With American election fever now at a deafening pitch, there’s something dizzying about stepping from one filter bubble to another and seeing how differently the same event can be treated. Yesterday, for instance, Donald Trump staged a photoshoot in a branded garbage collection truck, in response to Joe Biden calling his supporters “garbage”. This in turn was in response to a stand-up comic at Trump’s recent New York City rally describing Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage”.
The Independent reported the garbage truck stunt as a “total fail”. The New York Times employed the “editorialising by proxy” strategy beloved of officially-still-objective newsrooms such as the BBC, in which they don’t so much report the stunt as report the reactions of people who didn’t like the stunt, so as to criticise it while preserving the appearance of merely reporting the news. Meanwhile, Trump-backing billionaire Elon Musk deemed it “genius-level trolling”, and the New York Post called it “a big, beautiful MAGA garbage truck”.
To say that I’ve been able to follow this story at all, despite having no direct stake in the US election, is an admission that I spend way too much time on the internet. But as such I have come to appreciate the power of a well-judged meme. And on this front Trump has consistently been head and shoulders above his opponents.
The visual of Trump in a hi-vis vest, behind the wheel of a Trump-branded garbage truck (bin lorry, in English), carries potent connotations. Momentarily, the former president became the working man, doing the smelly, arduous but socially indispensable work of collecting everyone’s rubbish. He became the practical man, doing tangible work in the real world. It is difficult to think of another politician capable of such a stunt — not even Trump’s own running mate J.D. Vance.
I’ve argued elsewhere that postmodern politics retrieves “representation” in a more medieval than liberal-democratic sense. And from this perspective, we can read Trump’s “garbage” stunt as representing — in archetype, if not yet in policy — a swathe of the American electorate that in recent decades has been largely abandoned by the Left which once voiced its interests.
Embodying archetypes in this way is a gift, not a learned achievement. Garbage Trump is only the latest in a string of memetically potent Trumpian images and utterances. When he visited a McDonald’s, made some fries and “served” from the drive-thru window, his enemies protested that it was all staged. But it made little difference, because the resulting images were simply too symbolically dense for such details to matter.
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SubscribeI watched the video of the garbage truck and the follow-on rally where Trump told the story of why he was appearing in a hi-vis jacket. https://youtu.be/aowTnlSylRE
It struck me that he told the story in a similar way to how Elvis Presley interacted with an audience. Engaging with the audience, speaking with pauses, sharing his story with them in a relatable way. Getting his points across.
No wonder the Democrats are panicking.
Have you considered seeking mental health assistance?
CS suggesting mentalhealth treatment. Now *that* is funny.
He/she may think you’re serious.
The irony is hilarious.
Great link. The guy is hilarious.
As usual, the leftists can’t hide their genocidal hatred for those who disagree with them. ‘Garbage’…you have to work hard, flipping and convoluting in spasmodic absurdities, to pretend such language is not genocidal.
It’s not enough to troll them back, we have to take them seriously. The body count in the 20th century proves the leftist mind is
one of the most genocidal in all of human history.How do you feel about Trump paraphrasing his German hero with the “poisoning the blood of the nation” stuff? You cool with that? Because calling someone garbage is way worse than that, right?!?!
Context, numbskull.
What context? Please explain.
I don’t know the context of that comment, but I guarantee you CS doesn’t either.
Just relax. You sound like you’re having something inserted in you, and it’s not an image I need before bed.
I think you are confused. Trump is embracing the word garbage as his own. That’s why he was in a garbage truck.
Trump is playing these old school media dinosaurs like a Yehudi Menuhin. Their self-important huffing and puffing completely misses the point which just adds to the effect.
We live in some late stage of democracy in the West, maybe not the last stage but there is not much is left to dumb down.
“there is not much is left to dumb down”
You certainly have the right candidate to finish the job.
You cannot honestly not agree that Harris is as dumb as a box of rocks!
Perhaps the author is also speech writer for the VP. This essay contains a great deal of word salad filler. The bottom line: Wonderful Puerto Rico does, in fact, have a garbage problem. Democrats, in fact, have called Republicans dangerous tyrants since the Reagan era. Now democrats have cranked it up to 11 and as Lee Siegel wrote here just last week, democrats think Trump is worse than Hitler and his followers are garbage.
The level of dog whistling for violence is working. Trump has had 2 murder attempts, one mere inches from success. The stories of biolence against Americans,daring to wear Trump gear are numerous. In 2020 a random teen was murdered by some Biden supporter because he looked like a Trump supporter.
What do the democrats do? Triple down, intensify their poorly veiled threats against Americans. What has Trump done? Stuck to his job of winning this coming Tuesday.
I proudly stand as deplorable garbage with Trump. It is far better than being one of the despicable irrational cowardly haters.
Sorry, but I don’t remember any random teen being murdered by a Biden supporter because he looked like a trump supporter. What does a Biden supporter look like? I’m just an average woman who shops at Target and goes to my book club meeting. And there are women there who support Trump!! And they look average women who probably shop at Target.
I need to sign my comments with my name, Kimberly, to stop the confusion. I think the other Unheard reader is my polar opposite.
You could go further – just to help me – and modify your commenting name.
Having the same name means that I have to do an “irony analysis ” each time to work out what may be being implied …
I don’t remember any random teen being murdered by a Biden supporter because he looked like a trump supporter.
Which part of this comment are you objecting to?
In Arizona by a Democrat politician no less.
The Trump memes work because he’s funny, and Trump is in on the joke. He’s shameless, he knows it, we know it, and he knows we know it, and it’s what enables his campaign to be entertaining and funny, and Trump has an undeniable charisma when he’s one on one with someone. Despite laughing only when she’s being evasive, conservatives and independents remember Kamala as the VP of an administration that every week was trying to ban something people liked or trying to pay off the debt of a voting bloc it wanted to please. People can laugh at and laugh with Trump, but people can only laugh at Kamala. This election isn’t about policy, it’s about personality.
However we know Trump’s policies. What few policies Harris floats are most often in direct contradiction to what she has previously done or said.
CS all you ever do on here is ad hominem responses.
I guess it’s late stage Champagne Socialism?
The nub of the matter is this: Trump is good at politics. Harris isn’t.
This is a guy who can take the closest of shaves with death, an event completely out of his control and – without much conscious thought – produce a picture (the fist pumping the air with blood streaming down his face and Secret Service piling on top of him) and a phrase (“Fight! Fight! Fight!”) that define the moment and are destined for the history books and a million printed t-shirts.
The “unburdened by what has been” merch (it exists) is sort of funny but it will be forgotten by Christmas.
“Unburdened by what has-been” seems a question, the answers to which, ironically, are the USA and Kamala Harris
She is lost without her teleprompter and her speech writers often repeat word for word what is said in many of her other speeches. They are even playing 6 of them side by side on X to demonstrate.
Trump owned the overblown sorry tale. The idea of riding on a garbage truck was true comic genius.
Will the French award Trump the well-known “Prix des Gilets Jaunes?“
In a sea of stale commentaries regarding this election cycle, Mary brings back the much needed intellect and depth.
Mary, you’ve returned to the arid sight seeing academic looking on from afar for symbols and linguistic touchstones. Get out of the library and close the big books of post-modernist theory or whatever it’s called these days. Both the McDonald’s and garbage truck stunts were funny. Perhaps you spent too many years grinding away to earn your certificates of expertise to remember a time when you enjoyed a joke. I don’t think you watched the full thing. Addressing the rally, Trump said when he saw how high the step was on the truck he thought “Shit!” He said he was going to slip back into his blue suitcoat until someone said the high-vis vest was slimming. “Okay, I’m gonna wear it.” Go on about memetics and other slumber-inducing jargon as long as you like to your fellow academics, but try to revive a sense of humour I like to think is only dormant not dead to the world.
It was a brilliant stunt.
He forgot to mention that he has plans to support Elon Musk in automated self driving garbage trucks which will eliminate the need for garbage truck drivers. The deplorables love the stunt, but they have no idea what’s coming
He’s certainly a clown.
President of the United States? Ah, I think not…
Ah… you hope not. But will never understand why.
No, you will never understand anything.
CS is losing his,endearing mask and his teeth are showing. He smells defeat. The cognitive dissonance must be getting to him.
I know facts aren’t your strong suit, but you must have missed 2017-2020 when he actually was US President !