The “Basket” line backfired.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has hit a sort of September doldrum, beset by conspiracy theories and illness. These would be bumps in the road, laughed off once antibiotics and the next news cycle kicks in. But then we heard the Basket of Deplorables line. It’s the worst PR move the Democratic candidate has made, and it’s already costing her in the polls.

Why is the Basket line, specifically, hurting her numbers so badly?

1. It’s not an attack on the candidate, or his ideas, but the people, and a specific number thereof (half). She could call Trump deplorable, his ideas deplorable, even his entire campaign deplorable, and it wouldn’t be an issue, nor even inaccurate. Instead, Clinton drove a wedge into the Thanksgiving table between your mom and your auntie who just hates pressing 1 for English. The president is the president for everyone: radicals, racists, and everyone in between. Obama gets that. Bush II at least paid lip service to that, too. Regular people with horrible ideas are still people. People vote, not demographics. Alienating the people who are friends with the people with the horrible ideas will not bring suburban moms into your fold.
2. Going off of point #1: All of these people are human, thus all of them deserve to have their Maslowian needs paid attention to by their government. Maybe no one feels like so-called “deplorables” should have their thoughts paid attention to, but what if that deplorable is suddenly your neighbor? Or, your friend, drinking buddy, political sparring partner, or relative? Even among Clinton supporters, whose enthusiasm is nowhere near as strong as Trump’s supporters for him, one would reason that they know a Trump supporter whose grievances are legitimate, and who feels insulted and dehumanized by a term like “deplorable”. And undecided voters empathize with those Trump supporters more than some DNC operative whose fee-fees got hurt on Twitter by an alt-right bot.
3. It demonstrates that Clinton is sinking to Trump’s level. It’s defensive, reactive, and counterproductive talk from a candidate who’s been doing more to try to appear attractive to Republican voters lately than to win downballot races and turn a huge lead into a rout. Abandoning policy is normally not Clinton’s strength, and it’s hurting her.

The Dems have let Trump get back into the game. Hell, Trump doesn’t even have the fullthroated backing of GOP politicians! And yet he’s still gaining on Clinton and the Democratic operation. Trump’s only support is coming from lawmakers who literally believe that Hillary Clinton, probably the most book-smart of all the 2016 presidential candidates we’ve seen, is mentally disabled. Why is she losing ground, again?

Because she’s squandering the goodwill she built up after the DNC’s positive, not-fascist convention that made Trump look like an incompetent bully. He took the bait. All Clinton had to do for the rest of the campaign was be the bigger person. Instead she saw that poll numbers were teetering slightly from her direction and let a gaffe slip. Stooping to namecalling, no matter how trivial, is not a good look for Clinton. She will have a chance in the debates to once again rise above the mess and look presidential. If she gets dragged to Trump’s level, though, election night will be a very long one, for all of us, indeed. If that happens (and we’ll cover this later), Clinton and the DNC will have no one to blame but themselves.