Has Joe Biden’s ‘garbage’ gaffe just cost Kamala Harris the US election?

In a tight race, the president’s verdict on Trump supporters could do even more damage to the Democrats’ chances than Hillary Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorables’ remark, says Sean O’Grady

With just days to go before the US election, American politics is a battle of small margins. It will go down to a few thousand votes, maybe even a few hundred, in a relatively small number of precincts in seven battleground states – a tiny number set against, say, the 150 million votes that will be cast.

In the mostly winner-takes-all system of the electoral college, where a single vote could throw an entire state behind one candidate, and in a tight battle as now, you can see why the party managers fret about every little thing.

Like, for example, what the president, Joe Biden, just did or didn’t say about ex-president Donald Trump’s supporters.

After some kind of comedian at a Trump rally made that infamous wisecrack about Puerto Ricans being “garbage”, Biden countered with an indistinct remark in an interview, which either condemned the comic for his racist joke, or condemned every single one of the roughly 70 million Trump fans out there.

It all depends on whether you think Biden said “supporter” or “supporters”. Biden has always had a speech impediment – but maybe these days, like Trump, he’s becoming a little uninhibited about stating his views.

Or rather, it doesn’t really depend on that, in the sense that the Trumpians will choose to believe that Biden, the ultimate representative of what they see as “swamp” political culture, holds them – all of them – in contempt.

Inevitably, and rightly, it reminds people of what Hillary Clinton so foolishly said about the Trumpians back in 2016, deriding them for their “deplorable” opinions. Instead of reflecting on their unconscious bias, they instead rushed out to buy T-shirts with “I’m a deplorable” printed on them, and proudly adopted the label.

I just wonder if the textile manufacturers of China will be able to produce a range of “garbage”-themed merch in time for polling day; it could certainly be ready for the Trump inauguration, which is maybe a tiny bit more likely now than before Biden opened his mouth.

What’s the impact? Relatively small in itself, with outraged Puerto Ricans being balanced by outraged Trump voters, leaving an even smaller net effect – though that could, of course, matter in some places, rather tragically from Joe’s point of view. It will always be impossible to know the precise impact of any single gaffe or campaign event. How many votes is Beyoncé worth? Hulk Hogan? Trump in McDonald’s?

The wider impact is the way it adds to an impression that the Democratic campaign has lacked a certain something, under both of its presidential nominees. It has, with good reason, been unremittingly negative about Trump and the threat he poses, but that seemed only to motivate his base and those inclined to join it, especially in recent days, when the (correct) label of “fascist” was thrown around.

How did that make his supporters feel? Rebellious, of course, and not averse to a bit of Trumpian fascism themselves.

The missing element – not entirely, but still a fault – was the lack of a positive message, a plan, and reasons to believe that Kamala Harris would make the American voter better off in the next four years.

It’s a bit like those competitions you used to find on the side of a sweet wrapper or on a newspaper coupon, where you’d be invited to complete a phrase and win a year’s supply of cornflakes. In this case, it would be to complete the phrase: “I’m voting for Kamala Harris for president because...”

As with Hillary, it’s not enough for that to be “because she’s not Donald Trump” or “because the other lot are deplorable/garbage” or “because she’ll be the first female president”.

The voters want to know what’s in it for them. Otherwise, well, it’s just garbage.