The world is probably ending on Tuesday, as Democracy Dies in Darkness, so this might be the last TG ever written. Let’s make it count. Happy belated Halloween!
We’re all garbage: While Kamala Harris stood outside the White House to deliver her closing pitch to America, looking amazing and elegant in a bright white cowl neck (not sorry! She’s a 10!), Joe Biden made his own closing remarks. From a video call at the White House residence, he called Trump supporters feral trash rats. In Biden’s words: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
He was responding to a fairly offensive joke said at a Trump rally by a boorish comedian: “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” The crowd reaction was mixed to negative. And then Biden said that the only trash is Trumpers—it was like watching the Democrats be handed a gift from Team Trump only to watch them crumple it up and hand it back.
Right on cue, America’s reporters snapped into action to deny that Biden said exactly what Biden said. He didn’t mean Trump supporters were trash, he meant that they litter, said The Washington Post.
The White House press office slightly altered the transcript—a “breach of protocol and spoilation of transcript integrity,” according to the White House stenographers—making it seem like he was talking about the supporters’ rubbish, like “Hey, don’t forget your supporters’ garbage should be separated into plastic and paper,” and Politico ran cover. My only question is: Don’t mainstream reporters ever get tired of running interference for Joe and Kamala? Don’t they ever want to just relax, drop their shoulders, and write about the words they say out loud? You can have a hundred delicately placed apostrophes in that sentence; it won’t change the fact that Biden called Trumpers “garbage.” Then he went to the White House Halloween party and bit some costumed babies, which looked really fun. He’s having fun and he’s getting a little loose with the rhetoric. It’s okay!
