Punching Your Own MAGA Face

Maybe it’s not such a good idea to bash on Puerto Rico right now.

I admit it. I did not have “deeply insult millions of swing state voters by calling their home ‘garbage’” on my 2024 bingo card. But that’s exactly what happened yesterday at Trump’s Madison Square Garden MAGA hate rally, an event that chillingly echoed a pro-Nazi rally at that same venue in 1939.

The selection of MSG was no coincidence, of course. The speeches were filled with racist, misogynistic invective that have become the Trump and MAGA brand. But it was a one-liner from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe (I know, who?) that broke through and stunned the political world, shaking up the race at a critical moment:

I am online quite a lot, sadly. And I have seen many things go viral. But I have rarely seen a video clip on Twitter rack up 30 million views in such a short time. This is one of those rare moments that has captured the attention of millions, and that’s pretty bad news for Republicans.

With early voting underway and undecideds making up their minds whether and how to vote, common sense dictates to both campaigns, “Just don’t step in it.” But step in it the GOP did, and they could pay a costly political price. TikTok and Twitter swelled with condemnations, many people reminding the GOP that Puerto Ricans are fiercely proud of their home, are U.S. citizens, and vote in huge numbers in key states.

That fact was not lost on GOP candidates who scrambled to distance themselves from the “floating island of garbage” remark. This may prove difficult. That single line encapsulated everything racist, hateful and wrong about the GOP today, and it could eat up a whole week’s worth of news, putting Republicans on the defensive as we go into the final week of this election.

In today’s piece, I’ll flesh out the larger context of Hinchcliffe’s “joke” and show why he and the GOP can’t pass this one off as a nothing burger so easily. We’ll also hear what critics have to say and do a bit of electoral math to help explain why some GOP candidates are flipping out, especially in Florida.

I’ll also discuss the very good position the Harris campaign found itself in at the same time as it chose yesterday as the day to engage with and highlight the Puerto Rican community as well as lay out a plan to revitalize the economy and infrastructure of the island. 

I’ll conclude with some thoughts on why this attack on Puerto Rico in particular will land differently than attacks on other communities have and why this could be rather damaging for Republican electoral prospects with just over a a week left to go.

A nasty insult inside a string of nastiness

In defending his “comedy,” Hinchcliffe derided the swift blowback he received, citing in particular Tim Walz’s immediate condemnation. “These people have no sense of humor,” he complained, claiming that the joke was “taken out of context to make it seem racist” and that he “made fun of everyone.”

If by “everyone” he means other minorities, that is true. The line about Puerto Rico was so bad that people are barely talking about how Hinchcliffe also joked that his Black friend carves watermelons instead of pumpkins. Or how Jews don’t easily part with money. Or how there are so many Latinos because they never “pull out.” Instead, he sneered, they just “come inside,” he said, putting on a ’Murica voice, “just like they did to our country.”

There are defenders of comedy that is “edgy” and punches down. I’m not one of them, but let’s still be clear: Context matters. This wasn’t some roast of a celebrity, where outrageous and offensive statements could be taken in an “it’s not serious” spirit. The context for this particular routine was an arena filled with racist, anti-immigrant, MAGA faithful. The lines Hinchcliffe delivered served to validate their hate and dehumanize other Americans, and there is no other reasonable way to view his role.

Nor is it any defense to hear from Hinchcliffe’s defenders that “he does this all the time” as a comedian. In fact, that makes it even worse. It means the Trump campaign deliberately invited someone they knew would deliver incendiary, racist “humor” to warm up the crowd for the main event.

Moreover, the joke itself apparently was in the teleprompter Hinchcliffe was reading from. The Trump campaign knew in advance that he would say it.

Nor can we ignore the fact that just last week, Trump himself referred to America as “a garbage can for the world.” Trump sees brown and black skin, and he equates it to “shithole” countries, criminal gangs, pet eating migrants, and literal “garbage” flowing into our country.

This is an ugly fascist tactic, of course. Trump’s rhetoric is deliberate, intended to open the door to atrocities by his administration should he win reelection. After all, if he’s dealing with garbage, and not real human beings and families, then it’s far easier for him to “clean it out” of our communities, never mind the suffering, horror and likely deaths that would inflict.

Kicking the hornet’s nest

The internet exploded in response to Hinchcliffe’s “joke.” Officials of Puerto Rican descent could barely contain their anger.

“As a Puerto Rican, I’m tempted to call Tony Hinchcliffe racist garbage, but doing so would be an insult to garbage,” tweeted Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY). “When casting their ballots at the voting booth, Latinos should never forget the racism that Donald Trump seems all too willing to platform.”

“This is my abuelita,” posted New Hampshire state senate candidate Carlos Cardona, attaching a picture of his grandmother. “She lives in Reading, PA and she is Puerto Rican. Guess who she will be voting for? Yep, Kamala Harris.  Puerto Rico is not garbage and we wont be insulted. Not today, not ever. 🇵🇷”

On CNN, regular commentator Maria Cardona, noted, “This is the dark, dystopian Donald Trump on steroids. And as a Latina raised in Puerto Rico, I found this deeply, deeply offensive, as so many Puerto Ricans—not just on the island, but the hundreds of thousands of voters in Pennsylvania that are of Puerto Rican decent—also found it deeply, deeply offensive and disturbing.”

Cardona is correct: The number of Puerto Ricans living in the continental U.S. and in particular the swing states that will decide this election, including control of the Senate, is striking. As DemCastUSA’s Jamie Carter observed,

Fun fact: The number of people from Puerto Rico living in swing states...

FL - 1.1 million

PA - 500,000

TX- 239,000

NC - 90,000

GA - 89,000

AZ - 50,000 

MI - 40,000

WI - 40,000 

NV- 29,000

Maybe not a good idea to go after a critical voting block…

GOP Panic

Some Trump campaign insiders, including Don Trump Jr., doubled down on Hinchcliffe, with the ex-president’s son even retweeting Hinchcliffe’s defense that Democrats have “no sense of humor.” But elsewhere we started to see distancing, no doubt after it became clear this could become a much bigger issue. That violated one of the tenets of MAGA Trumpism: Do not back down, do not apologize.

The Trump campaign managed only to issue a curt statement that was not exactly a condemnation. “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” Trump senior adviser Danielle Alvarez, despite the campaign having hired the comedian knowing his type of humor and loading the joke directly into the teleprompter. 

GOP candidates in Florida were in full freak out mode. Sen. Rick Scott, who is facing a closer race than he expected in Florida, tweeted this:

This joke bombed for a reason. It’s not funny and it’s not true. Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans! I’ve been to the island many times. It’s a beautiful place. Everyone should visit! I will always do whatever I can to help any Puerto Rican in Florida or on the island.

Rep. María Salazar, who is the GOP incumbent in FL-27, did the math quickly and also was out with a “condemnation” that tried to put as much distance as she could between her candidacy and Hinchcliffe’s remark:

Disgusted by @TonyHinchcliffe’s racist comment calling Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage.’

This rhetoric does not reflect GOP values. 

Puerto Rico sent 48,000+ soldiers to Vietnam, with over 345 Purple Hearts awarded. This bravery deserves respect. 

Educate yourself!

I guess she also realized it was no joking matter.

Neither of these candidates said a word, of course, when Trump and Vance were bashing Haitian immigrants. Perhaps they would have spoken up only if there were a million Haitians living and voting in Florida.

The thing about being truly anti-racist is this: People can’t only matter when it matters to you. Indeed, responding only when one group of people is attacked proves you are in fact racist and transactional about who you choose to defend.

Harris charts a positive path forward for Puerto Rico

By no small coincidence, Vice President Harris was in Pennsylvania on Sunday meeting with the very community that came under the latest attack at Trump’s MSG hate rally. She was in Philadelphia speaking with officials of Puerto Rican descent about the future of that community and of the island.

She was also out with a plan yesterday on how to revitalize Puerto Rico, including how to rebuild the energy grid on the island.

After releasing the plan, and around the time news was breaking of about the “floating island of garbage” remark out of the Trump rally, three highly influential Puerto Rican celebrities publicly endorsed Harris and posted to their collective 315 million followers on social media. The timing by artists Bad Bunny (funny name, huge worldwide audience!), Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin could not have been more fortuitous.

“Never forget what Donald Trump did,” Harris reminds listeners in a story reshared by Bad Bunny. Few can forget when Trump threw paper towels out to desperate hurricane victims as a photo op, but many don’t think of how he also sought to withhold federal aid to the island after two devastating hurricanes.

The contrast between this hopeful message about the future stood in stark contrast with the tone of Trump’s MSG rally, underscoring Harris’s themes that she has a “to-do list” while Trump has an “enemies list,” that Harris wants to “get to work” while Trump wants to “get even.”

Why are they attacking the voters they need?

Ironically, extremist movements within secure democracies are usually the ones actually destined for the garbage heap. That results from a simple fact: In order to keep the show going and the money flowing, extremism has to keep out-extreming itself. In an attention economy like this one, the effect can be even more pronounced. Being racist against Mexican and Haitian migrants stops being so shocking, for example, so to stand out, extremists have to ratchet it up and come after other groups.

The problem is that while Mexican and Haitian migrants aren’t able to defend their heritage and their honor in large numbers at the ballot box, the same is not at all true for Puerto Ricans. As the numbers I laid out earlier in this piece show, they are numerous enough to tip close elections in nearly every battleground state, and even in closely watched Senate races in Florida and Texas.

And when you think about it, going after Puerto Ricans—who comprise a sizable portion of the Latino vote that the polls say has yet to “come home” to the Democrats in numbers comparable to 2020—just ain’t smart politics. Lower propensity, lower information, and still undecided voters will decide whether and how to cast their ballots over the next week, and much of it will go on “vibes” rather than policy.

That’s a big problem for the Trump camp, especially as we see that this story has legs today on morning shows, in major media headlines, and with continued outrage across social media. If the Trump folks wanted to hand deliver the Harris campaign a rallying cry to help turn out Latino voters, giving them a soundbite about “la isla flotante de basura” does that quite nicely.

Reminder! I’ll be in Pittburgh on Tuesday (tomorrow) evening. If you’d like to meet up in person, only a few tickets remain, so grab them soon here!