September 14, 2016 by Daniel Molina at The Shark Tank

Hillary Clinton’s Vice Presidential running mate, Tim Kaine (D), went on the attack in Ann Arbor, Michigan while on the campaign trail. The senator from Virginia slammed Governor Mike Pence (R), Donald Trump’s running mate, over his refusal to call David Duke “deplorable.”

This came about from an interview between Mike Pence and Wolf Blitzer in which the Republican Governor denounced the former Klansman’s support. In a “gotcha” scenario, Blitzer asked Pence to call David Duke “deplorable”, but he didn’t by saying that he wasn’t in the name calling business.

Likening the gaffe to Romney’s 47% gaffe that arguably doomed his campaign, Clinton’s comment of half of Trump’s supporters being “a basket of deplorables” has been scrutinized by all sides of the political spectrum, and has been seen as the former secretary of state taking a cue from the Trump playbook and having it backfire in unforeseen ways.

As a result, the Trump campaign is rolling with it.

At a rally held in Asheville, North Carolina, a man was seen holding a sign saying deplorable lives matter and Donald Trump Jr. posted on twitter a picture of Donald Trump overlooking supporters at a rally with the caption: looks like we’re gonna need a bigger basket.

So, in this context, wouldn’t deplorable be exactly what David Duke isn’t? If Donald Trump and Mike Pence have gone on the record denouncing the Klansman’s support and have adopted the “deplorable” brand as an underdog label, then surely it makes sense for Pence to not call Duke “one of them.”

But, Senator Kaine and former secretary Clinton have some denouncing to do as well. Robert Byrd (D), a former senator from West Virginia who filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act and a man who created a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan with 150 members in Sophia, West Virginia and who was chosen as its leader as reported by the New York Times, was a mentor to the former secretary of state and someone she said was the United States’ “heart, it’s soul and it’s historian.”

Since then, Hillary Clinton has received an endorsement from Will Quigg, a grand dragon of California, who endorsed Hillary Clinton because “she is telling everybody one thing, but she has a hidden agenda” as reported by the Telegraph. The Washington Times also goes on to report that her campaign has received more than $20,000 in contributions from the KKK.

Neither Clinton nor Kaine have publically denounced Quigg’s endorsement.

This article is republished with permission from our friends at the Shark Tank.