I realize that this doesn’t say anything everyone here doesn’t already know, but Its bugging the heck out of me and I don’t see another thread on it so here it goes.
So a few days ago, Trump had his Madison square rally with the racist intro, which was going viral through the media making Trump look bad. Which means that in order to appear non-biased the media has to scrounge around to find a story that makes Harris look bad. So they settled on a gaffe that Biden made.
And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Well, let me tell you something. I don’t — I — I don’t know the Puerto Rican that — that I know —or a Puerto Rico, where I’m fr— in my home state of Delaware, they’re good, decent, honorable people. The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable
OH! MY GOD! he called Trump supporters garbage stop the presses Harris must be stopped!
The problems with is are obvious.
He didn’t actually call them garbage it was just poor wording. What he meant, and this fits the transcript, is that the only garbage is Trump’s supporters’ garbage disinformation.
Even if he did call them garbage, he’s not running for president, Harris is. What do we care what he thinks.
Trump says worse stuff than this on a practically daily basis. Not so long ago he called for using the national guard to hunt down the enemy within.
But these days being a fair and balanced media means you have to have exactly as many stories about how bad one party is as you have about how bad the other party is. Just like to be a fair sports referee you have to call the same number of fouls for each team regardless of what they do on the field.
I don’t know how much of it is ‘bothsidesism’ vs. the generic ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ pursuit of eyeballs.
But it’s pretty bad.
It shouldn’t only be incumbent on Harris/Biden surrogates to explain what he actually said, and how that does not support the damning RW accusation, but – in general – it seems they really can’t be bothered.
The excuse that I’ve seen the MAGA contingent spout in response to this is “Tony Hinchcliffe isn’t running for office, either! Why do you care what he thinks?”
I think it’s the sensational nature of having a sitting President describe the followers of the other party as “garbage”, not some misguided two-sides kind of thing.
The real failing here is to view this as sort of like two teams going at it, when it’s not. That’s why the right looks at it like AOC saying something, means that she’s speaking for the entire party. And if Biden says anything about Trump or the GOP, he’s speaking on behalf of the entire party and on behalf of the Harris/Walz campaign. Which isn’t actually true, but that’s how some people think.
But he really didn’t do that, which is kind of the point.
Maybe it’s yet another Rorschach Test in 21st Century American politics, but – reading the actual transcript – I don’t see it as him having denigrated Trump supporters, writ large.
The difference I would say is that Hinchcliffe was speaking at a Trump rally with his remarks vetted by Trumps staff, and cheered by Trump’s crowd. Biden was having an interview that Harris had no control over.
Trump supporters are garbage. They’ve seen everything he has done, heard all of his bullshit lies, naked desire to be an autocrat, stream-of-consciousness gibberish, and threats against political opponents, and have decided to support him anyway. Biden clearly had a ‘senior moment’ in which he stumbled over his words and accidentally said the unvarnished truth out loud, but he’s not wrong even if he didn’t mean to say it so plainly.
Whoa there, now you’ve done it. If you hadn’t been so gosh darned rude, certainly they would have voted for Harris. So now they’re basically forced to vote for Trump! Which they totally wouldn’t have before!
They clearly have priorities that clash with normal peoples.
Trump news, whatever it is, is covered big-time. Because it makes people watch. When I saw Trump in the orange vest in the garbage truck, I lost respect for CNN.
Even PBS is doing it. You still have to wait all day to see their coverage.
I’ve turned CNN off til election day. I can’t deal with it.
If something real bad happens, I’ll read it in the paper or on here, eventually.
I’ll say it loud and proud, Trump is a piece of garbage and so are his stoopid MAGAs. I don’t care if they know it and are offended. I just don’t care.
MAGA has spent 10 years constantly telling us what Trump really meant when he said something stupid/evil. Now they are telling us what Biden really meant, when it’s obvious what he actually meant. I guess according to MAGA they are the ultimate arbiters of the meanings of things people say. Or they seem to think they are. It’s amazing that they don’t see this pattern. Or they just don’t care.
I’ve been wondering what the proper term is for the administration during this election cycle, where an incumbent Harris is running, incumbent Biden’s not and former Trump is running? The administration isn’t strictly lameduck but I can’t figure how one characterizes it properly.
