Streetwise Professor

Yesterday Joe Biden called Trump supporters garbage.

No, you called us garbage. It's on tape. pic.twitter.com/bxb4UDnteN

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) October 30, 2024

This, mind you, happened about the same time that Harris was giving her “closer” “Trump=Hitler” speech on the Ellipse.

In one of the great “Oh Shit!” moments of all time, Dementia Joe’s outburst triggered an epic cycle of spin. The gaslights were turned all the way up. You dummies–there was an apostrophe in “supporters”. He was referring to one guy, the comedian who made the stupid Puerto Rico joke at Trump’s MSG rally! Not eighty million people! Come on!

Of course that makes no sense. If he was referring to one guy, he would have said “the only garbage out there I see is his supporter.” The possessive would have referred to the supporter’s joke, which makes no sense in this context.

But who are you gonna believe? Them or your garbage eyes and ears?

We know that this is the opinion that Biden, Harris, and the Democrats actually hold of about half the electorate. Biden basically said as much in his speech (with production assistance from the ghost of Leni Riefenstahl ) in front of Independence Hall a couple of years ago. It’s an echo of Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” and Obama’s “bitter clingers.” And more media and celebrity examples than you can shake a stick at.

It’s what they believe. Truly believe.

Joe’s timing was exquisite. The Democrats were trying desperately to leverage an insult comedian’s remark into a campaign issue. Then Joe blew that up completely. There’s a big difference between a professional clown making a remark about a place and a president making a similar remark about half of the people in his country.

Trump of course jumped on it, in his showman’s fashion, jumping into a garbage truck before a campaign event, donning a garbage man’s reflective vest, and then giving a jokey speech in it. It was a move to rival his McDonald’s gambit. The man is a living, breathing meme and as a result his showmanship goes viral on a scale no other politician can match.

Biden’s remark is just a particularly crass and ill-timed part of a broader Democratic campaign theme to demonize Trump as Hitler, and therefore to paint anyone who supports him as a Nazi, or at least a Nazi adjacent enabler. It’s not working, and even many Democrats now realize it’s not working and are pleading Harris to stop.

But why would they think it would work? There is in fact some logic to it, but that logic has a fatal weakness that seems to be manifesting itself now in a major way.

The reason for this trash talk is to stigmatize anyone who expresses support for Trump: if you do, you’re a Nazi, and everyone will despise you. No, this won’t deter his hardcore supporters. But it can potentially appeal to those who are particularly afraid of ostracism. This would include those who may have sympathies with Trump on some issues (and by my reading, particularly on immigration) but who live and/or work among vocal–and often vicious–leftists. It also includes the naturally wishy-washy, who instinctively follow the crowd. Such folk hide their preferences under a bushel basket, which leads to an understatement of public support for Trump. And that can lead those who are naturally followers to go with the apparent in-crowd and vote for Harris.

That is, the rhetoric is intended to create preference falsification. Preference falsification allows authoritarian regimes to retain popular support even if many individuals’ true preferences are opposed. Every one goes along, not because they truly believe, but because they think everyone else is going along too.

But the weakness in this strategy is that even if a modest number of people stop falsifying their preferences, it can trigger a cascade of such repudiations. Roughly speaking, preference falsification has two equilibria: most people falsify, or most people don’t. A jump from one equilibrium to another is the death knell of regimes that rely on preference falsification to maintain their facade of authority–and who rely the threat of social stigma to enforce it.

I think we are experiencing such a cascade. Why? I think that the assassination attempt was the first crack in the falsificaiton wall. It got a lot of people to acknowledge their admiration for how he handled it, and to recognize that the vicious rhetoric against him was extremely dangerous: it created an atmosphere in which unstable personalities were encouraged to take acts that could spark a political and social calamity.

Moreover, the rhetoric had been used for so long that its narcotic effect had worn off. And perhaps most importantly, it clashed with what people saw in his self-created memes, like the McDonald’s episode, this Al Smith Dinner speech, and his riffs at rallies. These things humanized him and clashed with the Hitler image.

Hitler wasn’t funny. Trump can be very funny. Common Americans can relate to Trump in ways that it would be impossible for a Hitler to do. There was a disconnect between what many people saw in Trump and their image of Hitler.

Biden’s garbage remark will only reinforce the cascade. Even those who have continued to conceal their true beliefs until now will realize that the Democrats really despise them, and definitely do not have their interests at heart. Pride, self-respect, and self-interest will combine to overwhelm the fear among many of social stigma. And the more that happens, the less powerful the effect of social stigma, which only accelerates the process.

There’s the old Michael Kinsley quip that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. That’s what Biden did. And by talking trash and thereby telling the truth he could well have broken the spell of preference falsification that has been the foundation of a Harris campaign that can offer nothing positive either in program or personality.