Remember Joe Biden, the president of the United States? Nobody had missed him except Donald Trump, who kept whining that his favourite foe had been dumped by the Democrats. But now the old geezer has emerged like a ghost from the White House basement in time to deep-six Kamala Harris’s campaign. Trump supporters are masters at weaponising grievance and Biden has supplied them with a truck load of ammunition by calling them “garbage”. It could be the clincher.
Ever the showman, Trump climbed into a lorry and delivered a speech in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in a hi-vis garbage worker’s jacket. The man is shameless. He calls Harris “stupid” and “low-IQ” and readily describes all of America as a “garbage can”, but is smart enough not to attack her supporters directly. As with his apron-wearing McDonald’s stunt, Trump created a viral moment portraying him as the champion of the common man. “Five days till we take out the trash!” his campaign is gloating.
In truth, America is arguing over an apostrophe. Did Biden call Trump supporters, plural, “garbage” or was he attacking a Trump “supporter’s” demonisation of Puerto Rico (comedian Tony Hinchcliffe)? With Biden, who knows. Frankly, the Democrats gave him the push because they couldn’t bear to watch him fumble and stumble anymore. But Biden has hung around on the sidelines just long enough to undermine – once again – his loyal vice-president.
Women second-in-commands know the feeling. They are supposed to be grateful for the honour bestowed upon them. They are reluctant to upstage their boss and super-loyal to a fault. The “joy” propelling Harris’s early momentum was based on overwhelming relief that Biden was gone. The biggest gaffe of her campaign, the moment that joy began to ebb, came when she was asked on the popular morning talk show, The View, what she would do differently from him.
“There’s not a thing that comes to mind,” Harris said defensively. And pouf! Her winning claim to be the candidate of change went up in smoke.
Harris continues to draw astonishing crowds while Trump has had difficulty filling some halls. But size isn’t everything. Biden made his comments about garbage just as Harris was addressing 75,000 supporters at the Ellipse to warn Americans of the danger of a second Trump administration – and stole all the headlines. The early voting figures do not look great for the Democrats (though, encouragingly, more women than men have cast their ballots). Harris needs every last wavering person to show up for her on election day.
Is Biden actively trying to undermine Harris? An aide has described his feelings towards her as “very complex”. Biden is certainly still smarting from the way he was ousted and may feel vindicated if she loses. But I don’t think the ageing narcissist has grasped the fury that awaits him for staying in his post too long if Trump wins.
Biden has never been generous to his vice-president. He appointed her after promising to choose a woman of colour as his running mate, thus labelling her a DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hire in opponents’ eyes from the start. Then he tasked her with solving the “root causes” of immigration – good luck with that one. This is only the issue vexing the entire Western world. Even Harris couldn’t mask her resentment and, sure enough, it has turned out to be her Achilles heel in this election.
Biden’s aides have “trash-talked” Harris for years, not least to keep him – and themselves – in power. Many of them are still running her campaign at its HQ in Delaware, Biden’s home state, while privately briefing against her. They grumble that she is not giving the president enough credit for “Bidenomics” and is keeping him off the campaign trail – plans, for instance, for Biden to tour Pennsylvania in a battle bus have been quietly dropped. Yet whenever Biden says something, he drops Harris in it.
Perhaps the clearest indication about her feelings towards Biden comes from her choice of running mate. Harris opted for Tim Walz, a political lightweight, over Josh Shapiro, the clever and popular governor of Pennsylvania – America’s most important blue-collar swing state. You can trace that back to her anxiety about being upstaged and belittled by an ambitious man.
If she loses Pennsylvania, and thus the election, it won’t just be because of Biden’s garbage gaffe. Harris’s “Biden problem” is so much deeper than that.
Sarah Baxter is director of the Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting