The Democratic candidate for the presidency of the United States, Kamala Harris, made an effort this Tuesday in her most massive rally to present herself as a unifier, in the face of the divisive rhetoric of her rival, Donald Trump. However, very close to where she gave the rally, the current president, Joe Biden, launched a somewhat confusing phrase in which he seemed to describe Trump supporters as “garbage.” Biden later said he was referring only to her hateful rhetoric, but the damage was partly done for Harris. The vice president openly distanced herself from her boss’s words this Wednesday.
“Let me be clear, I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” Harris told reporters when asked about Biden’s comment. “You heard my speech last night and continually throughout my career: I believe the job I do is to represent all people, whether they support me or not. And as president of the United States, I will be a president for all Americans, whether they vote for me or not,” she added before embarking on a trip to campaign in the decisive states, starting with North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin this Wednesday.
Biden made his comments in a call with Latino voters, after referring to the words of a comedian who at Trump’s rally in New York had insulted Puerto Rico by saying that it is an “island of floating garbage.” The president replied: “The only garbage I see floating around is that of his supporters… Their… their demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and un-American. It is totally contrary to everything we have done, everything we have been.” It was a hesitant phrase and the White House transcript puts a silent apostrophe on it —“is his supporter’s” rather “is his supporters”—, but the Republicans stick with the second option and interpret that what he was saying is that the trash is his followers.
Then, the president tried to explain himself better: “Today I referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico uttered by the Trump supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage, which is the only word I can think of to describe it,” he tweeted.
Even so, Trump and the Republicans have taken advantage of the opportunity to stop talking about the racist insults at the Madison Square Garden rally in New York on Sunday and start presenting themselves as victims. This, despite the fact that Trump does not stop handing out insults and nicknames to his political rivals, including those from his own party.
The Republican candidate took advantage of a rally in Allentown, a majority-Latino city in the decisive state of Pennsylvania, not only to try to put out the fire caused by insults to Puerto Rico, but to remember an episode that partly marked the 2016 campaign: when Hillary Clinton said Trump supporters were “deplorable.”
“To generalize too much, you can put half of Trump’s supporters in what I call a hodgepodge of deplorable people,” Clinton said then. Then he had to rectify, but his rectification was not very successful either: “Last night I made too big a generalization, and that is never a good idea. “I’m sorry I said ‘half,’ that was wrong.” All of this mobilized Trump’s followers and Clinton ended up defeated by surprise at the polls.
This Wednesday, at another rally in Rocky Mount (North Carolina), Trump has returned to the fray: “Joe Biden finally said what he and Kamala really think of our supporters. He called them ‘trash’, and they mean it, although, without a doubt, my supporters are of much higher quality than corrupt Joe, lying Kamala. My response to Joe and Kamala is very simple: You can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans. You simply can’t,” he said, partly returning a phrase that Biden dedicated to Trump: “You can’t love your country only when you win.”
The Republican added: “They have treated you like trash… Do you know what the truth is? “They have treated our entire country like garbage, whether they did it on purpose or not, because they are tremendously incompetent people, and they have destroyed our country.” And in the afternoon he doubled the bet by getting on a garbage truck with his campaign logo in Green Bay (Wisconsin). Cleverly, taking advantage of Biden’s mistake, the Republican has turned the rally scandal around with racist proclamations on Sunday.
Harris wants to avoid a repeat of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 story at all costs. The vice president did not utter those words, but she remains Biden’s subordinate. The candidate has avoided campaigning with the president, whose popularity is low. He was not even present at Tuesday’s rally at the Ellipse, a park adjacent to the White House estate. But Biden has continued to participate in some events and this is the second time he has generated controversy with his words.
Last week, also somewhat confusingly, during a campaign visit to New Hampshire, the president, Joe Biden, spoke of “locking up” Trump, although he immediately said that he meant “locking him up politically.” “We have to lock him up. Lock him up politically. Lock it up. That’s what we have to do,” he said, something that Republicans also took advantage of to present cases against Trump as a result of political persecution. When Democratic supporters chant “lock him up” at Harris’ rallies, she has a standard response: “Let’s leave that to the courts. Let’s take care of November 5th”, the date of the elections.
Like Kamala Harris now, Biden ran in 2020 aiming to heal the wounds of division opened during Donald Trump’s presidency. He did not count, however, on the political survival of his rival after defeating him and, even less so, after the assault on the Capitol and his criminal charges. Trump has not only resisted, but he has a serious chance of returning to the White House. At the end of his term, the country is as divided or more so than it was four years ago. His words on Tuesday grate on the complicated balance Harris seeks: disqualifying Trump, but courting his voters.