Some of Trump's rhetoric is certainly way over the top, but comparisons to Clinton's "deplorables" comment are missing the important distinction that Trump isn't dismissing half the American electorate as subhuman. He's very nasty to specific political actors.
Trump's saltiest rhetoric is directed at specific people who are politicians, tiny groups like the NeverTrumpers who are assertive political actors, and of course The Media, which thinks of ITSELF as a branch of government.
Trump's language is, to put it mildly, blunt and criticisms about decorum are fair, but I wasn't a fan of the elegant and decorous methods used by professional politicians to deride those who share my beliefs as terrorists, racists, white supremacists, etc.
They're still doing it to this day. Show me Trump saying something vicious about a political adversary, and I'll show you lefties slandering millions of people in less blunt but profoundly more insulting and dangerous ways.
Every day, to this very moment, millions of Americans who don't toe the establishment line on open borders are slandered as hateful xenophobes. If you don't want government to run your health care, you're a greedy sadist who wants poor people to die.
The polished professional lifetime politicians find clever ways to lodge these insults (except when they get caught running their mouths off to friendly audiences, like Clinton was) or they sub the work out to hatchet men, helpful journalists, and Hollywood.
Is that really better than Trump letting it rip on Twitter from his smartphone or lobbing verbal bombs from the stage at a rally? I don't have to read insider articles about highly-paid teams of character assassins to find out where Trump's insults are coming from.
Trump shoots off his own mouth and tells you exactly who he's mad at. More often than not, it's some person or group that already said far worse about him and/or his supporters. It's indecorous but honest and his outbursts are over quickly, unlike the Left's slander campaigns.
And crucially, I haven't heard Trump go nuclear on any group that couldn't fit in a bus with seats left over. He's not targeting giant portions of the American population and laying out plans to subdue them by stifling their speech, money, inalienable rights, and children.
I wouldn't say a lot of the things Trump makes headlines by saying. It's probably not good strategy, although most criticism assigns disproportionate weight to the offended parties and underestimates how many people are pumping their fists and going "YEAH!" when he blows up.
For the first time in living memory, people who are ROUTINELY denigrated as subhuman, stupid, evil, and anti-American by their self-described betters are watching someone hit back with language less polished but equally vicious. I can understand why they're enjoying the show.
Trump's targets complain he might somehow make their lives dangerous by talking mean about them. The far greater numbers of people targeted by the Left have the full weight of government, media, and increasingly left-leaning corporations directed at them. Cry us a river. /end
