When Hillary Clinton called some (many? most?) Trump supporters “deplorable,” she may have been thinking about their racism, misogyny, nativism, and Islamophobia. She may also have been giving voice to her own class prejudices, and those of her donors and fans. Whatever was going on, her remark correctly described a non-negligible portion of the American electorate.
For a while, there was reason to fear that, under a Trump presidency, the ranks of deplorables would swell. This could still happen; Trump has a knack for unleashing the inner fascist in susceptible populations. It hasn’t happened yet, however. Last year’s deplorables are holding their own, but there seem to be no more of them now than there used to be, and their views are no more noxious than before.
However, other kinds of deplorability have emerged and flourished since Election Day.
There is, first of all, the deplorable slowness of voters who thought that Trump’s election would somehow improve their material situations to realize that they have been had.
They did not vote for Trump because they wanted rank incompetents or thoroughgoing reactionaries installed in high offices. Insofar as they were not just voting against Clinton or the version of neoliberalism that is almost synonymous with the Clinton name, they voted for Trump because they thought foolishly that on matters affecting jobs, trade, infrastructure, and war and peace, he actually would do…