Few moments in this election cycle have so clearly illustrated the radical differences in expectations for Democrats and Republicans than President Joe Biden’s “garbage” comments and the subsequent conservative meltdown. A few days after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, speaking at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden last weekend, called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” Biden hit back on a get-out-the-vote call aimed at Latino voters, saying that Puerto Ricans are “good, decent, honorable people.”
“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” Biden continued of Trump and, it seemed, his base. “His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”
This was, let’s be clear, a deeply stupid thing to say. Just days before an election, it’s asinine to call any group of voters “garbage.” Or, I should say, it’s asinine to appear to call any group of voters “garbage.” The Biden team has since argued that he was referring to Hinchcliffe’s comments as garbage, however, not Trump supporters. There was an apostrophe!
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As defenses go, this drilling down on punctuation might be the best Democrats can do. Biden often skips words and does not always articulate himself well—a Republican talking point in itself. When you’re arguing over the placement of an apostrophe, though, you’re probably losing. This was simply an unenforced error on Biden’s part, and Kamala Harris is wise to distance herself from it.
But like Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” comment in 2016, there’s also some truth to it. No, not all Trump supporters are “garbage.” But making and laughing at racist jokes about Puerto Ricans, Jews and Black people? That’s at the very least garbage behavior, and it’s pretty persuasive evidence that one is a garbage person.
And like with “deplorables,” Trump supporters have cried foul while simultaneously embracing the moniker. Donald Trump has taken to wearing a reflective waste collector’s vest on the campaign trail, as if to say that he embraces the racist views Biden rightly criticized.
His running mate JD Vance, who just days ago told people to “stop getting so offended” over the rally (“I’m just — I’m so over it,” he continued) tweeted of Biden’s comments: This is disgusting. Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half of the country. There’s no excuse for this. I hope Americans reject it.”
It’s been a MAGA-wide grievance-festival; the party of “fuck your feelings” and snowflake mockery is hyperventilating over, well, some fairly mild trash talk. But let’s not forget that Donald Trump does and says a lot worse than “garbage.” His rhetoric routinely pings from the offensive to the threatening to the violent. He calls liberals Marxists and Communists. He has mocked people with disabilities, referred to women who challenge him as dogs, called Mexicans rapists, called immigrants vermin, and said they are “poisoning the blood of the country.”
He has threatened election officials with prosecution, and he routinely says his opponents should be killed. On Thursday night, Trump said that former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney should be shot (he had previously said she and former president Barack Obama should be tried in televised military tribunals). He has suggested Gen. Mark Milley, his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, be executed; those who worked for him have said that he also talked about executing drug dealers, shoplifters, journalists, and members of his own administration who leaked information to the media.
The stereotype of every childhood bully is that they can dish it out but they can’t take it. Trump is a lifelong bully, and his base seems to genuinely relish his efforts to torment those who challenge him, or those who he sees as weak. He’s also one of the most thin-skinned people to ever enter politics. He believes a double standard should apply: He gets to demean and insult whoever he pleases in the crudest possible terms, but if the tables turn on him, well, that’s not fair.
And because he is so often so crude and awful, he gets to wallow in a state of low expectations: People expect him to be disgusting, and so his disgusting behavior isn’t deemed disqualifying, or even newsworthy. Meanwhile, votes and reporters alike (rightly) expect his opponents to behave decently – which means any small slipup is treated like a catastrophic event.
“Garbage” doesn’t even begin to describe it.
