Joe Biden rebuked a slur against Puerto Ricans, saying, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.” Republicans insist there was no apostrophe.
Yesterday, President Joe Biden made a comment to which Republicans are taking elaborate offense. What he said is a string of words lending themselves to two very different interpretations. Before I supply my own interpretation, you should watch the video for yourself, if you haven’t already:
Biden was rebuking a comedic performance at a Trump rally over the weekend, in which the comedian, playing to the crowd, disparaged Latinos in general and Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” Biden, feeling inexplicably compelled to add his voice to the story, asserted, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”
The controversy here is that Republicans believe, or at least claim, that there was no apostrophe in the remark. And it is true, in the literal sense that you cannot vocalize an apostrophe. And so we are left with two different interpretations of the syllables uttered by the president. The Democratic interpretation is that Biden was saying “supporter’s.” The Republican interpretation insists he meant “supporters.”
Which interpretation is correct? There is obviously no way to know for sure. My general predisposition is that, when a speaker utters words off the cuff that are open to different interpretations, and only one of those interpretations is wildly offensive, we should generally assume he intended the less offensive version.
