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Column — Hatred and Racism: Trump’s Ominous Closing Argument
By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan Donald Trump made his “closing argument” at a Madison Square Garden rally in New York, the same city where he was recently convicted of 34 felonies. The spectacle was an orchestrated, six-hour orgy of hate. Speaker after speaker worked the crowd by attacking immigrants, Jews, Black people, women and more, directing special invective against the woman of color challenging Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris. Celebrity white supremacist Tucker Carlson, for example, warned Harris could be “the first Samoan, Malaysian, low-IQ, former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.” The evening’s opening act, a so-called comedian named Tony Hinchcliffe, set the tone with a vile, racist routine. “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” Hinchcliffe’s crude shtick was vetted by the Trump campaign, since they reportedly deleted his intended use of the “C” word to describe Kamala Harris. There are more than 8 million Puerto Ricans in the United States, all of whom are U.S. citizens. Due to Puerto Rico’s colonial status, though, the 3 million residents of Puerto Rico can’t vote in the U.S. presidential election. But the more than five million who do live in the continental U.S. can. Of those, almost half a million live in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, with an additional half million spread across the swing states of Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada. Puerto Rican voters are angry. As proud Puerto Rican Sunny Hostin, co-host of ABC’s popular talk show The View, said the day after Trump’s rally, “We know how to take the trash out, Donald Trump – trash that has been collecting since 2016. And that’s you, Donald Trump. … My fellow Puerto Ricans: trash collection day is November 5th, 2024.” Trump, predictably, referred to his rally as a “lovefest.” He notoriously refuses to apologize for anything, and his invitations to the racist comedian or to any of the other inflammatory speakers at his rally are no exception. If his naked racism weren’t enough, Trump has repeatedly said he wants to be a dictator. He admires dictators, he associates with dictators, he praises dictators. “This is the language of fascism and violence,” NYU History Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat said on the Democracy Now! news hour. She wrote the book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, and sees striking parallels between historical fascism and Trump’s MAGA movement. Struck by the vulgarity from the podium throughout Trump’s MSG rally, Ben-Ghiat said: “We think about authoritarianism as imposing controls on people and silencing people, and it certainly does that. But it also is designed, from fascism forward, to make people become their worst selves, to give them permission to be as violent and unrestrained as possible…this kind of profanity, you know, at women, the misogyny, anti-Black statements, calling Latinos garbage, it’s not only a tradition of dehumanization that starts with fascism and goes through authoritarian movements up to our day, it’s also designed to make people feel, the foot soldiers of MAGA, that there are no restraints, there are no controls, and everything will be accepted as long as it is in the service of targeting the enemy within.” Ben-Ghiat was referring to Trump’s pledge to target “the enemy within,” as he has said repeatedly, like this, on Fox News. “The bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. … It should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by the National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military.” Several top military appointees from the former Trump administration have warned against a second Trump presidency. Ben-Ghiat observed, “Retired military officers, especially generals, don’t speak out unless they feel there’s a real need. The fact we’re seeing General Kelly, General Milley, former Defense
Published on 1 year, 1 month ago