Trump’s MSG rally hits a Puerto Rican nerve

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Racist jokes and vulgar speeches were the highlights of former president Donald Trump’s fundraising rally this past Sunday, October 27.

The Madison Square Garden (MSG) event brought out MAGA supporters like former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, former wrestler Hulk Hogan, and vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance (R-Ohio). These and other speakers took turns making racist and sexist comments about Blacks and Latinos –– including a notably offensive comment regarding Puerto Rico.

One speaker called Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris “the Antichrist.” Right-wing comedian Tony Hinchcliffe told a joke about having a Black “budd[y]” that he “carved watermelons” with. He also made the crude comment, “… there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

Trump says his New York rally marked by crude and racist insults ‘was like a lovefest’ The Trump-Vance MSG rally has seemingly energized the Latino community and its allies. It reminded many Puerto Ricans of Trump’s visit to the island just weeks after Hurricane Maria in 2017, when much of the region still lacked power and officials struggled to accurately assess the storm’s fatalities.

Trump arrived in the capital and chastised residents by saying that aiding Puerto Ricans was making the U.S. government spend unnecessary funds. He notoriously tossed paper towels at a small crowd of people who had packed a room to see him. Trump then forced Puerto Rico to wait nearly three years before he would allocate funds for full hurricane relief.

RELATED LINK: Trump says his New York rally marked by crude and racist insults ‘was like a lovefest’

Bigoted insults

“The bigoted insults hurled at Puerto Ricans today show once again how Donald Trump feels about Boricuas ,” the Power 4 Puerto Rico coalition, a grouping of diaspora Puerto Ricans, said in a statement. “He has called us dirty, corrupt and threatened to trade us like a piece of cattle to Denmark in exchange for Greenland during his term in the White House.

“This is one more example of why a second Trump term is unacceptable and dangerous for Puerto Ricans and Americans alike, and we call on all eligible Puerto Rican voters to register and vote this November to demand the respect we deserve at the ballot box.”

Newark, New Jersey Mayor Ras Baraka added that, “the selection of [the comedian] Hinchcliffe as a headliner at the event … a deliberate choice, as even a cursory scan of his social media posts indicates the racist loathing and venomous hostility of a white supremacist.”

Hunter College’s Center for Puerto Rican Studies published a “demand that Trump condemn this characterization of Puerto Rico. Moreover, we demand that Trump explain what his position is on Puerto Rico, and what his policy priorities are for this U.S. territory, the home of more than three million U.S. citizens. We also call for the Republican Party at the national and state levels to clarify what their positions are on Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans in the United States.”

New York City’s annual National Puerto Rican Day Parade labeled the statements at the Trump-Vance rally racist and misinformed: “First, Puerto Rico is a beautiful island whose U.S. citizens make tremendous contributions to this country in the military, medicine, science, education, sports, and many other disciplines. Puerto Ricans alone have earned over 2,700 Purple Hearts in defense of the United States.

“Our historical and cultural legacy and the beauty of Puerto Rico are not just

well-documented, but also globally recognized. Another 5.8 million American citizens who recognize and embrace their Puerto Rican ancestry live in the states, in crucial voting states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina. Shockingly, people choose to speak with ignorance about Puerto Rico, spewing garbage statements. This insult will not diminish who we are or what we represent but should remind us of the critical importance of voting on November 5th.”

Latin trap/reggaeton musician Bad Bunny responded to the rally by promoting Kamala Harris’s plan for Puerto Rico to his more than 45 million Instagram followers. In an interview broadcast this past Labor Day, Bad Bunny had called for more political activism among Puerto Rico’s seemingly apathetic youth voters; he said protesting when things go wrong is important, but it’s even more critical to vote and have a say about who is named to sit in a governing position in the first place.

Meanwhile, lawyer Sunny Hostin, who is a co-host on ABC television’s talk show “The View,” reacted to the Trump-Vance rally by saying, “Puerto Rico is trash? We are Americans, Donald Trump.

“My fellow Puerto Ricans, trash collection day is November 5, 2024. Don’t forget it.”

Demeaning, dehumanizing The Trump-Vance rally’s insult to Puerto Rico was magnified by the event’s timing at MSG: the Republican Party rally coincided with the 50th anniversary of the largest demonstration for Puerto Rican independence in U.S. history.

The “Day of Solidarity with the Independence of Puerto Rico” took place October 27, 1974 at Madison Square Garden. It was the largest demonstration for Puerto Rican independence ever, larger than anything that had ever happened in Puerto Rico.

“There were nearly 20,000 people there filling Madison Square Garden,” recalled Alfredo López, lead organizer of the Day of Solidarity with Puerto Rico.

“There were people from all kinds of communities; people actually purchased tickets so we can kind of trace and track the demographics of the crowd. There were 11,000 from Puerto Rican communities –– mainly mobilized by the Puerto Rican Socialist Party in those communities. And then there were about 8,000 … from other organizations and cities that we had organized. We’d spent a year and three months organizing the thing: I remember I was 24 years old when we started and the pain of running around the country, organizing work committees in every one of the 12 cities where we organized and mobilized … it was just a gigantic effort.”

The Trump-Vance rally taking place on the anniversary of the gathering for the Day of Solidarity with Puerto Rico felt like a slap in the face, said López and Angel Roman, who are both now members of the activist group, Radical Elders. They said that prior to October 27, they had come across a few pro-Trump Puerto Ricans. Deep down, these were people who wanted to vote for Trump because they did not want to vote for a woman to be president, particularly a Black woman. After this week’s rally, López told the Amsterdam News , it would be inconceivable for any conscious Puerto Rican to vote for Donald Trump now.

“It is such a profound affront: even if they didn’t know the coincidence of dates, it is such an insensitive and demeaning, dehumanizing way of approaching a people. But I suspect that somebody in that freaking campaign knew about the coincidence of events because, what the heck, it’s one of the most historic events in the history of the Puerto Rican independence struggle. You put something on at Madison Square Garden like that on the exact 50th anniversary, and you open it up with a filthy joke about Puerto Rico? That’s just too much; I don’t believe in that kind of a coincidence,” López said.

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