In the 2024 presidential election, North Carolina is a battleground state.

That’s good and that’s bad.

It’s good, of course, because it means that your vote for president actually matters; but it’s bad because it also means that, every five seconds, your iPhone buzzes as you get yet another text from one of the candidates telling you why you should vote for them – and every night your TV viewing is filled with a blizzard of political attack ads.

Recently, in the final days of the campaign, North Carolina has been the chosen site where much of the war of the words between the two parties has taken place.

Democratic Presidential Nominee Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to win over the supporters of Republican Nominee Donald Trump in the last days before the election.

However, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, President Joe Biden certainly didn’t do Harris any favors when he called Trump supporters “garbage.”

And it was at a political rally in Rocky Mount North Carolina that Trump responded to Biden’s ‘garbage’ comment.

 Trump was clearly angered that Biden would use offensive language to describe fellow Americans simply because they opposed him politically.

“That’s what they think of our supporters,” Trump told a crowd at the North Carolina rally.  “He called them ‘garbage’ even though, without question, my supporters are of a far higher quality than crooked Joe’s or lyin’ Kamala’s. My response to Joe and Kamala is very simple: You can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans…You can’t be president if you hate the American people and there’s a lot of hatred there.”

Trump added, “His comments were the direct result of Kamala and Tim Walz – you know, that is his decision to portray everyone who isn’t voting for them as evil or subhuman.  You’re not subhuman; you are not subhuman.  It’s what they believe because look how they’ve treated you. They’ve treated you like garbage. Frankly, they’ve treated you like garbage. You know what the truth is – they’ve treated our whole country like garbage whether they meant to or not, because they’re grossly incompetent people and they’ve destroyed our country.”

Biden wasn’t the only one cutting down MAGA Republicans in the closing days of the election.

They say you shouldn’t kick a man while he’s down, but that’s exactly what former President Barack Obama did last weekend during a campaign stop in North Carolina that was meant to boost support for Kamala Harris.

Obama began by praising Harris and NC Governor Roy Cooper and “the fantastic job” Cooper has done for the state, and he also showered a lot of praise on NC Attorney General Josh Stein, who’s currently seeking Cooper’s seat.

Then Obama set his sights on Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, who is, in some of the latest polls roughly 20 points behind in the race.  Given that Robinson is very highly unlikely to win, you might think he would get a pass. But Obama didn’t think so.

 “I do not know where to start with this man,” Obama said of Robinson at the rally. “He said the civil rights movement is ‘crap. He called LGBTQ people ‘filth.’ He  self-identified as a Nazi and suggested bringing back slavery,”

The former president continued, “Now, I shouldn’t really have to get into all this. I think it’s fair to say you do not need a governor who makes Donald Trump look almost normal.”

“You need,” Obama added, “somebody who’s gonna work every day and fight for you somebody who has shown that he’s up for the job, somebody like Josh Stein.”

Obama then took aim at Michele Morrow, the Republican candidate in the race for Superintendent of NC Schools.

In 2020, when someone suggested on Twitter that Obama should be locked up at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, Morrow tweeted in response: “I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad. I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”

Obama didn’t need to reference the tweet for the crowd because the group of North Carolina Democrats he was speaking to was already well aware of that tweet and similar tweets from Morrow.

“I’ve taken a special interest in following the school superintendent race down here in North Carolina,” Obama said, “in part because, apparently, the Republican candidate has been spreading conspiracy theories and thinks I should face a firing squad. So, I guess I am self-interested.”

Obama said you simply can’t put people like that in office – especially when they would be responsible for overseeing the education of the children in the state.

“I have friends who are conservative,” Obama said. “I have friends who are Republicans. We can have differences on issues, but we can’t have somebody just saying crazy stuff running your school system – choosing textbooks and allocating resources for your kids.”

“You need somebody like Moe [Greene]” the former president continued, “who’s actually run one of the largest school systems in the state [Guilford County’s] and will make sure your kids get the education they deserve. Those are the kinds of people we need in elected office and not just because they’ve got smart policies and not just because they’ve got a track record of accomplishment – but also because they share just some basic moral American values that we seem to be forgetting.”

Trump, of course, didn’t let Obama have the last word in the war of words being waged in North Carolina.

 “I think he’s a real jerk,” Trump said of Obama at the rally in Rocky Mount, “because I’ve watched him campaign over the last couple of days. What a divider he is, right?  What a divider he is.  He divided this country and he couldn’t care less – him and his little group of people.  He was terrible, but I’ve watched what he’s done he’s trying to campaign because she’s incapable of campaigning so they send him in to try… You know who he helped? He helped Hillary Clinton. How did that work out for Hillary?”

The voting in this election will thankfully end on Tuesday, Nov. 5; however, the war of words certainly will continue for a very long time to come.

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