Trump supporters get a bad rap

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Last week, Hillary Clinton, in a private meeting with donors at an LGBTQ fundraiser, decided to call half of Trump’s supporters “a basket of deplorables.”

She came out the next day and expressed regret for calling “half” of Trump supporters deplorable, saying that she shouldn’t have made such a broad generalization when talking about her opponent’s supporters.

Now, she’s not all wrong: Some Trump supporters are, in fact, deplorable. This is true for every campaign. There are always some horrible people who make up the constituency in every election year.

This isn’t untrue for Clinton — she invariably has some deplorable people who support her in her presidential bid.

But there seems to be this push by Clinton and some in the media to define Trump supporters in a way that generally paints them as racist, xenophobic, hateful and, as Obama once said, the people who stick to religion and firearms.

Take the example of Steve Eckel, a former sergeant of the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Department.

On a blistering August day in a Kohl’s parking lot, Eckel saved a helpless, 4-month-old baby who had been left inside a car. Unquestionably, this man is a hero who should be thanked for saving the child. Eckel appeared on HLN to share his story of what happened that day, wearing a “Trump 2016” shirt, clearly identifying with the GOP presidential nominee.

While someone appearing on national television and wearing Trump gear is no longer surprising — but what happened an hour later was. HLN re-aired the interview, but with Eckel’s shirt blurred out.

HLN later came out and apologized, saying the blur was done in error. The real insight here is that the network called it an error — they didn’t say we don’t allow non-political guests to wear political shirts or something along those lines.

It was blatantly not an error. Blurring things out doesn’t just happen.

This isn’t the first time the media has tried to portray Trump supporters in a negative light. This is an ongoing situation that fuels the idea of the candidate being deplorable because their supporters are so.

The media would not usually have to focus on supporters, but they’ve been calling Republican candidates “crazy” and every other negative adjective for so many years that it now falls on deaf ears.

In essence, there is a move to make Trump supporters seem deplorable. It has been that way since the beginning of his campaign.

There is no media conspiracy to help Clinton, but negatively labeling Trump supporters only creates headlines. I’m not the biggest Trump fan, but this labeling doesn’t help anything and forges more unnecessary division.

It doesn’t matter who you are — even young kids, who have been considered “off-limits” for as long as campaigns have been existed, get flack for backing GOP candidates. If you support Trump, you will be perceived negatively.

This election has been one for the ages, and the media coverage — especially that of supporters — hasn’t helped. This should be expected since the Los Angeles Times published an editorial about how journalism is becoming less objective thanks to this election.

To sum it up in one word, this whole process has been deplorable.

Opinion columnist Jorden Smith is a political science junior and president of the College Republicans. He can be reached at [email protected].