What should we make of the Trump rally held at Madison Square Garden last Sunday? Tony Hinchcliffe, a comedian hired by the Trump campaign, opened with a slur against Puerto Ricans. Hinchcliffe, who goes by the name of Kill Tony, told the crowd: “There’s a lot going on. 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.”
It has now been revealed that Hinchcliffe planned a second “joke” in which he called Kamala Harris a name that is obscene and misogynistic. The “joke” was cancelled when Trump aides saw it as it was being loaded onto a teleprompter. (If you want to know what the slur was, you will have to look it up yourself on Google.)
Another speaker, business man Grant Cardone, implied that Harris is a prostitute. He told the gathering, “Her pimp handlers will destroy our country.” Retired wrestler Hulk Hogan slandered Harris with a subtle joke about Harris engaging in a sex practice. Harris was also called “the anti-Christ” and “the devil” by a childhood friend of Trump’s, David Rem.
Trump aide Stephen Miller, who is expected to play a major role in a second Trump term, told the crowd, “America is for Americans and Americans only,” echoing Adolf Hitler, who told Germans, “Germany is for Germans and Germans only.”
These comments are only a sample of the hate and vulgarity showcased at the event. Some will say it is nothing new and dismiss it as campaign rhetoric. J.D. Vance commented after the event that Americans should “stop getting offended by every little thing in the United States of America, I’m just so over it.”
What is remarkable about the racist, misogynistic, and obscene comments made at the rally is that Trump and other speakers who followed Hinchcliffe did not condemn or comment.
In events after the Madison Square Garden debacle, Trump had an opportunity to condemn the rhetoric. He did not. That suggests that Trump is comfortable with the comments. His campaign only disavowed Hinchcliffe’s comments after the news media highlighted how offensive the Puerto Rico comment was and speculated it may cost Trump votes.
Will the hate-filled event cost Trump the election? One can hope, but Trump may win the election because of the slurs and racism. The slurs–the ones on immigrants, Harris, and the Democrats—appear to have been intentional. Trump believes he has figured out that, with his encouragement, Americans will vote to keep immigrants out of America and vote for him.
I can imagine a headline that I hope not to write on November 6 (or whenever the election outcome is finally established): “Racism won Trump the White House, regardless of what you call it.” A subtitle could be, “White Supremacy triumphs.”
The New York rally is not the only news this week. There was also Jeff Bezos’ decision for his newspaper, The Washington Post, not to endorse a candidate. Bezos now claims that he was unaware that the Blue Origin CEO and another executive met with Trump the day the Post announced its decision. Blue Origin has a billion-dollar contract to land astronauts on the moon. Bezos’ explanation rings false. In an editorial in the Post, Bezos also claims that there was no quid pro quo with Trump.
The crack Trump legal team is also already preparing legal challenges to challenge the 2024 vote. Sources say the legal challenges will be “better organized” than the failed 2020 efforts that resulted in defeats in all but one court case.
Finally, Trump wore a black and yellow MAGA cap and black suit with a yellow tie last week at two events. Black and yellow are the colors of the Proud Boys, a group that considered themselves “Trump’s Army” and played a major role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Coincidence?
This is my last column before election day, next Tuesday. No one who reads my columns will be surprised to know that I will vote for Harris. If you have not already voted, let me tell you why.
Trump proposes a mass deportation of “illegals” reminiscent of the Nazis. If Trump follows through on his promise, he will create “deportation camps” to hold “illegals” pending deportation. I am against concentration camps.
Trump is a racist based on his rhetoric. He calls migrants “animals” and worse.
Trump’s tariff proposal is nonsense, condemned by virtually all economists.
Trump denies climate change, an existential issue for the Eastern Shore. He calls it “a hoax” and “a scam.”
Trump is considered unfit by dozens of former Trump cabinet officers, military leaders, and political appointees. These people saw Trump in action. I believe them when they say Trump is a fascist who is incompetent.
Trump has promised “retribution” against his political and legal opponents, promising jail, commitment to insane asylums, revocation of licenses, and, in one case, execution.
Trump calls the January 6 insurrection “a day of love” and has promised to pardon January 6 insurrectionists. I watched the January 6 riot live. It was not a “day of love.” Incidentally, Trump also called the Madison Square Garden rally “a lovefest.”
Trump is a serial sexual offender. Just last week, another woman came forward to disclose that Trump groped her in Trump Tower as Jeffrey Epstein watched.
Trump took top-secret federal documents when he left the White House, failed to secure them while in his custody, and shared them with people with no security clearances.
Trump, Bob Woodward reports in his new book, War, has spoken to Vladimir Putin seven times since leaving the White House. I suspect the conversations touched on the war in Ukraine and Trump’s promise to end the conflict.
Trump cheated on his taxes, as evidenced in New York Times reporting.
Trump regularly engaged in business fraud, best exemplified by the 34 felony convictions in New York.
Trump shows signs of severe mental deterioration. Disagree? Watch a video of one of his rallies.
Kamala Harris promotes democracy. She believes in climate change, helping the middle-class, and hiring qualified professionals in their fields. She supports NATO and has collaborated with President Biden to restore the credibility with its allies that the U.S. lost during the Trump administration. She also has committed to seeing that the bipartisan border bill, that Trump put the kibosh on, will pass. Harris also supports women’s reproductive rights.
And one final reason I will vote for Harris: If Trump wins, J.D. Vance will be president before the 2028 election. Vance is every bit as unqualified to be president as the 78-year-old Trump, albeit for different reasons going well beyond his cat-ladies comment.
As I finish writing this piece, Kamala Harris is making a closing argument for her election on the Ellipse before more than 60,000 supporters. Harris’ coherent, positive, and civil speech contrasted her plans for the presidency with Trump’s. She told the crowd, “On day one Donald Trump will walk in with an enemies list; I will walk in with a to-do list.”
Compare this event with the hate-fest at Madison Square Garden. Watch both videos on YouTube. Then choose between chaos and democracy.
J.E. Dean is a retired attorney and public affairs consultant. He writes on politics, government, and, too infrequently, other subjects.
David Parker says
So utterly well put, John. It made both my mind and my heart happy.
John Dean says
Thank you for your kind words. Much appreciated.
Art Cecil says
Mad Magazine used to have a piece called Spy versus Spy. Ask Mr. Dean if he could write a piece for Talbot Spy titled Policy versus Policy. This would help him avoid name calling and perhaps help his readers understand the substantive differences between Trump and Harris.
Deirdre LaMotte says
Name calling you say? Can we all be honest here:
Trump has mastered name calling that would make a 10 year old blush.
Can we please face reality, all of us? He is uncouth and unhinged.
Art Cecil says
Would rather the unhinged face our adversaries than someone with no hinge
Jim Wilkins says
I wasn’t aware that Trump had any policy proposals other than tarriffs targeting China and rounding up “illegal immigrants”. Oh and let’s not forget his promises to oil companies to “drill baby drill” as long as they pump millions into his campaign. Oh and then there’s his “ideas” about how to replace the Affordable Healthcare Act. Yeah he has policies alright but most of his time is spent spreading misinformation, hate and lies. It would be truly refreshing if the cult of Trump disappeared after this election but alas we have mini-Trump JD Vance who I’m confident will perpetuate the dispersal of hate.
Rod Coleman says
Apparently you did not actually read Mr Dean’s entire piece – he very concisely contrasts the two candidates positions on numerous policy areas of primary importance to thoughtful members of the electorate.
Michael Davis says
Thank you for addressing the people who spoke at that rally in addition to that so-called comedian who called the American territory of Puerto Rico garbage. All the speakers spread racism and hate, not just the that joker who will, hopefully, never work again.
Rachel Maddow did an excellent comparison of many speakers at Trump’s rally with the speakers supporting Nazis at a rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939. The Nazis and the Trumpers used the same words and the same ideas about racial hatred and the need to punish “them.”
Some Americans watch what happened in Germany leading up the WWII, and say it can’t happen here. It is happening here and now, and Trump’s rally showed irrefutable evidence of that.
HR Worthington says
Be not afraid John, for Mr. Trump will lose the election. It has already been written, and this has been clear for some time. The real reasons for this are too complicated to encapsulate in a short post but suffice to say the machine that gave us President Biden will ensure a Kamala Harris victory. I am not saying there is cheating. Rather, as is continuously evidenced in your writing, the propaganda so utterly absorbed without question that cheating isn’t required. The Regime has the media machine so engaged with so much financing behind it, that a Trump win is all but a pipedream. There are no shy voters anymore. This race is close, and in a close race, the Regime will win. Congratulations.
For my part, after much deliberation, I have decided to vote for Ms. Harris. My calculus is simple and based on the evidence of recent history. If Trump wins, the outcome will not be accepted by you and your comrades. We will be plunged into whatever form of color revolution the Regime deems most effective in usurping the will of the electorate and undermining the elected administration. Our entire system will be deemed illegitimate for one reason or another. This by itself, while troubling, isn’t the real danger. We are moving head-long toward the precipice of real economic destabilization. As I have said before, this has been caused by decades of policies which benefit the media elite, the crony-capitalist donor class, Wall Street and the beltway establishment at the expense of the general citizenry. This will happen regardless of who wins this election because the math, is the math. That situation combined with claims that Trump is illegitimate is a truly dangerous outcome for our democracy. In a true economic crisis, I am not sure the Republic can survive the cynical shenanigans of the Democratic Party Apparatchik with Trump as president.
On the other hand, if Harris wins, she and the Regime will rightfully own the mess they have created. Trump will very likely be jailed, but he will no longer be a convenient scapegoat for their incompetence. (This is probably true, even if he isn’t jailed.) What comes out of that isn’t entirely clear, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be in power when it does happen. Yes, we may be in for another war or two, and yes, institutions like the Supreme Court will be attacked. However, in the end, I have faith in the vast majority of people in this Country. Eventually, they will see through that and hold the Regime and its enablers accountable.
I have been an independent my whole life, and with this election I find myself voting in a very peculiar way. In Harris, I am voting for the establishment to get what they want in the knowledge that eventually they will finally get exactly what they deserve. -HR
Art Cecil says
Discussing Trump/Harris policy differences with the left is like trying to find something to chew on in cotton candy. How more of the same 2021-24 hits to our country going forward is appealing to Harris supporters is beyond understanding.
Anne C Stalfort says
Wow! This is crazy talk. How does one weave such a tale?
HR Worthington says
It isn’t particularly difficult. Read Mr. Terrone’s post below. -H.R.
Mickey Terrone says
Hello John. Once again, you have forced Trump’s apologists and zombies into the very uncomfortable position of having to defend the indefensible.
Welcome to fascism in America. In nominating Donald Trump in 2024, the Republican Party knew exactly what Trump and his accomplices were scheming to perpetrate upon the American people when and if they lost the election. By knowingly and willfully nominating a fascist who claimed he did not lose in 2020 and could not lose a free and fair election in 2024, the entire party is part and parcel of this upcoming attempt to seize power and end our democratic republic.
This fascist party has been planning the takeover for 4 years now after failing to upend the democratic process on January 6, 2021.
Many of Trump’s supporters/accomplices believe that by simply claiming to have won, they can reject the actual results (if they lose) and seize power through their majority in Congress. They apparently are attempting to produce their own irregularities to claim it was rigged.
Its my view that the Republican Party has devolved into a mob which believes that the facts of an electoral count don’t matter, and the utterly specious claim(s) deserve respect.
It seems to me that President Biden should and can (with the powers now granted by the US Supreme Court), move immediately to act to expedit the electoral college results, if necessary, to arrest anyone seeking publicly to disrupt the democratic process. The time to prepare for hardball with these fascists in now. If Trump wins, God save America. But if Trump loses and attempts to seize power, his threat to all of us, including his own poor, deluded zombies must come crashing down on all of them.
Numerous congressional Trump accomplices in both houses were party to the 2021 attempted coup and have thus far, not been prosecuted. They have nothing to lose in trying it again. A blind man can see this coming. Let the authorities who support the US Constitution be ready to act and let all of us who love and appreciate our unique but imperfect American traditions be ready to resist and end any threat to overthrow this democratic republic.
The list of disqualifying statements and acts by Trump is overwhelming. That he is even available on the campaign trail is only because he is out on bail from one of his trials. His rhetoric has gone berserk, now calling for Liz Cheney to be executed by a firing squad. Imagine if Biden or Harris uttered this kind of blather! Trumphimself is a hopeless liar, desperate to avoid criminal prosecution for a plethora more of crimes. His party leaders have bought in and are full accomplices in the fascist effort to overthrow the 2024 election results as they did in 2020-21. The party “faithful” are mindlessly willing to give away their American heritage of constitutional liberty to this profoundly degenerate liar willing to take away their social security, medicare, low cost health insurance, womens’ reproductive rights and many other programs they rely on to survive in society.
Let’s just vote and then pray that somehow Republican women will walk into their voting booths, and vote for a woman who will support them far better than Trump and his lackeys.
HR Worthington says
Some might consider a party that wishes to dictate what kind of car you can drive, how your home can be heated, invents terms like “malinformation” to suppress speech it doesn’t like, recruits OSHA to coerce vaccinations on its citizens, conceals a child’s gender identity from their parents, would not allow religious exemption related to performing an abortion, is openly hostile to the Supreme Court and weaponizes the justice department against its political enemies to be a bit, well, fascist. Afterall, perhaps their “American heritage of constitutional liberty” is more important than Social Security, Medicare, “low cost” health insurance and other “rights” not otherwise enumerated in the document you reference but apparently have not read.
Regarding your comment that it is “time to prepare for hardball.” I am no man of letters, but I might remind you that the last time the Democrats decided to play hardball after the election of 1860 it didn’t work out quite as planned for them. I believe there are more than a few books written about that era. I might suggest you read one or two of them. -HR
Mickey Terrone says
Sir, your twisted references and purposefully misleading commentary are precisely what the Republican Party survives on. The Democratic Party doesn’t “dictate” what kind of cars we drive. It educates the public about the quality and safety of vehicles and about the types of fuels available, among other things. The CDC educates the public about the relative advantages of and data regarding incidence and outcomes of vaccinating or not, most significantly with COVID-19. You appear to be confused about OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration which covers safety in the workplace. Keep in mind, corporate managers actually make the decisions on their employee vaccination and work-at-home policies. OSHA takes responsibility to advise and make rules that are most likely to benefit the public in general. You appear likely to prefer that the public be damned to endanger themselves by the millions at home and at their workplaces.
You also appear to be ignorant of the reality of the law and equal justice. Trump has been convicted of 34 counts of business crimes, of sexually assaulting a woman (even after publicly bragging about grabbing women by the pussy), yet you seem to believe this is all some unfair plot against your fuhrer. Maybe you agree that he was sent by God to save America. Maybe you believe the January 6th mob was picnicking that day. Maybe you think Trump was following the law by sending the mob to the Capitol to hang Mike Pence and block the electoral process so he could remain president. If you think the Democratic Party has thus “weaponized” the Justice Department against your poor, inocent dictator, you are a lost soul.
And speaking of the election of 1860, I’m sure you are waware that the Democratic Party has changed places after Senator Thurmond’s “Dixiecrats” abandoned the party and took up with the Republicans. I’m sure Abe Lincoln turns over in his grave every four years. One way the Republican Party is complicit with Trump is their fear mongering against immigrants of color, Puerto Ricans and spanish speaking people in general, muslims bans, endangering the lives of women by banning abortions and his usual rhetoric against black people. This fear mongering against minorities is indeed a reflection of the 1860 election where the planter aristocracy in the South created an intense and immense crisis of fear among the poorer classes of whites of Lincoln’s alleged plan for the immediate abolition of slavery. Trump’s horrendous fear mongering includes waving the Confederate flag and playing Dixie at his campaign events. There is your accurate historical reference and reminder.
The “hardball” I referred to was preparing to deal with Trump and his Republican lackeys’ effort to overturn the 2024 election when and if he loses. Its bad enough he isn’t man enough to acknowledge defeat, but dragging millions of deluded people down into his world of Big Lies is a terrible reflection on that party. Its impossible to discern which ones actually believe the lies and which ones don’t really believe, but just say they do. Either way, its an awfulreflecction on our country, like a massive malignancy on our body politic. His willingness to turn this country into his own fascist state is utterly degenerate and is an immense disgrace to those Republicans who vote for him.
I fully agree with you about one thing; you are no man of letters. Have a great day.
HR Worthington says
I suppose then the requirement that all cars and light trucks sold in California be zero emission vehicles by 2035 is just the Democratic Party “educating” the public? You mean that isn’t telling people what kind of car they can drive? Well, I stand corrected then!
Your reply has fulfilled the intend purpose of my own, and thus I will dispense engaging with the remainder of it. After reading your unrelenting repetition of outright propogandist malarkey for months, you will forgive me if I forego your exposition on “fear mongering.”
Nonetheless, Sir, thank you. It turns out that I am having a rather good day today. As is, I imagine, the diverse group of 71.7M other Americans that make up the 51% “political minority” you referenced in one of your other recent illuminating replies. You and Mr. Raskin can sleep well in the knowledge that American Democracy is alive and functioning. Best wishes. -H.R.