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.
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