Dem
48
GOP
52
The fallout from so-called "comedian" Tony Hinchcliffe's set at Donald Trump's Madison Square Garden rally is still reverberating. Mike Madrid, a long-time GOP strategist, has talked to a number of GOP consultants who are distressed by the comments about Puerto Rico and Trump's failure to roundly condemn Hinchcliffe in no uncertain terms. Madrid thinks that Hinchcliffe may have achieved what millions of dollars of Kamala Harris' ads have failed to do, namely drive Latino voters away from Trump and toward Harris. The reason Trump has not come down hard on Hinchcliffe, of course, is that he is afraid that doing so would not sit well with his racist supporters and he is running a base-only campaign.
The racist "jokes" are having another, unexpected, effect as well. Bishara Bahbah, who leads Trump's outreach to Arab Americans, spoke to the father of Tiffany Trump's husband, Massad Boulos. Bahbah believes the racist remarks have hurt Trump with Arab Americans. They suggest that Trump views all minorities with disdain. Trump had been making some progress with Arab Americans, but some of that may be lost now.
Republican politicians are also sounding the alarm. Rep. Anthony D'Esposito (R-NY) was none too happy. He said: "My mom was born and raised in Puerto Rico. It's a beautiful island with a rich culture and an integral part of the USA." Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) went on Fox to attack Hinchcliffe: "Look, he's an imbecile. He's an idiot." Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) tweeted: "This is not a joke. It's completely classless & in poor taste."
But it is not only politicians who are angry. Nicky Jam, a Puerto Rican singer who campaigned for Trump in September, has now rescinded his endorsement of Trump. Other Puerto Rican celebrities who have endorsed Harris since the MSG rally include Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, Don Omar, Luis Fonsi, and superstars Jennifer Lopez and Bad Bunny. Lopez even took part in a rally with Harris last week. Together, this list has over 390 million followers on Instagram, undoubtedly including a fair number of Puerto Rican voters in the swing states. Bad Bunny (Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio) is an especially important catch due to his popularity with young Latino men. Trusted celebrities like these are more important to many young voters than long lists of Nobel Prize winning economists they have never heard of.
The flashpoint may come in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania chapter of the National Puerto Rican Agenda, a nonpartisan group, has urged voters to reject this disrespectfulness when they vote, although they didn't endorse Harris by name. Monica Ruiz, executive director of Casa San José, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit supporting the local Latino community, said: "No matter how hard we try, how educated we are, how much we don't speak with an accent, how light our skin is—they will always, always remind us that we are not one of them. And this is a perfect example of how they did that."
Ruiz believes that turnout among Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania will be the highest it has ever been. There are over 600,000 Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania, about 8% of the population. If they turn out in huge numbers as a result of Hinchcliffe's "joke," they will get the last laugh.
Hinchcliffe is clearly aware of the firestorm he started. He tweeted: "These people have no sense of humor." Our observation is that Hinchcliffe has a tin ear. That is just about the worst possible thing he could say, short of using some despicable ethnic slur. His tweet is going to breathe new life into the story and make it worse. That said, his main goal is not to elect Donald Trump, it's to have a career as a comedian. There is a whole ecosystem of venues and audiences where right-wing, often openly racist, comedians can make a living. The comedian Gallagher, who was once famous for smashing watermelons on stage, went hard-right late in his career (particularly Islamophobic) and performed exclusively in those kinds of venues. We suspect Hinchcliffe is about to learn a lot about that circuit.
It would certainly be ironic if the net effect of the MSG rally is energizing 100,000 otherwise disinterested Pennsylvania Puerto Ricans and getting them to vote and their votes swing Pennsylvania and thereby cost Trump the election. (V)