Biden scores another own goal over Trump’s ‘garbage’ supporters

The latest wisdom from our tottering, angry president was to call Donald Trump’s supporters “garbage.” He was responding to the inexcusable “joke” by a warm-up comedian at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally. The comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, stepped all over what should have been Trump’s big story: his triumphant rally. Biden stepped all over what should have been Kamala Harris’s: her effective closing speech on the Ellipse, in front of the White House. 

These disparaging references are loathsome, whatever their political impact. They cheapen our public life. But they are also political mistakes. The mainstream media made passionate love to Hinchcliffe’s insult, making it their top story for three days running, partly because top Republicans didn’t immediately condemn the reference, partly because those media outlets are trying to defeat Trump. 

Trump, who knows marketing, immediately capitalized on Biden’s mistake. Driving to a rally in a garbage truck, wearing an orange worker’s vest, was a brilliant move, just like cooking fries at McDonald’s. 

The Biden White House’s response was the opposite of brilliant. It was dumb, dumb, dumb. Instead of trying to minimize a bad story and put it behind them, the White House press team openly, if inadvertently, publicized it. They offered the lame notion that Biden wasn’t referring to all Trump supporters, in the plural. He was only referring to one comedian. Who runs this operation? Ralph Wiggum? 

Why is their cover-up so dumb? Let me count the ways. First, and most important, it kept that damaging story alive for several more days. Second, the White House spin was obviously false. Any viewer could watch the president on tape and hear for themselves that he was referring to all Trump supporters. It was the equivalent of Hillary’s “deplorables” comment. Third, the White House distortion was so egregious that the official (and non-partisan) White House Stenographers Office, publicly objected. Their job is to ensure accurate records are stored for future reference and historical analysis. Until this incident, no one had ever heard of that office. Now they were saying Biden is trying to strong-arm them. Finally, the comment by Joe Biden, unlike one by a warm-up comic, was made by the sitting (or reclining) president of the United States. He governs the entire population. He just called half of it “scum.” 

Biden is hardly alone in making inexcusable comments. Trump seems to make one almost daily. His latest, concerning Liz Cheney, is despicable and fuels the rage of an angry country. The mainstream media will make the most of it. 

It’s clear why Trump says these things. He speaks off-the-cuff and, once he gets rolling, lacks even a modicum of self-control. It’s less clear why Biden says them.  

In Biden’s case, there are four possibilities.  

1. He has always made gaffes 
2. He makes more of them these days because his mind is fading 
3. He’s furious at Trump 
4. He’s furious at Kamala, who replaced him atop the ticket, and he is trying to sink her 

There’s no way to tell which of these four is most important, or whether several are. It is worth noting, though, that anger frequently accompanies dementia. 

Joe’s vile and dumb remark is really three stories. The first is the damage he did to Harris. That is likely to be minor because Joe isn’t on the ticket, most voters have already made up their minds and the media will downplay it to help her. The second story, which has received little attention this week, is that President Biden’s health is obviously failing. Just look at him during that brief clip. He could hardly mumble the confused sentences about Trump’s “garbage” supporters. The third story, which hurts Harris, is the White House’s desperate efforts to conceal the president’s condition from the public. As the second-ranking official in the White House, Harris had a duty to inform the public. She still won’t do it. 

As citizens, we have a right to know whether the president is fit to perform his duties. Kamala Harris has been asked directly about that. “What did you know about the president’s mental condition and when did you know it?” She won’t answer. All she will say is that he’s doing a great job. 

It’s not hard to see how clumsy and self-defeating this Biden PR effort is. By trying, falsely, to “correct” what the public could see for themselves, they only called more attention to it. They made a bad story worse by publicizing it. They are not the first to step into that aromatic pile. 

Barbara Streisand did it when she sued a photographer who was documenting the entire California coastline and the houses that overlook it. There’s nothing wrong or illegal about that project, which included some 12,000 publicly available pictures. That’s not what Streisand thought, however, since she has a mansion overlooking the coast and believed the photographs invaded her privacy. She sued for $50 million and didn’t just lose; she made the photographs the centerpiece of every news story about the trial. The book would have sold a few thousand copies. The news stories, all with pictures of her house, were read by millions.  

The photo became an internet hit. Her whole, misguided approach is now known as the “Streisand Effect.” The Biden White House seems to have missed the lesson. 

Franklin Roosevelt’s administration was far wiser. Amid World War Two, the Chicago Tribune published a front-page story about the Japanese military that could only have been known if the US government had broken Japan’s secret codes. Washington was understandably furious. The hotheads wanted to indict the Tribune’s publisher, Colonel Robert McCormick, for treason. They already hated him for his staunch opposition to the New Deal. But wiser heads counseled against any prosecution and won. Their argument was that no one in Tokyo read the Chicago Tribune, so they didn’t know America had broken their codes. But they would certainly learn that secret if the US put Colonel McCormick on trial. So, stay quiet and hope for the best. 

That decision was far smarter than the ones made by the Biden administration or Barbra Streisand. Sometimes the wisest response to an attack, even an unwarranted one, is to stay silent. When you fight back hard, as Trump has against Liz Cheney or Biden against the Trump rally, you can shoot yourself in the foot. Sometimes, the shot hits a sensitive spot a little higher.