Their Masks Are Off, Just In Time

Trump may be immune from public shaming, but his movement is not. And that presents an important lesson and opening.

Photo: Andrew Kelly / Reuters

MAGA has now revealed where it’s weakest, and therefore how to win this election in this final sprint to the finish. 

Donald Trump has been openly racist from the start of his political career. He came down that golden escalator more than nine years ago, shocking the nation by labeling Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers. Once upon a time, the GOP roundly condemned him, including his current biggest supporters Sen. Lindsey Graham, Ben Shapiro and yes, Sen. JD Vance.

But Trump is wily, and he was able to normalize his own behavior while forcing the GOP to bend the knee. For years, we’ve watched Trump do and say such horrific things, while the GOP rolls over completely, that many believed nothing bad from Trump would ever pierce through.

Yet, somehow this time, the Puerto Rico story finally did. As Lakshya Jain of Split Ticket tweeted, with real-time screenshots, “The Puerto Rico fiasco is one of the rare things that *has* broken through. On the CNN/NYT/WaPo homepages, it’s *the* #1 story.”

How could this be? Isn’t Trump impervious to this? It seems we forgot about one thing. Trump may be “Teflon Don” and, as he claimed, could shoot someone openly on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. But that doesn’t mean others in MAGA can. Trump may boast a shield of invulnerability from all political norms, but it seems to only extend to the very tip of his orange nose. 

When other MAGA types try to recreate the magic, it just doesn’t work. And that gives us a key understanding for how to run through the finish line with this election: Trump built a whole MAGA movement, but he’s the only one with the secret sauce. 

That’s already clear with JD Vance and Elon Musk, who are pretty much sitting ducks without anywhere near Trump’s appeal to voters. But it’s now also clear with other MAGA big mouths who, as they feel the election slipping away, will only grow nastier and more unhinged. It’s time to unmask them all, and in so doing, destroy Trumpism.

In today’s piece, I’ll discuss how bad the blowback is now getting from Puerto Ricans on the “floating island of garbage” comment—again, a line delivered not by Trump but one of his vetted people. I’ll also highlight a racist incident from another MAGA personality that played out live on CNN yesterday that could impact another key voting bloc: Muslim Americans. Finally, I’ll offer some thoughts on how Democrats can lean into this harder and turn outrage into electoral advantage.

It’s not dying down, Donald

If the Trump campaign had hopes that the whole thing about Puerto Rico being called a “floating island of garbage” at the MAGA hate rally would blow over, they were in for a rude next day assessment. 

On The View, Sunny Hostin laid into Trump directly.

“This Puerto Rican has something to say about the island that I love, where my family is from,” Hostin said frostily. “Puerto Rico is trash? We are Americans, Donald Trump. Americans. We voluntarily serve disproportionately high in the military, while you have bone spurs. And we vote.” 

Hostin went through all of the numbers of Puerto Ricans living in key swing states and listed the Puerto Rican celebrities who have come out for Harris, posting to their 345 million collective Instagram followers. Then she delivered this call to arms: “We don’t like what was said about Puerto Rico. And we know how to take the trash out, Donald Trump. Trash that has been collecting since 2016. And that’s you, Donald Trump.”

“And finally, my fellow Puerto Ricans, trash collection day is November 5, 2024.”

Here is the clip from The View:

Co-host Ana Navarro-Cárdenas addressed the Latino community directly, masterfully walking through a litany of offensive, racist things Trump has said and done over the years and then included this final insult to top it off.

The fact that Trump didn’t actually utter that final insult himself matters less than the fact that Trump has created a world where saying and doing such things is somehow acceptable, when it most certainly is not.

Politico ran a headline that read, “Trump’s Puerto Rico fallout is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in Pennsylvania” and it laid out a stark warning for the Trump campaign:

Donald Trump has a serious Puerto Rico problem — in Pennsylvania.

Many Puerto Rican voters in the state are furious about racist and demeaning comments delivered at a Trump rally. Some say their dismay is giving Kamala Harris a new opening to win over the state’s Latino voters, particularly nearly half a million Pennsylvanians of Puerto Rican descent.

Evidence of the backlash was immediate on Monday: A nonpartisan Puerto Rican group drafted a letter urging its members to oppose Trump on election day. Other Puerto Rican voters were lighting up WhatsApp chats with reactions to the vulgar display and raising it in morning conversations at their bodegas. Some are planning to protest Trump’s rally Tuesday in Allentown, a majority-Latino city with one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in the state.

Politico noted that the timing was terrible for Trump, who has been hoping to cut into Harris’s lead among Latinos, especially young men who rank the economy as their biggest concern. Notes the article,

“This was just like a gift from the gods,” said Victor Martinez, an Allentown resident who owns the Spanish language radio station La Mega, noting some Puerto Rican voters in the area have been on the fence about voting at all.

“If we weren’t engaged before, we’re all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president.

Chuck Rocha of “The Latino Vote” podcast noted that “Puerto Ricans are a very prideful people,” and that there are hundreds of thousands of them in Pennsylvania. “As Puerto Ricans are waking up in Pennsylvania, this video was on their cellphones” because Democrats who mobilized to tell them about it refused to believe the racism was already baked in. “Let’s remind people about how they really feel about our community,” Rocha said.

Even the Archbishop of San Juan has entered the fray, writing a letter to Trump that slammed him for his campaign’s transgressions: “Puerto Rico is not a floating island of garbage. Its inhabitants are noble and precious people. You should not insult or denigrate the dignity and character of people. It’s not enough for the campaign to apologize, you should apologize yourself.”

Trump of course would never apologize for something he said or did, let alone for something someone else said while at his hate-filled event. But the blurring of Trump and MAGA is notable here as elsewhere, and holding Trump accountable for the actions of the people around him is proving both rhetorically and politically effective.

Speaking the unspeakable

Something similar to the Puerto Rico fiasco played out yesterday on CNN. MAGA commentator Ryan Girdusky is pals with the likes of neo-Nazi Richard Spencer and Proud Boy founder Gavin McInnes, on whose show Girdusky has appeared. Girdusky was invited onto a panel along with progressive commentator Mehdi Hasan. Hasan speaks often about the plight of the Palestinians and against the war while accusing fascists in the U.S. of acting like Nazis.

That didn’t sit well with Girdusky, who quipped, “Well, I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.” That’s right, Girdusky labeled Hasan a Hezbollah terrorist while “joking” about him being blown to bits. 

The outcry from the Muslim American community was immediate and scathing. “Imagine calling a journalist a terrorist & threatening him with assassination on live TV—all to prove you’re NOT a Nazi,” tweeted lawyer Qasim Rashid.

Wajahat Ali of the Left Hook Substack reported, “A Muslim American friend just told me, ‘This feels like the Muslim version of the Puerto Rico comment.’ Don’t know about that, but I can tell you that Muslim WhatsApp is lit and pissed off. The CNN clip is going global.”

For his disgusting remark, host Abby Phillip booted Girdusky from the panel, and the network then did so permanently from CNN. That’s right: actual consequences for deplorable behavior. In a statement, CNN declared there is “zero room for racism or bigotry at CNN or on our air” (despite, of course, having in the first place platformed a guy like Girdusky, who supports Nazis and white supremacists, but that’s a whole ’nother discussion.) 

Here is the statement from CNN on Girdusky’s ban:

Girdusky acted very much like comedian Tony Hinchcliffe after his remarks went viral, calling what he said about Hasan a “joke.” 

“You can stay on CNN if you falsely call every Republican a Nazi and have taken money from Qatar-funded media. Apparently you can’t go on CNN if you make a joke. I’m glad America gets to see what CNN stands for,” Girdusky tweeted.

Sorry, Girdusky. You’re no comedian, and joking about the death of a fellow panelist isn’t funny, it’s unacceptable. Like the Puerto Ricans, Muslim Americans are outraged by the overt racism, and in Hasan’s case, not-so-veiled threat masquerading as “humor.” The incident comes also at a bad time for the Trump campaign, which is actively courting Muslim American voters to help keep the state of Michigan from going to Kamala Harris.

Despite the common narrative that Arab Americans in the swing state of Michigan are all abandoning the Democratic ticket, many of their leaders are currently speaking out against Trump and in favor of Harris. Here’s the highest ranking Arab American official in Wayne County, Michigan’s largest county, voicing support for Harris:

Even in Dearborn, Michigan, home to the highest number of Arab Americans in the U.S., civil and business leaders have met to endorse Kamala Harris. 

Now Harris supporters have a convenient soundbite, courtesy of a MAGA commentator who doesn’t share Trump’s seeming immunity from criticism. Like the “floating island of garbage” line, the “beeper blowing up” line perfectly encapsulates what MAGA really thinks of them: They are less than human and have no rightful place at the MAGA table.

Following through and taking him down

Senior White House advisor Neera Tanden noted on Monday,

Yesterday at Madison Square Garden they disparaged Puerto Ricans, Latinos, Jews, Black people, Palestinians and women.  Tonight, on CNN, they joke about killing Muslims. 

They just couldn’t keep the mask on these last 9 days. 

The Harris campaign has capitalized on the Puerto Rican debacle with a campaign ad featuring the racist remarks made at Madison Square Garden and reminding Puerto Rican voters what Trump did in the wake of devastating hurricanes: abandoning the island and throwing paper towels to victims desperate for help.

Her campaign has shown it can message successfully to bring the Democratic base home, including minority men hit hard by economic conditions. Per Politico,

A new NAACP survey found Republican Donald Trump’s support among young Black men has dwindled with a little more than a week to go before Election Day.

The poll found Black men under 50 years old decreased their likelihood of voting for the former president, dropping from 27 percent to 21 percent since a previous survey asking the same question was released last month.

Researchers involved with the survey say Vice President Kamala Harris’ support among this bloc jumped from 51 percent to 59 percent over that same time frame.

That shift hasn’t happened in a vacuum. The campaign, including surrogates such as Barack Obama, has been reaching out to these voters specifically and reminding them that MAGA Trumpism offers nothing for them and actually holds them in contempt, just as it does Puerto Ricans and other Latinos, Muslims, Jews, Asian Americans, women and LGBTQs.

We can all assist the campaign in this final sprint to November 5 by continuing to amplify MAGA racism and extremism, focusing especially on Trump’s many minions and allies who are still susceptible to public shaming and quick karmic consequences. This line of attack gets to the heart of what’s truly at stake in this election for communities all across the country, and our efforts in these final days could spell the difference in tight races everywhere.

Yes, the masks of these MAGA racists are finally off.

But so are our gloves.