he’s handed the mic over to the parents of children killed by illegals so they could tell their stories and some of them spoke at the Republican National Convention. In early September, Trump gave a speech outlining his plan to stop illegals and criminals from sneaking across the border. In stark contrast, Clinton gave illegal immigrants the stage to speak at the Democratic National Convention. Clinton not only wants to give amnesty to all illegals, she also wants to increase the influx of Syrian refugees by 550% even though both
President Barack Obama declared Louisiana a state of emergency on Aug. 14 after the state was hit with severe storms and flooding. While Obama remained on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard and played his 300th game of golf, literally, since taking office, Clinton attended an elitist fundraiser there where she took selfies with celebrities and raised money for her campaign. Meanwhile, Trump and his running mate Gov. Mike Pence traveled to the disaster site and met with locals affected by the severe weather. Trump also donated an entire semi-truck filled with supplies and helped hand out the donation items. Clinton still hasn’t visited the disaster site and there’s no record that she made any donation to relief efforts. However, she did call for her supporters to make donations toward the relief effort via e-mail.
Clinton went on “The View” and lied by stating that Trump said: ”All Mexican immigrants were rapists and criminals.” Here’s what Trump really said. However, when Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto extended an invitation to both Trump and Clinton to visit Mexico, Trump is the only candidate who accepted the invitation and went. During Trump’s visit with Nieto, he stood by his pledge to build a wall and he emphasized that both countries would benefit from ending illegal immigration and securing the border. Nieto said that he appreciated Trump’s visit and added that his presence in Mexico showed that the countries “have fundamental common ground”. Clinton declined Nieto’s invitation.
In 2014 the Veterans Affairs scandal erupted revealing that the VA department heads had cooked the books that detailed the long wait times veterans were subjected to in order to receive medical care which resulted in their suffering and many deaths. The other day a new veterans scandal broke exposing that dead vets have been left to decompose in a Virginia morgue for weeks without burial. Trump has made veteran issues a priority for his campaign. Trump gave a speech on veterans’ reform at the VFW convention in late July. He promised, “Never again will we allow any veteran to suffer or die waiting for care.” Clinton has downplayed the VA scandal by stating the problem was “not as widespread” as it’s purported to be. Not surprisingly, many veterans chose not to attend her speech to the American Legion leaving her speaking to rows of empty seats.
Trump has legally fought against discrimination against Jews and blacks in Palm Beach, Florida, employed hundreds of minorities to all levels at his company and even Rev. Jesse Jackson praised him for his commitment to minorities and “underserved communities”. However, that hasn’t stopped Clinton from accusing Trump of racism. She actually was the first presidential candidate in history to use the word “racist” against an opponent during a presidential debate. Ironically enough, she’s the candidate who notoriously called black youth “super predators” and it was her husband, President Bill Clinton’s, Violent Crime Control Act that discriminated against the black community. Despite her outrageous charges, Trump has met with black leaders on multiple occasions, gone into black communities on the campaign trail such as poverty-stricken Detroit and repeatedly addressed the rising violent crime problem. On Sept 26, the FBI released a crime report that indicated murders in 2015 went up by more than 10 percent from the year before. While Clinton, Obama and other politicians have completely turned their backs on the record breaking shooting statistics taking place in many inner cities this year, particularly Chicago, Trump has addressed the rising problem during many of his public appearances and even in his speech at the RNC Convention.
Clinton has accused Trump of sexism as well while she champions for women’s equal pay during her campaign stomps; however, in reality, women at the Clinton Foundation earn 38% less than men. At the Trump Organization, not only do women make more than men, there are more female executives than men. And it should be noted that a woman, Kellyanne Conway, is the head of Trump’s entire campaign. Trump has made child-care policy another priority and his plan includes six weeks of paid maternity leave for mothers who do not receive leave from their employers.
In addition to all these deplorable acts, Trump has had dozens of press conferences and has made himself accessible to the media everyday since he’s launched his campaign while Clinton went close to 300 days straight without having one single press conference. Trump has had more than double the amount of rallies that Clinton has held. Trump will attend two rallies a day while Clinton has taken several consecutive days off of the campaign trail and that includes before her campaign revealed that she was sick with pneumonia after they had already lied about her health.
Trump’s hard work and efforts have garnered him unprecedented endorsements including the first-ever presidential endorsement from the National Border Patrol Council and other groups ranging from black pastors to police unions. Trump attracts crowds of up to 55K filling entire sports stadiums to hear his vision to make America great again while Clinton struggles to get 500 people to fill a rally at a high school gym. If supporting this kind of leadership is so deplorable, it’s no wonder why millions have jumped aboard the Trump Train and proudly pledged their allegiance to Les Deplorables.