(AlterNet) -- As word spread of Hillary Clinton's characterization of half of Donald Trump's supporters in her in a September 9 speech, the right-wing outrage machine went into overdrive. Half of the Repubican standard-bearer's followers, Clinton said, were "a basket of deplorables," while the rest were simply people who felt let down by the government and were desperate for change. With the help of mainstream media, focus turned to the "deplorables" part of her comments. The Trump campaign texted supporters a link to a video ad that mischaracterized Clinton's remarks. In response to the right's fury, Clinton gamely stated that maybe she shouldn’t have said “half."
Truth is, we don't really know what percentage of Trump's current crop of supporters belong in the "deplorables" basket, but what we do know is this: There are a goodly number of public figures and leaders of odious white-supremacist organizations who love them some Trump, and Trump has either embraced them or declined to disavow them. Here we list some of the biggest eggs in the deplorables basket.
1. Stephen K. Bannon: When Trump hired Bannon, then the chief executive of Breitbart News, as his campaign CEO in August, you couldn’t ask for a clearer sign that the GOP standard-bearer was staking a potential victory on igniting the racist resentments of the right-leaning faction of the electorate. During an event in Cleveland the week of the Republican National Convention, Bannon boasted to journalist Sarah Posner that since he took the reins at Breitbart News, the site had become “the platform for the alt-right.”
Advertisement - story continues below
