Donald Trump was unbothered by the litany of racist speech that preceded him on Sunday. The former president instead focused his ire on “the enemy from within,” which he described in conspiratorial terms as an “amorphous” “radical left machine” that secretly controls President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
"We're running against something far bigger than Joe or Kamala, and far more powerful than them. It is a massive, vicious, crooked radical-left machine that runs today's Democrat party," he said. "They're just vessels [for]... this amorphous group of people,” he continued, adding moments later: “They are indeed the enemy from within."
Trump made his remarks on the sixth anniversary of the Tree of Life shooting, when a right-wing extremist, motivated by hatred of immigrants and Jews, attacked and killed worshipers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. He was also speaking at Madison Square Garden, the site of an infamous 1939 rally where American supporters of Nazi Germany likewise filled Midtown Manhattan with fascist sympathizers.
Before the Republican candidate even got on stage, the full ugliness of his movement was on open display.
Grant Cardone, a private equity manager and, for one night at least, a man of the people, described Harris as a prostitute whose “pimp handlers” would “destroy our country.”
David Rem, a personal friend of the Republican nominee, waved a crucifix and declared that Harris was actually “the antichrist.”
Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News anchor who last month hosted a Holocaust denier on his web show (describing him as the “most honest” historian in America), mocked Harris’ racial background while laying the groundwork for a second MAGA insurrection.
“It’s going to be pretty hard to look at us and say, ‘You know what? Kamala Harris, she’s just —she got 85 million votes because she’s just so impressive as the first Samoan-Malaysian, low IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president,” Carlson said, complementing his shrill remarks with manic hand gestures. “It was just a groundswell of popular support and anyone who thinks otherwise is just a freak and a criminal.”
It was, all told, “a carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism,” as The New York Times put it. After nine years of Trump’s non-stop campaigning for the White House, it is now normal in Republican politics to openly use racism as a cudgel against Democrats; it is also now normal to deny the outcome of a free and fair election. Those closest to the former president during his first term in office describe him as a "fascist" and what he put on at Madison Square Garden certainly looked like fascism.
But there are, apparently, still lines that cannot be crossed, at least not by a mere surrogate.
MAGA comedian Tony Hinchcliffe found that out when he extended his racism to U.S. citizens who live in battleground states. His racist jokes at the expense of Blacks and Latinos may have gone unremarked upon — this being the new normal for the Trump-era GOP — had he not also gone after Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory that he described as a “floating island of garbage.”
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While Republicans are free to ignore Puerto Rico’s 3.2 million inhabitants, who are U.S. citizens deprived of the right to vote in a presidential general election, they are deeply concerned about the hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans who live in the United States, many in battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
“This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” a Trump adviser, Danielle Alvarez, assured reporters. Elected Republicans also chimed in: “This joke bombed or a reason. It’s not funny or true” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., posted on X. “This rhetoric does not reflect GOP values,” Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., added, accusing Hinchcliffe of making a “racist comment.”
Trump’s allies rarely describe anything at his rallies as “racist.” The difference this time was that the racism broke through to the masses: Puerto Rican musician Bad Bunny, perhaps the most popular recording artist in the world, responded to the attack on his homeland by backing Harris and sharing her plan for developing the island. So did Ricky Marin and Jennifer Lopez.
Media outlets that often treat Trump’s bigotry as old news this time put it on their front page.
“RACIST RALLY” was how the New York Daily News described the event on its cover. “Speakers supporting Trump at MSG event insult Puerto Ricans, Blacks, Jews and Harris.”
Although Trump long wanted to perform at Madison Square Garden, indulging this desire with just over a week to go before the election could prove damaging. Judging by the GOP response, Republicans do not think this was one of their more masterful displays of bigotry — one likely to make up for each voter it turns off by activating a couple white racists.
Perhaps it was hubris that allowed the Trump campaign to insult voters with just days to go in the race. Alternatively, perhaps the intent was not to win an election but to project confidence and convince the faithful that anything but a resounding victory will be evidence of another fraud. Carlson, for example, went on stage and did the opposite but assure Trump’s followers that he would win; it was an illegitimate loss that he was portraying as an inevitability ― one that they would have to rise up against.
Appearing Monday on MSNBC, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said Trump had held a “hate rally” in the heart of New York City. But it was more than that, she argued.
“This was not just a presidential rally. This was also not just a campaign rally,” she said. “I think it’s very important for people to understand that these are mini-January 6 rallies. These are mini-Stop the Steal rallies. These are rallies to prime an electorate into rejecting the results of an election if it doesn’t go the way that they want.”
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