In the final days of her campaign, Ms. Harris is trying to separate the man from his movement. Gone is the framing of Republicans as “extreme MAGA,” the catchphrase attack adopted by Mr. Biden during the 2022 midterms. Instead, in ways big and small, Ms. Harris is extending an open hand to Republicans who may have voted for the former president in the past....
Some in the Democratic Party — including the man who lives in the White House illuminated behind her on Tuesday — appear to be still reckoning with that new approach. Just before she took the stage, President Biden seemed to refer to those who support Mr. Trump as “garbage”...
Just before she took the stage!
... in a campaign call that quickly ricocheted across the internet, was seized upon by Republicans and the president himself soon sought to clarify on social media. Mr. Biden said he meant only the comedian at Mr. Trump’s Sunday rally who had called Puerto Rico an “island of garbage.”What Biden said — here's the video — is: "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of [Latinos?] is unconscionable. And it's un-American. It's totally contrary to everything we've done, everything we've been."
The Weave here is so beautiful. The throughline: "terrible". He mixes in Hillary's deplorables, adds pity and forgiveness for Joe while emphasizing that Joe knows nothing, and then slides a delicious dig at Kamala before returning to "terrible". Anyone who can't appreciate The Weave should study this reaction. And it's all off-the-cuff.
And the Jesus joke. Who off-handedly tosses in a Jesus-on-the-cross parody? Is that a sacrilege? Or is it striking evidence that he really is a Christian? To think of forgiveness is to think of Jesus Christ.
ADDED: I can see that the White House transcript, linked above, has a transcription that is either accurate or designed to support the explanation that Biden was using the word "garbage" only to describe the remark the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made about Puerto Rico ("floating island garbage"). Here's the transcription:The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American. It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.
The idea is that "his supporter" — singular — is Tony Hinchcliffe, and it only seems to be plural because of the possessive apostrophe-s. The 2 sentences are connected into one, and the "his" in "his supporter's/supporters" and the "his" in "his demonization" are not the same "his."
The first "his" is Trump's — Trump's supporter's/supporter — and the second "his" is Hinchcliffe's — Hinchcliffe's demonization.
This is the linguistic problem of coreference. You can explore it by replacing the 2 usages of the word "his" with referents. There are 2 interpretations:
1. The only garbage I see floating out there is Trump's supporter’s — Trump's supporter’s demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.
2. The only garbage I see floating out there is Trump's supporters. Trump's demonization of [Latinos?] is unconscionable. And it's un-American.
A problem with interpretation #1 is that the word "is" appears twice. You have to see Biden as restarting the sentence. In the first effort, the subject is "garbage," but then he rearranges it, making "demonization" the subject. They could have used punctuation to stress this idea: "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable...."
I feel as though I'm deeper into the weeds than anyone will go. Is anyone still with me? Anyone interested in the problems of coreference and misperceived coreference? I doubt it. I suspect Harris supporters will snap up interpretation #1 and Trump supporters will laugh at the apostrophe argument and find interpretation #2 so obvious that I'm wasting their time.
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227 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 227 of 227A democrat party plant "comedian" versus the actual President.
Isn’t anyone deeply concerned that the USPS has made it so mail ballots do not transit the sort centers where a digital record of the mail is created?This seems like another way to secure large scale cheating with mailed ballots.
I'm pollworking this next Tuesday (in a county in far-northern Calif.); and during training earlier this month the leadership observed that mail-in ballots mailed via U.S. Mail on election day, or even maybe the day before, won't receive a proper postmark for that day—they'll go to, like, Sacramento and get stamped there perhaps the next day—unless the sender speaks to a clerk in the local post office, and has him or her hand-stamp it right then and there. In response to a question, they (Clerk's Office officials) acknowledged that no, that little detail's not mentioned in the election materials.
Still nothing compared to the Dark Brandon screed which actually did invoke Hitler.
"Disqualify Trump, but extend a hand to his voters."
A hand with a big middle finger pointing at them.
American's supporting Trump are both garbage and not garbage depending on what the person opening the box reports to you.
Moments ago Richweed had a comment about if only there was a racist pro choice party..as if "You ain't black" "Put y'all in chains" Pedo Pete isn't at the top.
..with an entrepreneurial nanny.
Too much cart before the horse. My working theory is still the steal with the now added accent of ‘she’s a true underdog story with the full support of the American people’…
Jon Stewart defended it and went further, saying we need more of it. Apparently he cut a whole album of hideously inappropriate jokes.
"Just moments ago, Joe Biden stated that our supporters are Garbage."
Needs a picture of Shirley Manson in a MAGA hat.
Nah, Biden’s old man gaff didn’t take anything away from Harris’ speech.
Well, that would certainly explain why I see three stories on the front page of my local news station (in Seattle, no less) talking about Biden's 'garbage' comment and not a single word about Kamala's speech.
Seriously. Find another hobby. You suck at politics.
Deplorable nazi garbage? So much to unpack. So much imagery. And all I did was sit here and say a few nice things about Trump.
there’s been a lot of trash talk on both sides.
One is a so-called comedian. The other is the President of the United States.
Notice the difference?
"It does seem many people are getting tired of democrat's version of democracy in action."
Democrat's version is "STFU and do as you're told."
Now do Kimmel, Griffin and all the other crazy, Progressives who have called most of us a lot worse.
When did Trump supporters call Hispanics garbage?? Why do you have to lie to get your dumb point across?? You are with the party of fascism wearing camo hats.
Think back to Chimpy McBushitler. If the Left can conjure a President who is both dumb as a chimp and evil as Hitler, their creativity when it comes to demonization knows no rational bounds.
"seized upon by Republicans"
Republicans are always seizing or pouncing. The other side never seems to do anything to justify either apparently.
A couple of thoughts: (a) If VP Harris is elected Pres. she should NOT appoint Tony Hinchcliffe as her Spokesperson (Biden's spoker is bad enough).
(b) Whoever is elected President in November should make clear AT ONCE who does and does not speak for the Administration. In fact, that should have been made clear as soon as Harris was nominated for President (by whoever and whenever that was done -- I seem to have forgotten how that process worked.) Why is Biden still around? Sure, under our system a former President who didn't run for re-election could remain in office until his successor was inaugurated, but I don't recall that EVER happening while a sitting President was alive and legally qualified to be re-elected.
At least can't someone rule that Harris, as Biden's successor, can only serve for one more term?
Women...you can't live with 'em and you can't leave them out on the curb when you're done with 'em.
Was Don Rickles garbage?
Or a national treasure?
Ambiguity again. Because the plural and the possessive (and the plural possessive) all have the same ending in spoken English, Biden has wiggle room on this, but everybody sort of knows what he meant (even if Biden himself doesn't).
Every one of those 75,000 people (if that's how many people came to the rally) is already voting for Harris. They don't matter. The Democrats were hoping to get big TV coverage from the event. They were hoping that today people would be talking about Kamala Harris's speech. Biden took that away from her. If you hold a rally and nobody hears about it, did it really happen? Did it succeed?
..."This is the linguistic problem of coreference. You can explore it by replacing the 2 usages of the word "his" with referents. There are 2 interpretations....
That theory's sounding pretty covfefe to me....
He wasnt wrong. And he was talking about an elite subsection of his own party.
Tony Hinchcliffe was a "fluffer" for the rally. Tony Hinchcliffe is a comic, his specialty is current events and the news. Most didn't get the joke concerning Puerto Rico's landfill disasters. PR is running out of places to put their garbage and it's tainting their air and ground water.
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