On Twitter on Saturday, the longtime Trump confidante and former Nixon operative Roger Stone embraced the "deplorables" phrase, sharing a meme that grouped supporters of the Republican nominee, including the InfoWars.com host Alex Jones, in a takeoff of the action movie The Expendables.
They see their political opponents not as well-meaning if misguided fellow-citizens but, to borrow a phrase, as deplorables who have no political legitimacy.
Beirich and Metzler both believe Trump may have attracted new deplorables (to borrow Clinton's phrase) to the mainstream.
The meme was created after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used the phrase "basket of deplorables" to describe some of Trump's supporters.
The most striking phrase Clinton used in this passage was "basket of deplorables".
Late in the campaign, Clinton called half of Trump's supporters "deplorables," saying that they were "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it," and the phrase stuck.
