Bouie, Slate’s chief political correspondent, defended on Face the Nation Hillary Clinton’s charge that “half” of Trump supporters belong in “a basket of depolorables.”
“I’m inclined to see it as strategy and not so much as a gaffe because when I heard the remark, well, my first question was: Is this true? Right? Regardless of how it sounds, what it looks like, is it -- what is the case about Donald Trump supporters? And if you break down the numbers and you look at the RealClearPolitics average, and it gives Trump up about 43 percent of registered voters. So it’s about 30, 31 million people.
“Compare that to polls that show 65 to 70 percent of all Republicans who say Barack Obama either wasn’t born in the United States or is a Muslim. You look at pilot data from the American National Election Study, and it shows upwards of 40 percent of Republicans saying things like, ‘Blacks are more violent, blacks are lazier, Muslims are more violent, Muslims are lazier.’ Among Trump supporters in particular, 60, 50, 70 percent of them agree with statements that political scientists categorize as being explicitly racist.
“So I’m looking at Clinton’s statement, and half -- which is about 31 million people again -- doesn’t really seem that out of bounds; 40 to 50 percent of Republicans, I would say, looking at the full spectrum of data, agree with beliefs that we would categorize as explicitly prejudiced. So regardless of whether or not Clinton needs to walk it back or not, I think she’s being correct and accurate.”
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