Bin there done that: MAGA and Dems throw garbage at each other

TOI Correspondent from Washington: It's the garbage, stupid.

MAGA Trumpers and Democrats took aim at each other over characterizing their opponents as "garbage," as the stink of mutual denigration enveloped Presidential elections in the self-described greatest country on earth.

Seizing on President Joe Biden's putdown of Trump supporters as "garbage" and rejecting his clarification that he only meant a Trump rally comedian who called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage," the MAGA supremo taunted Democrats by donning a sanitation worker's uniform and driving a garbage truck on Wednesday.

“How do you like my garbage truck? This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden,” Trump told reporters during his salvo. “For Joe Biden to make that statement — it’s really a disgrace.”

MAGA faithful, including Elon Musk, saw it as a brilliant act of trolling Dems, but anti-Trumpers saw it as an apt metaphor for a man not short of trash-talk.

"Interesting choice to place the garbage in the front of the truck," Trump's niece Mary Trump, an anti-MAGA commentator, observed about her 78-year old uncle taking the front passenger seat. Other critics mused about the sight of a man who sits on a golden toilet driving a garbage truck to make a point, even as he stumbled towards the truck in an awkward manner.

Anti-Trumpers also rolled out ads and memes showing the MAGA motormouth calling his opponents, including Kamala Harris and her followers, "garbage" "scum" etc on numerous occasions, not to speak of characterizing the US itself as a "garbage can" that other countries are dumping illegal migrants into.

“It’s the people that surround her (Kamala Harris), they’re scum and they want to take down our country. They are absolute garbage,” Trump said in one rally, among the numerous times he has used the two words to describe his opponents.

Trump supporters later posted a video of the driver behind the wheel of the garbage truck who said he was proud to have driven Trump in his “Garbage Force One. Trump surrogate Vivek Ramaswamy was also part of Trump’s garbage expedition.

Kamala Harris, though, came out smelling of roses from the episode as she distanced herself from Biden's remarks, saying, "I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for."

The White House tried to clear the mess even as pundits and pollsters speculated on whether Biden's snippy remark would undercut Harris' support the same way Hillary Clinton's description of the MAGA flock as a "deplorables" was seen as self-destructive when she ran against Trump in 2016.

Although there were other factors that led to Hillary’s defeat, the “deplorables” remark has haunted Democrats since they lost that election narrowly.

"He [Biden] does not view Trump supporters or anybody who supports Trump, as garbage. That is not what he views," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at the daily briefing as many Dems ran for cover.

Trump later posted in all caps on social media, "250 MILLION AMERICANS ARE NOT GARBAGE—I CALL YOU THE HEART AND SOUL OF AMERICA!!! #MAGA2024." The US population is approximately 335 million; Biden received approximately 81 million votes to Trump's 73 million in the 2020 presidential election.