It looks like the Madison Square Garden hatefest was a huge mistake
Trump actually thought it was a great idea to hold a massively covered rally in the final days in which the speakers were all given the go-ahead to insult virtually everyone including at least one voting block they desperately needed to win the campaign. Not a great idea:
“I have heard from the Puerto Rican community directly about how much they were offended” by Hinchcliffe’s remarks, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) said Saturday while campaigning for Anna Thomas, a Democratic running for Pennsylvania state representative. “I think it woke up the community in a way that is going to turn them out in even greater numbers for Kamala Harris.”
Pressed to explain why these remarks might resonate with voters who are not already firmly in one corner, when so many other Trump or Trump-related comments have failed to damage him, Shapiro said, “This is my sense from being all over the state: that it broke through, and it resonated in a way with the community, where it made them say, ‘Well, wait a minute, that guy’s not for us. That guy doesn’t respect us.’”
They report tons of anecdotes from various politicos in the state saying the same. Also voters like this:
Nilsa Vega and Neidel Pacheco of Hellertown, a borough south of Bethlehem, both said they had never voted before, but Hinchcliffe’s remarks were the reason they planned to vote for Harris on Tuesday.
“That hit the spot right there,” Vega said. “They keep saying, ‘Oh, he’s only a comedian.’ It still hurts.”
Pacheco saw Trump’s decision to pose in a garbage truck at a campaign stop in Wisconsin the following day as an additional insult. “If he didn’t have nothing to do with it, what’s he doing in the garbage truck?” Pacheco asked.
That garbage truck stunt was so MAGA insider that it went right over the heads of most people. It made little sense if you hadn’t followed the ins and out of the rally and Biden’s garbled comment and the gleeful Deplorables 2.0 hissy fit. Nobody but the most ardent Trump cultist understood it and when they started dressing up in garbage bags for Halloween it looked like mockery.
This is the problem with allowing Don Jr. and JD Vance’s little bro contingent to have too much influence on the campaign. They’re just preaching to faithful and because the faithful are a bunch of people who behave like 13 year olds and speak their own cutesy little language nobody who isn’t in it knows what the hell they’re talking about. It often goes awry.
Remember this one?
If you aren’t conversant with that meme, Snopes has a full rundown. (Has anyone mentioned that these people are just plain weird?)
It’s one thing to have your little secret handshakes and cute inside jokes but in the midst of a hardfought campaign it’s probably a good idea not to make racist jokes about voting blocks you’re counting on to vote for you. They did it anyway and it may cost them the whole enchilada.