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Talk about muddled PR messaging! For months and months, it’s been a steady drumbeat: “Trump is Hitler.” Over and over again, it always came back to “Trump is Hitler.” There’ve been millions of people and thousands of events at Madison Square Garden over the last century, but you know why the media was so fixated on the Nazi comparison.

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Right! Because “Trump is Hitler.” Next verse, same as the first.

Question: If Trump is Hitler and Hitler is bad, why did President Biden send every Harris-Walz campaign staffer into a tizzy when he said, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

Isn’t there a specific name we bestow upon Hitler’s supporters? Y’know, one that begins with an “N” and rhymes with “Yahtzee”? 

Look, if Trump is “literally Hitler” then his followers are literally Nazis. So what’s wrong with calling Nazis garbage?

I’ll do it: Nazis are garbage. See? It’s not controversial. Y’know why? Because Nazis are garbage.

Nonetheless, the Harris campaign is royally freaking out. 

Mediaite tried to put a happy face on it, calling it Kamala’s Sister Souljah moment. (“Kamala Harris Goes Sister Souljah on Biden’s Garbage Comment. It May Save Her Campaign.”)

It happened over 30 years ago, but the original Sister Souljah moment was when then-candidate Bill Clinton disavowed himself from little-known hip-hop singer Sister Souljah’s comments about “why not have a week” where we kill white people. Its viability as a political tool in the ’92 campaign has probably been overstated, but it did align with Clinton’s desired brand identity of being a “new kind of Democrat.”

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Kamala’s PR people were almost certainly thinking similarly, along with a knee-knocking fear of getting whacked with Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” line. (Pro Tip: It’s normally not advisable for presidential candidates to call the voters ugly names.)

But as it is with many things, their PR calculus is off: You can’t demonize someone halfway!

It’s an all-or-nothing proposition.

Either Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy and Hitler incarnate or he’s just another Republican candidate who wants to lower taxes, regulation, and illegal immigration. You can’t be a “little like Hitler.” It’s too great an epithet to kinda-sorta be true.

Otherwise, you’re wading into Jerry Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi territory, where the name is used mockingly and satirically. And clearly, that’s NOT what the Democrats want, because mockery and satire don’t drive Democrats to the polls.

And that’s why the Harris-Walz campaign is finding itself in such a vexing dilemma: If Donald Trump literally IS Hitler and must be stopped at all costs, then calling his supporters garbage is a legitimate criticism. Anyone who deliberately follows Hitler in 2024 has gotta be either a bigot or a dope. Either way, feel free to call ‘em garbage. 

If that’s the case, President Biden has nothing to apologize for.

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But if Trump isn’t Hitler, then hoo boy!

If Trump isn’t Hitler, you’ve just reminded voters that the Democratic Party has been lying about Trump, exaggerating his danger and that they don’t really, truly respect his followers. 

You can’t apologize for calling someone garbage while continuing to call their leader Hitler. There’s gonna be cognitive dissonance.

So no, this wasn’t Kamala’s Sister Souljah moment. It was her Basket of Deplorables moment, whether she said those words or not. Hey, just like the Dems were playing the guilt-by-association game when comedian Tony Hinchcliffe joked about garbage at Madison Square Garden, it’s fair for the Republicans to play the guilt-by-association game with the president and his vice president!

Calling Trump’s supporters “garbage” won’t drive any additional Democrats to the polls. But it just might make a difference for a few Republicans.

What a stupid unforced error.