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We believe it was Abraham Lincoln who said: "What you really want to avoid, in the last week of a campaign, is doing anything that will have people wondering if you are a Nazi." We may have to check our sources on that, but even if it wasn't Old Abe, it's good advice. It's also advice that Donald Trump has failed to heed.
The former president's weekend rally in New York, where he and half a dozen of his closest friends worked hard to put the "big" in "bigotry," was the main story yesterday, its third news cycle. It is the only thing that people seem to be asking Donald Trump about; he's had the following responses:
These are all well-worn moves in the Trump repertoire. And, on reading them, we have two observations, one big and one small. The big one is that Trump has said nary a word that is critical of Hinchcliffe or what Hinchcliffe said. And the reason could not be more plain: While the former president does not want to cost himself votes with Puerto Ricans, particularly in Pennsylvania and Florida, he also wants to make sure the racists and bigots remain squarely in his column. So, he casts blame on others, and glosses his own record, but never says "That was very wrong" or "That was offensive" or "I'm very sorry I ended up on stage with someone like that."
The small observation, meanwhile, is that reminding Puerto Ricans of how much he has done for them is... probably not the best idea. Presumably, in his head, he's reworked that story to justify his heroic vision of himself. But the two things that most people, including approximately 99.9999% of Puerto Ricans, remember are: (1) The basketball-style paper towel tosses, and (2) that he allowed the island to remain without power for an extended period, without lifting a finger to resolve the matter. In other words, by associating "Puerto Rico" and "my presidency," he's actually helping make the Democrats' case that he and his movement disdain Puerto Ricans, and not the Republicans' case that the attitude expressed by Hinchcliffe was an anomaly.
And there, really, is the rub. If the Hinchcliffe bit had been a one-off, and had come completely out of left field, then one might dismiss it as a non-story, a rogue comedian just trying to get some attention. But it's not a one-off, not by a longshot. The Madison Square Garden event was chock full of various forms of bigotry, from all the speakers on stage, including Trump. Add to that the fact that the venue was also the site of a 1939 rally of actual Nazis, where the speakers said things that line up pretty well with what Trump himself said on Sunday (e.g., "enemies from within").
And just as it wasn't only one joke, or only one speaker, it also wasn't only one event or only one day. Trump and his surrogates have been saying this kind of stuff for his entire political career (and, indeed, before that). Let us not forget, since a week is a lifetime in politics, that it has been just 7 days since Trump's former Chief of Staff, John Kelly, said that the former president is very Nazi-curious and is also a fascist. Those sentiments were echoed by Trump's former Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper. This is why Trump now feels the need to explain to crowds at his rallies that he's not actually a Nazi. "I'm not a Nazi. I'm the opposite of a Nazi," he explains. We're not entirely sure what the opposite of a Nazi would even be. Maybe an anarchist. Or maybe Mel Brooks.
In any event, we have no doubt that when Trump tells his adoring crowds that he's not a Nazi, and that the Puerto Rican slur was no big deal, they accept his claims without reservation. However, since they are already in the bag for him, they are not the ones who matter. It's the voters who might be converted, either from a Trump voter into a Harris voter, or from a non-voter into a Harris voter. And some of those folks are currently being given a lot to think about.
To start, as you might imagine, there is now plenty of stuff out there telling Puerto Ricans that Trump is not the candidate for them. The biggest newspaper in Puerto Rico, El Nuevo Día, which has plenty of mainland readership, endorsed Kamala Harris yesterday. Here's the key passage:
On Sunday, continuing a pattern of contempt and misinformation that Donald Trump has maintained for years against the eight million of us American citizens who are Puerto Ricans, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe insulted us during a Republican Party event by referring to Puerto Rico as "an island of garbage in the ocean." Is that what Trump and the Republican Party think about Puerto Ricans? Politics is not a joke and hiding behind a comedian is cowardly.
Trump has for years maintained a discourse of contempt and misinformation against the island that reveals an obsession and disdain for a people who do not have the power of the vote to defend themselves, since the three million American citizens who live in Puerto Rico cannot vote in the presidential elections. However, the other five million who live in the United States, whom they also labeled as trash, can vote. Let's not forget the paper towels he threw at us while we suffered without electricity for months and let's not forget that the funds did not arrive because Trump -through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development—told them to stop because he considered Puerto Ricans "bums who live begging."
Note the references to the Hinchcliffe joke, the paper towels and the lack of electricity. We do not know if El Nuevo Día was already planning to endorse Harris, and just did a last-minute rewrite, or if, but for the Sunday debacle, they would have sat this one out. They've only endorsed once before, although it was also an anti-Trump endorsement, in 2020. The only thing we are sure about is that the paper is not owned by Jeff Bezos.
Similarly, the Lincoln Project's shock response team has already put together a digital ad, which is being targeted at Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania:
Note that it ALSO references the Hinchcliffe joke, the paper towels and the lack of electricity.
Incidentally, Joe Biden endeavored to wade in, and in remarks to a group of Latino voters said this:
And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage." Well, let me tell you something. I don't... I... I don't know the Puerto Rican that—that I know—or a Puerto Rico, where I'm from—in my home state of Delaware, they're good, decent, honorable people.
The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters... his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it's un-American. It's totally contrary to everything we've done, everything we've been.
This is pretty reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" remark, and Republicans have tried to seize on it in the same way, so as to change the narrative. It does not appear to be working, and we tend to doubt it will make much of a dent. First, Biden's meaning was clear, even if he garbled it. Second, the Republicans spent most of the cycle tearing him down as a doddering old man who doesn't know what he's saying. It's not so easy to turn around and argue that he, as someone headed to retirement in a few months, is somehow saying what the entire Democratic Party is thinking. Our guess is that the folks who will take notice of this will mostly be Democrats, who will say, "Ah, yes. I am reminded why it was best for him to step down as the nominee."
We will add one more thing here. Nearly all of the attention is focused on the anti-brown-people aspects of Trump's rally, and of Trump's campaign. However, there is a substantial undercurrent of misogyny there, which was also evident on Sunday. And it's not just us who noticed it, either. Nikki Haley and Megyn Kelly are both Trump supporters, and either will cast (Haley) or have cast (Kelly) their ballots for him. And yet, even they are a bit skeeved out right now. Haley said, in an interview:
This is not a time for them to get overly masculine with this romance thing that they've got going. Fifty-three percent of the electorate are women. Women will vote. They care about how they're being talked to, and they care about the issues.
Haley did not add the somewhat obvious observation that all the headline speakers at the MSG event were men, but she did note that the Trump campaign has not asked her to campaign at all, and she hasn't talked to Trump himself since June.
Kelly, for her part, had this to say:
I am telling you, even for me—and I voted for Donald Trump last week—it was too bro-tastic. You're trying to win an election in which you're hemorrhaging female voters. Maybe when you present in front of hundreds—thousands at least in Madison Square Garden, you clean up the bro talk just a little so you don't alienate women in the middle of America who are already on the fence about Republicans.
Seems like a sound assessment to us.
And as long as we are on this general subject, we'll note that Elon Musk, who may be Trump's #1 surrogate, is also an enthusiastic misogynist. One of his PACs has uncorked an ad that is so offensive to women, it was scrubbed from YouTube. The "bit," such as it is, is a bit of wordplay in which Kamala Harris is described as "the C-word." Officially, the C-word in question is "Communist." However, it could not be plainer what other C-word the PAC would also like you to think of. If you really want to see the spot, it's still available on Facebook, which has managed to become even more of a sewer than YouTube is.
What it boils down to is that the Trump campaign is stuck between the same rock and hard place as usual, trying to keep the extremists and nutters on board, while not pushing away too many of the fence-sitters. And Team Trump has clearly erred on the side of the extremists and nutters, as it is wont to do. We'll find out in a week or so whether that was a big mistake. (Z)