Donald J. Trump and his allies are full of bravado over his chances of victory in the closing days of the 2024 campaign. But there are signs, publicly and privately, that the former president and his team are worried that their opponents’ descriptions of him as a racist and a fascist may be breaking through to segments of voters.
That anxiety was clear after Mr. Trump’s six-hour event at Madison Square Garden in New York City, where the inflammatory speeches on Sunday included an opening act by a comedian known for a history of racist jokes who derided Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage” and talked about Black people carving watermelons.
The backlash among Puerto Rican celebrities and performers was instantaneous across social media, prompting the Trump campaign to issue a rare defensive statement distancing themselves from offensive comments. In a tight race, any constituency could be decisive and the sizable Puerto Rican community in the battleground state of Pennsylvania was on the minds of Trump allies.
Maybe Republicans should think of Puerto Ricans as human beings first, rather than as just a source of votes and grift income.
Lolwut? Think of the brown guys as human???
Pfft right. Next, this guy will say that women aren’t property and not breeding vessels.
tRump called the whole US the world’s garbage can last week. It’s literally their campaign.
Puerto Ricans (in Puerto Rico) can’t vote for president, so maybe their hope was that it wouldn’t matter what they said about them? Hopefully people in swing states prove them wrong at the ballot box.
It’s a good thing that there are no Puerto Ricans living in the continental US who are eligible to vote. Like, imagine if there was something like a 2-to-1 ratio of Puerto Ricans in the US as those on the island? That’d be craaaaazy.
Oh, absolutely. I’m calling this “strategy” stupid.