Garbage in, garbage out: Trump’s error-filled week
The former president’s campaign looks like the New York Yankees in World
Series meltdown mode.
November 3, 2024 at 7:45 a.m. EST
The New York Yankees’ disastrous fifth inning in
Game 5 of the World Series was the perfect metaphor for Donald Trump’s series
of blunders, missed opportunities and mental short-circuits that marked the
last full week of the 2024 campaign.
When Trump’s hate-fest at Madison Square Garden, including
a comedian’s reference to Puerto Rico as an “island of garbage,” touched
off a widespread backlash, Trump and his team seized on a feeble distraction
from the fallout. He jumped on a convoluted comment by President Joe Biden, willfully
misinterpreting it as calling Trump supporters “garbage,” but — as Biden later clarified —
referred to the comedian’s “hateful rhetoric.”
Although Trump’s constant demonization of opponents as “the
enemy from within” and harangues at Jews, women, Democrats, former aides and
others make any comparison with the tenor of the Harris campaign ludicrous, the
news coverage inevitably turned to focusing on what Biden did or didn’t mean. (Trump’s comments on Thursday imagining
guns aimed at Liz Cheney’s face are a reminder that he’s in a contemptible
class by himself.)
Fortunately, Vice President Kamala Harris swiftly intervened,
reminding the media that she is the candidate and this
is her campaign. She noted that Biden had “clarified his
comments” but declared, “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based
on who they vote for.”
Trump, campaigning in Green Bay, Wisconsin,
doubled down. Dressing in a high-visibilty vest (its orange hue
making his makeup look all the more fluorescent) and climbing into a garbage
truck emblazoned with his campaign logo, Trump seemed convinced, would remind
people of ... well ... of something noncandidate Biden did not really say.
Instead, Trump’s getup just looked ridiculous, and the
message was muddled. Was he suggesting he was taking out the
garbage — other Americans? Puerto Rico? (Also ridiculous: a garbage truck
driving in circles, looking like a malfunctioning radio-operated toy.)
It didn’t help that the stunt included a disastrous visual in which Trump faltered
and glitched trying to get into the garbage truck:
Coming at a time the media was finally zeroing in on
his mental and physical decline, the
incident raised fresh questions
about Trump’s health and his refusal to release medical records.
Still wearing his fluorescent orange vest at a rally in
Green Bay, Trump made matters worse. He declared: “I want to protect the women of our
country. ... I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not.” Ridicule
erupted: The candidate who had already enraged millions of women by bragging
about groping on an “Access Hollywood”
recording, who was found liable for sexual assault (and who keeps seeing accusations popping
up), and who succeeded in getting Roe v. Wade overturned, had
revealed once again exactly what he thinks of American women.
The New York Times reported
the remarks “that he cast as paternal ... only served as reminders to many of
his critics of his history of misogynistic statements and a civil court case
that found him liable for sexual abuse.”
Harris jumped on the comment, posting on X: “Donald Trump thinks he should get
to make decisions about what you do with your body.” In addition to a deluge of
campaign social media posts and clever ads excoriating the comment, Harris the next day told reporters:
“Donald Trump’s remark about women and whether they like it or not. It actually
is very offensive to women … and this is just the latest in a series of reveals
by the former president of how he thinks about women and their agency.”
Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, weighed in as
well, “He said, ‘I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not,’” Walz
said. “That’s how this guy has lived his life. That’s why he was on the ‘Access
Hollywood’ tape, and that’s why he ended up in court.”
Aside from his garbage truck episode and doubling down on
misogyny, Trump, and Republicans generally, made a number of other face
plants. He felt compelled to
declare, “I am not Hitler”; the House speaker, campaigning for a GOP candidate
in Pennsylvania, got caught promising to repeal the
Affordable Care Act; and Trump ally and anti-vax conspiratorialist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed
he would be put in charge of
the Department of Health and Human Services.
Plainly, the Yankees were not the only ones having an
embarrassing flurry of errors.
Even the decision of billionaire-owned outlets such as The
Post and the Los Angeles Times not to issue endorsements became fodder for
Harris. (“It’s the billionaires and Donald Trump Club. That’s who’s in his
club,” she told Charlamagne tha God on
“The Breakfast Club” radio show, “That’s who he hangs out with, that’s who he
cares about.”)
As Trump’s dumpster fire campaign implodes, he has already
started claiming election fraud in
Pennsylvania. A post-election strategy of
trying to overturn the results might be the only way he can regain power and
avoid prosecution.
