The Clinton campaign’s strategy of dehumanizing Trump’s supporters as a bunch of alt-right, racist crazies appears to have backfired in a way that harkens back to the ill-fated words that crashed Romney’s presidential ambitions four years earlier.

The number one trend on Twitter for the past 12 hours has been “basket of deplorables,” what Hillary Clinton called at least half of Donald Trump’s blue-collar voter base in front of a wealthy crowd of Hollywood socialites, but if you watch mainstream US TV news outlets you would never know with attacks on the Republican nominee from birth certificates to Russia dominating the airwaves.

Despite what increasingly looks like a media blackout, the electoral implications of the elitist comment has to be a major source of concern for Clinton’s campaign in the home stretch less than two months before Americans elect their next President with many Republicans calling this Hillary’s own Romney "47%" moment referring to the degrading remarks about low-income Americans that dashed the 2012 Republican nominee’s electoral fortunes.

Donald Trump’s campaign is already calling for a mass boycott of CNN and MSNBC for their failure to cover the offending statements by the former Secretary of State who many feel the mainstream news outlets favor implicitly – or sometimes explicitly as CNN’s Chris Cuomo remarked earlier in the campaign cycle that the news outlet has been Hillary’s "biggest boosters."

Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) September 10, 2016

Talk show host David Webb, speaking on the Republican dominated Fox News network explained that "this is how the Clintons see Americans – you are chattel to be used and played to… you are less if you don’t support the Clinton elitists."

The problem that Hillary’s candidacy now faces is that at least 40% of the electorate supports her Republican rival meaning that she has cast at least 64 million Americans into the "basket of deplorables" who she also called "irredeemable" which calls into question her ability to represent this wide swath of the US electorate and is likely to be a rallying cry for non-establishment voters.

The Trump campaign is hammering this message home with Trump’s youngest son Eric Trump posting a picture of a filled auditorium in Pensacola, Florida with the caption “Look at the #BasketofDeplorables”

Eric Trump (@EricTrump) September 10, 2016

​Campaign manager for the Trump campaign, Kellyanne Conway seized on the quote immediately saying "One day after promising to be aspirational and uplifting, Hillary insults millions of Americans."

Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) September 10, 2016

Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., went on a full-fledged Twitter rant under "You know what’s #deplorable?" before listing Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation "peddling Government access" and "lying under oath."

The campaign’s Communications Director Jason Miller likened Hillary Clinton’s "basket of deplorables" and calling a swath of Americans "irredeemable" statement to calling young black men who had brushes with the law "Super Predators" who could not be rehabilitated in defense of the 1990s Crime Bill.

Hillary’s campaign refused to apologize for the controversial statement doubling down that at least half of Trump’s supporters are irredeemable individuals who Clinton calls the "basket of deplorables" – "Their supporters (alt-right/racists) appear to make up half his crowd when you observe the tone of his events."

Nick Merrill (@NickMerrill) September 10, 2016

Trump social media director Dan Scavino struck back on the statement by Merrill in defense of Secretary Clinton’s description posting an event featuring Donald Trump and law enforcement officers with the caption: "SADLY, Crooked thinks 1/2 of these law enforcement officers are a #BasketofDeplorables. HRC is not fit to be POTUS!!"

Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) September 10, 2016

Donald Trump sought to take the high ground saying that although he knows they will never vote for him he has nothing but respect for Hillary Clinton's supporters and would never disparage them by calling them a "basket of deplorables."

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 10, 2016

​Moments ago Hillary Clinton (sort of) apologized saying that it was wrong to say "half" are in her basket of deplorables.