Donald Trump’s army of ‘deplorables’ take fight to Hillary Clinton

Champ Covington thought it appropriate to wear a basket over his head with luminous yellow and orange ribbons as a retort against US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The 43-year-old North Carolinian was not alone at Trump's rally on Monday night in the hip town of Asheville, a pool of liberal blue in a sea of conservative red in western North Carolina, a critical swing state for Trump.

Supporters of the Republican nominee wore "I'm Deplorable" T-shirts and held "Deplorable Lives Matter" and similar signs in response to Clinton's gaffe. The Democrat may have expressed regret for calling half the supporters backing her Republican rival Donald Trump "a basket of deplorables . . . the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic", but neither Trump nor his supporters will be forgetting her remarks any time soon.

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Trump has mined this fertile line of attack repeatedly in the days since Clinton made the comments at a New York fundraiser with liberal donors on Friday night.

Vitriolic campaign

The remarks pick at the scab of the great American conservative-versus-liberal divide that has characterised this vitriolic, insult-propelled presidential election campaign.

Clinton’s faux pas has been likened to incendiary remarks of past presidential campaigns: Barack Obama’s claim in 2008 that small-town, blue-collar Americans were “bitter” and “cling to guns or religion”, or Mitt Romney’s damaging misstep in 2012 that 47 per cent of Americans were “dependent upon government” and believed they were “victims”.

“It is not surprising,” said Connie Gutknecht (64), a retired teacher from Mars Hill, a town about 20 minutes from Asheville, who likened Clinton’s comments to Obama’s eight years ago.

“We are used to it. But we are who we are and we are America,” she added, holding a home-made sign that says “basket of deplorables for Trump”.

Tighter race

Inside the rally, Trump jabbed Clinton incessantly over her remarks, avoiding comment on her recent health issues. Against a backdrop of polls showing a much tighter race with just 55 days to go, the Republican nominee clearly sees an effective attack point. He is using her remarks against Clinton to coalesce those who dislike her by reaffirming her as a polarising figure.

Speaking from a teleprompter, the property developer accused Clinton of running “a hate-filled and negative campaign”.

“While my opponent slanders you as deplorable and irredeemable, I call you hardworking American patriots who love your country and want a better future for all of our people,” he told several thousand supporters gathered in the US Cellular Centre, a sports arena in Asheville. To push his point, Trump invited supporters up on stage, including a stay-at-home mother, two teachers and a pastor as representatives of Clinton’s “deplorables”. The crowd loved it.

Trump placed Clinton in the insider, privileged class, playing up his appeal as an outsider – a status that has made his candidacy so popular among the blue-collar workers and conservatives in western North Carolina, as it has in other parts of Appalachia, a region in economic decline.

“She looks down on the people who cook her meals, drive her cars and dig the coal that powers her electricity,” he said.

“She called these Americans every name in the book – racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic – she said they were not even American. Anybody xenophobic? I don’t think so. Never in history has a major-party presidential candidate so viciously demonised the American voter,” he said, again painting his opponent negatively in hyperbolic terms.

Trump’s criticism is in line with his us-and-them campaign. It plays particularly well to the fears and insecurities of people in this part of North Carolina who feel left behind by both parties which pushed policies that cost lower-paid manufacturing jobs here.

‘Playing it up’

“Trump’s playing that up,” said Phillip Ardoin, a politics professor at Appalachia State University, about two hours away in Boone, North Carolina.

“It is just this war of words. He has been using this very divisive language for the last eight months of his campaign. I was surprised that Hillary stepped down to Trump’s level.”

In Asheville, Trump’s attack on Clinton’s “hate-filled campaign” was interrupted by protesters, one of whom was hit by one of his supporters as they were escorted out. Outside, those supporters ran a gauntlet of angry protesters that were more representative of Asheville’s liberal roots.

Leif Johnston (47), a nurse wearing an Al Gore 2000 presidential T-shirt and holding an anti-Trump sign, acknowledges the race in North Carolina, a purple state, is on a knife-edge.

“It’s important that everyone stop sleep-walking through this election and the people that understand how dangerous this man is for our country,” he said.

His girlfriend, Sunita Pillay (44), a community-college teacher, says she has not seen the same level of hate directed against Obama despite his eight years in the White House.

“Some people are latching on to Trump’s simple-minded message,” she said. “It doesn’t require a lot of critical thinking but that makes sense coming from a candidate who doesn’t think critically himself . . . It’s scary all around and we feel we have to be out there.”