Yesterday I wondered if Donald Trump hadn’t handed Kamala Harris the election with his hate-filled rally at Madison Square Garden. Today, I’m forced to consider if Joe Biden didn’t just hand it back to him with his comments comparing Trump supporters to “garbage.”
Here’s what Biden said yesterday on a program aimed at Latino voters: “Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,’” Mr. Biden said, adding what sounded like, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”
What I’m sure what Biden meant and what he should have said was, “The only garbage I see floating out there is the speakers at Trump’s rally.”
But that’s not what he said and now Republicans are trying to make that the story to distract from their own mess at the Garden. It also distracts from what I thought was a pitch perfect speech by Harris in front of the White House last night, where she struck the opposite tone. Whereas Trump casts his opponents as the enemy and even threatens to use the Justice Department to prosecute them and the nation’s military to suppress them, Harris said that she’ll work for all Americans and even invite her opponents to the table. That was the main thrust of her speech and Biden managed to obscure it with one fumbled sentence.
Biden has a history throughout his career of foot-in-mouth disease. He once referred to Barack Obama as being “clean” and “articulate.” People, especially Democrats, cut Biden some slack for that kind of thing. After all, he served as Obama’s vice president and Obama even called him “my brother.”
But this was, to say the least, an inopportune moment for Biden to slip up again. There’s a world of difference between a man who misspeaks and a man like Trump, who is intentionally offensive every day in his every utterance. Trump means to be mean. And, yet, he’s so mean-spirited all the time, that it’s Biden who takes the criticism when he happens to say something that comes off more as offensive even if he didn’t intend it as such.
Let me close by addressing the substantive issue. I don’t think rank-and-file Trump supporters are either deplorable or garbage. There are exceptions, but they’re not rank-and-file. Rudy Giulianni is deplorable. Steve Bannon is garbage. Steven Miller, Michael Flynn, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, et. al., yeah, these are deplorable people. I’m also no fan of country club Republicans who vote for Trump because they’ve convinced themselves that somehow any Democrat is worse.
But blue collar voters who have seen their wages lose buying power and their values get short-changed or denigrated while they’re condescended to by NPR liberals? Well, yeah, they’ve got reason to be frustrated, and while I’ll never understand how that frustration could go so far as to make a person vote for a man as thoroughly awful as Trump, I get why they want to shake things up. Or at least I try to get it.
And I’m pretty sure that that’s the way Biden and Harris think about too. Harris is a skilled orator and she expressed that view well last night. Biden is gaffe-prone and he couldn’t articulate what he meant. Let’s hope that didn’t cost Harris the election.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
Trash Crisis Leaves Puerto Rico NEAR THE BRINK
MONEY QUOTE: Most Of Puerto Rico’s Landfills FAIL TO MEET FEDERAL STANDARDS And Are Almost Full. Residents And Experts Worry That TRASH WILL SOON OVERWHELM THE REGION. (bolds/caps/italics mine)
With many a truth is spoken in jest, is this an insensitive joke, calling attention to a REAL PROBLEM, or a combination of both?
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Thanks for the edification C_G. I didn’t realize there was an actual garbage problem. And the magnitude of the problem.
So tasteless joke, but real problem.
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Even though I think you’re hopelessly addicted to hopium “Harris is a skilled orator”, I don’t think you’re deplorable Dave.
Even though you are an apologist for the Dems “Biden should have said…” I still don’t find you deplorable.
I also don’t think you’re garbage because you can’t understand why many people will vote for Trump.
You’re Democratic uber alles Dave. And while I completely disagree with that stance, I respect your stance.
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What President Biden said, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American”
Dave wrote, “What I’m sure what Biden meant…’The only garbage I see floating out there is the speakers at Trump’s rally.’”
Oh, give me a break Dave.
I don’t believe what I quoted from you for a second, not one second. You’re way too intelligent to be posting that kind of pure apologist statement. It’s not like the political right cherry picked President Biden’s statement completely out of context, that’s literally what he said.
The verifiable pattern I’ve seen over the years is that Biden and the political left have been continuously tarring Trump and his supporters as fascists, Nazis, racists, white supremists, misogynists’, insurrectionists, traitors, anti-American, democracy destroyers, anti-law, anti-LGBT…, violent, uneducated, deplorables, etc, etc for nearly eight years. Biden’s Trump’s supporters are garbage statement is just more piece of the same demonizing rhetoric and you know it.
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Even if you think Biden literally meant what he said, despite his long history of gaffes, where’s your outrage over the hundreds of offensive characterizations of his opponents coming from Trump?
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Dave wrote, “Even if you think Biden literally meant what he said, despite his long history of gaffes…”
Yes, President Biden has a pattern. He has shown us over the years that he meant every word of what he said. You can’t even label this as some kind of Freudian Slip and it’s certainly not a gaff which is defined as an unintentional act or remark causing embarrassment to its originator; a blunder. His statement was very intentional and that’s obvious to anyone that’s not acting like a partisan apologist, own it.
Dave wrote, “…where’s your outrage over the hundreds of offensive characterizations of his opponents coming from Trump?”
Nice try at moral equivalence hypocrisy as a deflection. You should take the time to know the answer to such questions before you aske them.
You asked for it.
Here is how I’ve publicly tarred President Trump since he hit the campaign trail in 2016. I haven’t once supported Donald Trump running as a candidate for President, not once. Here are quotes directly from my blog. Feel free to go to my blog and use the search, that’s exactly what I did…
I’ve been railing both sides for their toxic rhetoric for years, here’s an example from my blog…
Since you seem to want to start comparing moral equivalencies, how about you list how the political right (not just Donald Trump) has tarred the political left in a similar manner as calling them “fascists, Nazis, racists, white supremists, misogynists’, insurrectionists, traitors, anti-American, democracy destroyers, anti-law, anti-LGBT…, violent, uneducated, deplorables, etc, etc for nearly eight years.” If you want to go down this path of debate that’s fine, but you must remember there is swamp deep rhetorical smears launched at Trump and the political right since 2016, and we can start with the current sitting President of the United States painting a wide brush when he stood in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia and tarred the entire political right as evil while looking like an angry deranged dictator with the military literally behind him to support him.
Again, nice try at moral equivalence hypocrisy as a deflection.
I rate your deflection as a failure!
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“…tarring Trump and his supporters as fascists, Nazis, racists, white supremists, misogynists’, insurrectionists, traitors, anti-American, democracy destroyers, anti-law, anti-LGBT…, violent, uneducated, deplorables, etc, etc…”
Shall we not believe our eyes and ears? Of course, not everyone who will ultimately vote for Trump will fit into one of those categories. Perhaps you don’t – I don’t know. But his most vocal supporters fairly consistently fit into one or more of those buckets. It’s not demonization to point out that someone is acting like a white supremacist, for example, when indeed they are acting like one.
And that’s ok, they are free to believe in what they want to believe in, it’s a free country. Others are free to call it what it is. I appreciate the vocal Trump supporters who aren’t trying to hide their beliefs and are open about being in one or more of those categories – there are lots of them out there if anyone wishes to open their eyes. Again, it’s not “tarring” someone if the available evidence supports the claim.
And while perhaps you shouldn’t judge someone by the company they keep, it’s a strong red flag, and Trump objectively attracts this type of company, and Trump himself possesses some of these qualities.
Apparently Biden thinks these types of people are garbage. Harris disagrees.
To anyone that is upset that our political landscape encourages demonization of “the other side”, the best place to focus efforts is on one’s “own side,” where one’s peers might already have trust and willingness to listen. I certainly encourage liberals to not demonize an individual with racist beliefs, for example. Discuss racist beliefs, sure, say “that is a racist belief,” but not demonize.
We all have to live and work together no matter what. That’s the messaging I hear from Harris (we’re all Americans who should work together) and I hear the opposite message from Trump (those who disagree with me are enemies – which is how a FASCIST would talk). Our vote will lead us down one path or the other.
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OK. You’re kind of splitting hairs, but I agree. Instead of saying things like “Wow, Trump supporters sure are racist,” I think people should say “Wow, there sure are a lot of racist Trump supporters.”
But, note that the “how would you like it” example you gave is indeed EXACTLY what I hear every time I turn on conservative AM radio. Please do urge the celebrities of conservative media to tone it down and speak more accurately. They might listen to you, but they’d just as well like to see me shot in the face by a firing squad.
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The White House ALTERING Biden’s OFFICIAL gaffe transcript by inserting an apostrophe, (making supporters into supporter’s) is a violation of the (Federal records act).
Shouldn’t the punishment for this egregious effort to hoodwink the American Public (about which they were WARNED) go beyond just a wink-n-a-nod Aw shucks, that’s just Joe being Joe or shrugged off with a but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, Truuuuuuump rationalization?
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