THE DUMB JOKE THAT COULD COST TRUMP THE WHITE HOUSE

 Yesterday, the Donald Trump presidential campaign did something it almost never does: it distanced itself from one of Trump's rally speakers.  The rally in question was in Madison Square Garden, an odd choice given that Trump has no chance of winning New York State, but it played to his desire to be fill the most famous stadium in America with cheering supporters.

The rally's opening speakers proudly said things that would have once been as being too offensive to say in a political speech  (Stephen Miller yelled that "America is for Americans and Americans only!”) that now seem to have just been accepted as part of his campaign.

But then comedian Tony Hinchliffe may have crossed a line:"There’s a lot going on." He began,  "I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico."  After the rally, Danielle Alvarez, a Trump campaign spokesperson,  said in a statement that “this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign”.  It should be pointed out that everything Hinchliffe said was vetted before the rally, although the Trump campaign is saying that he improvised the joke (sure he did).

In Hinchliffe's defense, this joke was standard issue for him: he's an insult comedian who grew up loving the late Don Rickles, the king of cruel put downs.  Hinchliffe's usual performance space is at celebrity roasts, where his offensive jokes play better than when he's endorsing a political candidate.  

It should also be pointed out that the Trump campaign is only condemning that one joke and not many of the other offensive comments  that Hinchliffe and others said.  (Another Hinchliffe joke: “These Latinos, they love making babies too.  There’s no pulling out, they don’t do that, they come inside, just like they did to our country.”) 

The reason for the Trump campaign to distance themselves from that joke is obvious: Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, has over four hundred thousand Puerto Ricans living in it, and Biden won that state in 2020 by only around twenty thousand votes.  Offending Puerto Rican voters a week before the election is the dumbest move Trump's campaign could make.  Will it cost him the state and the White House?  We'll know in about a week or so.

Trump has spent the last nine years always saying things that went right to the edge of outright bigotry without going too far: remember in his first official campaign speech in 2016 he said that Mexican immigrants were "bringing drugs, bringing crime, they're rapists" before slightly backtracking by adding "and some I assume are fine people".  Somehow, he has mostly gotten away with saying these offensive things without paying a political price.  And he has also associated with people who have a record of bigotry, from  having   Pastor John Hagee give a benediction at  dedication ceremony for the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem  in 2018 even after Hagee had said that Adolf Hitler had carried out "biblical prophecy",  to having dinner with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes just a few months ago.   None of this seems to have hurt him, especially with his base. But this one joke seems to have gotten enough media attention so close to the election that it might break through.  Personally, I would love it if this one insult  comic at a rally is finally the thing that sticks to Trump and brings him down.

AN IRONIC TWIST THAT MAY PUT TRUMP BACK IN THE WHITE HOUSE

 

Back in July I did a blogpost with the title "Can Harris Keep Up Her Momentum?", and now, with just a few days before the election, it appears that the answer might be no.  That doesn't mean that Kamala Harris will definitely  lose, the race now is essentially tied,.  But it does appear that some of energy and excitement that came when Harris first announced her candidacy and the Democrats ran a joyful convention, has dissipated.

This is enough to make me want to bang my head against a wall. Especially because, since the convention, Harris has run a near perfect campaign: she's raised over a billion dollars (considerably more than Donald Trump has), clearly bested him at the debate, and hasn't made any large, noticeable gaffes.  Meanwhile, Trump has not only continued his usual mix of lies, boasts and racist comments, but he's also clearly started to show signs of mental decline, with his rambling speeches lasting so long that even his own supporters sometimes leave his rallies early.

And yet he and Harris are still tied.  A big part of this comes down to Trump polling ahead of Harris on two big issues: the economy, and immigration.  This leads me consider a crazy irony that might take place: the pandemic, which is probably what cost Trump a second term in 2020, has had residual effects that may now  allow him to reenter the White House!

While we'll never know for sure, but it's likely that if there had been no pandemic, Trump would have won a second term in 2020.  In America, the presidential incumbent always has an advantage, and without the effects of the pandemic, the economy probably would have been good enough for him to win.  But he so obviously handled the pandemic poorly, from downplaying its dangers to suggesting that people inject bleach, that  his inept flailing sent him down to defeat.

So what has happened since?  Well, shortly after Joe Biden took over in the Spring of 2021, inflation started skyrocketing to its highest levels in 40 years.  While there are a number of reasons that this happened (like Valadmir Putin's  invasion of the Ukraine), one of the main factors was the then continuing pandemic,  with consumers staying home and buying goods online driving up demand while sickness and shutdowns compromised  supply chains inevitably leading to price increases.  Now, overall, the economy has been good in the past four years, with the Federal Reserve raising of interest rates causing inflation to finally cool in 2023 without pushing the country into a recession.  But most voters have paid less attention to the state of job growth and the stock market than they have to inflation, which, even though it has slowed, still remains in their memory every time they go to the grocery store.  Biden has been quite upset with this situation, and he has a point: even if you ignore the pandemic, in the first two years of the Trump presidency, 5 million jobs were created, while in the first two years of Biden's, 10 million were.  But, sadly, people still wish for the lower prices of the Trump era and give him high ratings on the economy. 

And then there's immigration: in March of 2020, Trump sealed the American border with Mexico for everything but commercial trade while expelling asylum seekers, citing Covid safety issues.  After Biden entered the White House, there was a relaxing of those policies, not only at the border but also between other Central American countries, which resulted in an inevitable flood of people crossing the border.  While there are many reasons for this increase, the ending of Covid restrictions was definitely a factor.  Even though border crossings have been reduced in the past year, that initial increase is what most voters think of when they give Trump higher ratings for immigration. 

What has happened in America is endemic of the entire post pandemic world, with voters still smarting from the global shutdown going after incumbents all around the planet.  I think it's hard for many people to accept what a massive event the pandemic was, and how long it will take before we are completely free of its effects. Yes, the very thing that cost Trump a second term could wind up giving him another  next year.  We live in truly crazy times...