October 30, 2024

"Just moments ago, Joe Biden stated that our supporters are garbage."

"He's talking about the border patrol, he's talking about nurses, he's talking about teachers, he's talking about everyday Americans who love their country and want to dream big again and support you, Mr. President. And I hope their campaign is about to apologize for what Joe Biden just said. We are not garbage. We are patriots who love America and thank you for running Mr. President."

Said Marco Rubio to Donald Trump, on stage at Trump's rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania last night. Click the video below, which is cued up to the spot. Trump appears to be hearing this news of President Biden's statement for the first time.

Trump reacts: "Wow. That's terrible.... Remember Hillary? She said 'deplorable' and then she said 'irredeemable.' Right? But she said 'deplorable.' That didn't work out. 'Garbage,' I think is worse. Right? But he doesn't know. You have to please forgive him. Please forgive him! For he not knoweth what he said."

I believe that last bit was an attempt to evoke the words of Jesus"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 

Trump continues: "These people. Terrible terrible terrible — to say a thing like that, but he really doesn't know. He really, honestly, he doesn't. And I'm convinced that he likes me more than he likes Kamala. Convinced. But that's a terrible thing."


It was a terrible thing to say, but you can see that Trump knows that Biden's rhetoric — like Hillary's "deplorable" — was an excellent gift to his campaign. And it came just as Kamala Harris was delivering her big closing-argument speech that was supposed to reach out to all Americans and to characterize her as the one who, unlike Trump, embraced everybody.

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."

Why did Biden put himself out there yesterday, taking chances, stepping on her big speech? Does he just not know what he's doing? That's one of the things Trump said about it, but the other was "I'm convinced that he likes me more than he likes Kamala." Don't overlook the possibility that Biden is trying to hurt Kamala. It reminds me of the time Biden showed up at a White House press briefing and pulled attention away from a big Harris speech. Did he interfere on purpose? 

And what was that event of Biden's yesterday? I'm reading news articles and it's not easy to discern. For example, the NYT has "Trump and His Allies Link Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Comment to 2016 ‘Deplorables’ Remark/Within minutes of the clip of President Biden’s remarks going viral, the Trump campaign and others were using it to attack Kamala Harris and Democrats." You'd think somewhere in the first few paragraphs, we'd read about why Biden was sitting at a desk talking to a camera. But no. I have no idea what that event was supposed to be. The camera angle and fuzziness make it look like second-rate social media.

Googling, I get to the White House official page and see that it was a phone call: "Remarks by President Biden on a Call with Voto Latino."

IN THE COMMENTS: Kate writes:
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.

228 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 228 of 228
Drago said...

LOL

Such weak reverso-gaslighting!

Its sad how little the New Soviet Democraticals have to work with now that they have been exposed and their legacy media Pravda-vian info monopoly has been obliterated.

Democratic Paychecks for Perks/ Dems for Demolition of Democracy/ fake-cares 4-U said...

A democrat party plant "comedian" versus the actual President.

Michael McNeil said...

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.

walter said...

Still nothing compared to the Dark Brandon screed which actually did invoke Hitler.

loudogblog said...

"Disqualify Trump, but extend a hand to his voters."

A hand with a big middle finger pointing at them.

Wa St Blogger said...

American's supporting Trump are both garbage and not garbage depending on what the person opening the box reports to you.

walter said...

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.

walter said...

..with an entrepreneurial nanny.

rehajm said...

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’…

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Jon Stewart defended it and went further, saying we need more of it. Apparently he cut a whole album of hideously inappropriate jokes.

Rocco said...

"Just moments ago, Joe Biden stated that our supporters are Garbage."

Needs a picture of Shirley Manson in a MAGA hat.

Jim at said...

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.

Rusty said...

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.

Jim at said...

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?

Mason G said...

"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."

wendybar said...

Now do Kimmel, Griffin and all the other crazy, Progressives who have called most of us a lot worse.

wendybar said...

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.

robother said...

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.

Craig Mc said...

"seized upon by Republicans"

Republicans are always seizing or pouncing. The other side never seems to do anything to justify either apparently.

Inga said...

I had forgotten this gem…

“The other day, President Donald Trump tweeted: “The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats. Watch out for them, they are human scum!””

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/trumps-tweet-makes-me-proud-be-human-scum/600685/

The Godfather said...

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?

Dr.Bunkypotatohead said...

Women...you can't live with 'em and you can't leave them out on the curb when you're done with 'em.

Lazarus said...

Was Don Rickles garbage?

Or a national treasure?

Lazarus said...

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).

Lazarus said...

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?

Aggie said...

..."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....

walter said...

He wasnt wrong. And he was talking about an elite subsection of his own party.

MacMacConnell said...

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.

«Oldest ‹Older   201 – 228 of 228   Newer› Newest»