> By focusing on deplorables and Russians, they allowed themselves freedom from addressing substantive problems of working class and rural neglect. Which gave T

> By focusing on deplorables and Russians, they allowed themselves freedom from addressing substantive problems of working class and rural neglect. Which gave Trump an opening he otherwise would not have had. Amusingly, Clinton's infamous "deplorables" comment was aimed exactly at reversing this. "Yes, something like 1/3 of them are irredeemably shit, but most of them are absolutely reachable and we should be trying to reach out to them" was the point of it—and, from background in these things, I'm guessing her 1/3 wasn't an ass-pull but was based on certain polling data and is a pretty accurate assessment of the fraction of Republican voters that really... well, did belong in "a basket of deplorables". Terrible, terrible messaging strategy, though. All-time hall-of-fame worst. That was candid, internal campaign talk coming out in a public speech.