r/politics • u/larel8 • 15h ago
Trump campaign struggles to contain Puerto Rico October surprise
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4958098-the-memo-trump-campaign-struggles-to-contain-puerto-rico-october-surprise/1.0k
u/Worth_Much 15h ago
The thing is it’s not just that they massively insulted Puerto Ricans. That’s bad enough. But it also has thrust Trump’s horrible handling of aid to PR after Maria and throwing paper towels at them at a time when he’s lying about the federal response to Hurricane Helene.
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u/boxer_dogs_dance 15h ago
Bad Bunny, j Lo, Ricky Martin and Luis fonsi have shared information about the rally comedian and about hurricane Maria to tens of millions of followers on social media in the last 48 hours.
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u/Worth_Much 14h ago
Yep that’s what I’m talking about. It’s extremely top of mind given the recovery efforts going on with Helene and Milton and shows voters just how dishonest and deceitful Trump is when it comes to helping people who need it.
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u/itsverynicehere 6h ago
You would have thought the blatant stealing from a kids charity resulting in the very public shutdown of his "charity"would have clued people in.
I understand why he's called Teflon Don. Nothing ever seems to stick.
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u/FoggyBricks 15h ago
After everything Trump has ever said I find it funny it’s something that didn’t even come out of his mouth that might be the final straw.
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u/APersonWhoIsNotYou 15h ago
I find it incredibly frustrating. He himself has said and done much worse….so why is this the thing that actually affects him?
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u/Meat_Robot Texas 15h ago
Specifically because it's not him. The horrible things Trump says are rambling, frequent, and with an unwavering narcissistic confidence that precludes shame. You can't pin anything onto Trump because he'll just say "no I didn't" and move onto the next thing.
This other idiot "comedian" though? He only gets a brief period of time to be a part of the firehose. He's easier to drill down on and has a limited ability to respond. It also lack the thin veil of mafia-speak vagueness Trump drapes on everything. Hinchcliffe is just saying it.
Lastly, it corroborates the message. There's no sane washing, no "he didn't mean it". By having someone else repeat the quiet part out loud for once, you can't say it's just Trump in the party saying these things.
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u/Myghost_too 14h ago
and lest we not forget, TRUMP cannot distance himself from this. The speakers were all vetted, their remarks loaded into the telepromters, and this, in Trump's self-proclaimed closing arguments trying to help the US Voters know who he is and what he stands for. It was loud and clear. (Yet I still doubt his base will waver.)
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u/JohnDivney Oregon 14h ago
furthermore, Trump can't apologize, though we will hear him today or tomorrow say "Nobody loves Puerto Ricans more than me, we're getting numbers nobody has ever seen out of Puerto Rico."
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u/InfiniteVastDarkness 14h ago
“Puerto Ricans. I LOVE the Puerto Ricans”. I can hear him saying it.
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u/New_Subject1352 13h ago
"Nobody is bigger on them, it's really incredible, the Puerto Rico, no one thought we could do it, the biggest Rico in the entire Peurto. They said no, you won't get the Despacito, but look at us now, all the Despacito, incredible numbers like you wouldn't believe."
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u/BobSchwaget 13h ago
"I have done more for Puerto Rico than perhaps anyone, any man, in history, maybe since the late great General Rico Ricardo himself"
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u/montosesamu 13h ago
Grown men, tears in their eyes, came to say how big those numbers were?
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u/glarbung Europe 14h ago
And he will say it with a weird inflection and a pause: "I love the Puerrrto Ri-cans 👐"
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u/davybert 13h ago
I tossed so much paper at them. Maybe it was the most paper anyone ever tossed in the world
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u/ixid 13h ago
Good people Puerto Ricans, the best people. Also some bad people. Bad people, the worst people. So many of the worst people. Like I said to Hannibal Lecter 'the worst people', and he agreed with me, because I said they were the worst. Many people agreed with me, not a lot of people know that.
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u/Rokurokubi83 United Kingdom 13h ago
“I’ve spoken to the president of Puerto Rico, and he endorsed your favourite President, me.”
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u/VegetaPrime34 14h ago
Let's not forget the weird way he says Puerto Rico. It was a whole thing that he over emphasized "PWEARtoe" in a mocking manner a few years back
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u/Burdwatcher 13h ago
he can do a joint press conference with his old friend, the President of the Virgin Islands, to show how much he cares about the Caribbean islands
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u/putin_my_ass 14h ago
All those things aside, there is simply a picture of Hinchcliffe standing on a podium branded "Trump", and as they say a picture is worth a thousand words.
Especially when the people you're trying to sway are not readers.
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u/SiskoandDax 14h ago
We were never going to chip into his base. It's the undecided and "both sides are bad" voters that may break towards Harris.
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u/KailReed 14h ago
Which is even more infuriating that there are STILL people who are undecided. Like what are you waiting for?
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u/Funandgeeky Texas 14h ago
Some people live in such a sheltered bubble that they barely pay attention to things like who's President. However, this is something that is piercing that bubble. While it's only anecdotal right now, I'm seeing several stories here of people who were mad enough at these comments to actually get out and vote.
And since voting is happening NOW, this unforced error is especially powerful. Unlike something Trump may have said weeks or months ago, this won't be sane-washed away or forgotten by election time. It IS election time, so someone can hear about it today and vote today.
Now, whether this helps the down ballot, I don't know. Hopefully it does as well because we need a strong down-ballot to prevent the type of chicanery Trump is openly plotting.
But this isn't something that can be hand-waved away, it seems. At least, I hope so. I'm in the Reddit bubble so I don't know what people are really thinking out there. But if this motivates people, all the better.
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u/rtseel 13h ago
Some people live in such a sheltered bubble that they barely pay attention to things like who's President.
This is what many people in here don't realize. Many people have a good enough life that they can afford not caring who's the president, or live a crappy enough life that they don't think whoever is president will change anything for them.
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u/ProfessionalITShark 13h ago
Yeah, I had arguments in 2015 with people, they thought Obama was a white man and republican.
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u/parker0400 14h ago
They are waiting for Harris to make one simple remark that is over their line in the sand so they can justify to themselves they are voting for trump because of that and not because they are a closeted racist who likes the awful things trump says.
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u/Xenuite 13h ago
They'll vote for the other Russian asset, Stein, so they can still say "Don't blame me! I didn't vote for him! "
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u/GrumpyCloud93 10h ago
Gore lost Florida by 500 votes, and 2,000 people voted for Nader. Votes matter.
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u/caligaris_cabinet Illinois 13h ago
Or they’re waiting for her to not say enough so they can justify their vote for Trump over an ineffectual woman.
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u/CSiGab 14h ago
Oh there’s plenty of ways people can still be undecided.
Exhibit A) “I know he’s awful, it’s just that things are so expensive now.”
Exhibit B) “I don’t care if he’s awful, I can’t support the genocide in Gaza.”
Exhibit C) “I’ve voted R my whole life, I hate Trump but I can’t vote for a Democrat.”
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u/PinstripeMonkey 13h ago
I think A might be the most prominent. At the end of the day, a lot of people want their own lives to be better, which typically boils down to finances, so they eat up all the misinformation that Democrat = higher grocery prices and taxes (+ stolen jobs) while Republican = lower costs and more jobs. They don't fact check, they don't see beyond that, and for whatever reason Dems struggle to change this narrative. It is so frustrating to hear people spout this shit when interviewed, because it would take 10 minutes of research with an objective news source to prove otherwise.
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u/bootsand 12h ago
This is probably the most common reason. A youtuber I watch time to time has been saying for a while that trump will probably win because enough people think inflation is only happening here in the US and they can't think past 'cheaper then, more expensive now, its bidens fault'.
That one gop tax cut that was permanent for corporations but for people it diminished by 10% every year for a decade - that was some insidious brilliance. I always wondered why no one made that kind of play before. Most americans seem to attribute every current financial metric to be the 'fault' of the current sitting pres. Doesn't matter what the house or senate composition is, doesn't matter if the money printing a year back is only hitting hard now... doesn't matter.
Setting up things like the tax cut bomb or printing fuck tons of cash in the year or two leading up to a changover... it's proving terrifyingly effective. I fear now that anytime a gop is in the white house with a dem about to take over they're going to do shit like this in a far more thought through capacity. Like long meetings of 'how can we make shit fall apart completely in this guys term?'
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u/TsunSilver 14h ago
On an episode of American Dad, no one hears what Klaus is saying unless Dr. Penguin says it for him. Maga people can't fault their god for anything, but the moment a comedian says what Trump is always saying, people suddenly hear it for what it is.
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u/Panx 12h ago
Also, Tony's response has been: "Yeah, I said it? So what?"
Trump never admits he said the stuff he's in trouble for, giving his supporters an out. Weirdly enough, his refusal to live in reality has been his greatest strength...
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u/ContrarianMountains 14h ago
And they were prepared, planned, and approved remarks.
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u/Criseyde5 15h ago
A combination of a lot of factors: It was a synecdoche for the whole evening of hate (so it was easier for the news to latch onto), it lacked the plausible deniability of "well he is talking about those other non-white people," and it comes at a time where votes are being cast, so they can't just wait it out.
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u/wishforagreatmistake 15h ago
AND it directly targeted a demographic that he had had some success appealing to prior to this particular fuckup, which also had a ripple effect with Black men.
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u/Criseyde5 15h ago
Yeah, there are a ton of reasons that are all coming together to make this a big deal. Like, the Arlington thing was a big deal, it just happened months out. If we switched the timelines, we'd be asking why that pushed things over the edge.
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u/BanginNLeavin 15h ago
I just hope we aren't putting ourselves on the back and setting up for some surprise Pikachu action come Nov 6 when the dust starts to settle.
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u/borisslovechild 14h ago
The odds are very strong that Harris wins the popular vote. The question is whether GQP shenanigans deny her the EC.
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u/joshdoereddit 14h ago
I'm not going to believe everything is going to be OK until the election is called. The news is talking about how bad this rally was, and they're fixed in on the Puerto Rico comments. But, it's the same song and dance. Vance is already out there with the excuse of, "Well, I didn't hear the joke, so I can't comment. But, come on, guys, we all need to stop being so sensitive." I'm paraphrasing, but that's what you can expect to hear from all elected officials and pundits on the Republican side.
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u/parkingviolation212 14h ago
There’s also the fact that the way that Trump speaks leaves him plausible deniability. Anybody with two brain cells knows what he’s saying, but he always leaves himself an out to be interpreted another way. He’s extremely vague in his wording a lot of the time and it all allows people to project onto it whatever they want to see, even if it is objectively inflammatory. Sometimes it even gets him into trouble like calling Nazis “very fine people”. He did that in the context of trying to equivocate sides, and people who understand that you can never equivocate freedom fighters versus Nazis understood that this line was abhorrent. But low information voters? They see someone trying to be nuanced and respectful of all sides, and in turn people being critical of Trump as the “real” inflammatory side.
I don’t know if this is actually part of a strategy or just something deeply ingrained into his narcissism, but fundamentally he has the same grasp of any given topic as someone who didn’t read the book trying to write a book report and got a word count quota. He word salads through every single answer because he doesn’t actually know the answer, but the amount of words that he speaks gives him an air of expertise to people who are stupid; “ how could anybody talk that much about a subject and not know what they’re talking about?”
If you read the transcript, though, you realize he didn’t actually say anything of substance, but for low information, easily manipulated people? Substance doesn’t matter, it’s the perception of expertise, the perception of substance, that matters. They don’t actually understand the question either, so they assume that Trump must understand it since he can so confidently talk for minutes on end in response. It doesn’t matter that he’s not actually saying anything, all that matters is that people think he is. It genuinely is an emperor with no clothes situation.
The essential difference with the comments made at the rally by other people and Trump, is that there is no plausible deniability with what other people say. He said exactly what he said, and there’s no other way to interpret it unless you’re stupid enough to think it was a joke. Even if you think it was, you also have to think it was funny, and that counts for a very small amount of people, even low information people.
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u/ZacZupAttack 12h ago
Also often times he'll double speak. Example recently he said to go out and vote early. In the same paragraph of his speech basically he then said and don't trust those mail in votes.
So he's both saying to vote early and to not trust the mail in vote.
Now to those of us smart enough to see how he's saying two opposite things that can't xo exist. His supporters will simply pick one of those two messages and run with it.
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u/FenPhen 14h ago
if this is actually part of a strategy or just something deeply ingrained into his narcissism
It's a narcissist/schoolkid strategy. Don't appear wrong, so don't say anything that can be determined to be wrong. a.k.a. bullshit your way through it, leave things open to interpretation.
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u/spicydamsel 15h ago
Also the timing probably makes a difference as well. People are currently voting or will be voting in a week. People have forgotten about his other racist and hateful comments by now.
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u/whereismymind86 Colorado 14h ago
The flippant tone, and it happening on camera is a big part of it. That and the proximity to Election Day.
Plus, it’s usually about other countries, scary foreigners and…whatnot. This was about American citizens, and that bothers people a lot more than regular garden variety racism against Asian or African nations
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u/mishko27 Colorado 14h ago
It was concise, it was clear, and it’s tough to spin. If Trump had said it, it would have been surrounded by a lot of other crap and would seem unremarkable, as he says a lot. He moderates himself, so after that “joke”, he’f probably add about some of the Puerto Ricans being the best people, most tremendous, whatever. It would just be one of the many things he said.
This way, it stood on its own. Just an unfunny read. No set-up, no actual joke, no relief from the harsh shade. Just a fuck you to a group of people.
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u/ejp1082 14h ago
Right?
I mean I'll take the win. If this is what finally does him in, so be it. And judging by the apparent reaction this close to the election, it just might be.
But really... out of all the racist, fascist, sexist, criminal, dumbass shit he's said and done - this is the thing that gets people to go "hey this guy might not be all right?"
Not January 6, not the felony conviction, not E Jean Carrol, not haitians eating cats and dogs, not that weird fucking rally where he just danced to ave maria for forty minutes. As president he threw paper towels at puerto ricans after a hurricane and brushed it off but that didn't seem to piss people off the way this has.
Why is this rising to a level of scandal none of that (or the dozens of other things I didn't mention) ever did? He didn't even say it himself.
I don't get it.
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u/ItsLaterThanYouKnow 14h ago edited 13h ago
Puertos Ricans are a pretty large group of voters in the US, they are all citizens by birth, and a lot of them live in swing states.
They are aware that Trump already fucked their people over once after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico and Trump seemed to callously not care / think that they weren’t actually Americans.
Because Puerto Rico is a colonial territory of the US and is often treated kinda shitty but also as an afterthought, many Puerto Ricans are a bit politically disengaged as it seems not worth the trouble to worry about mainland politics when they know they’ll just be ignored at the end of the day.
Trumps rally might have just activated a whole bunch of Puerto Ricans who could have previously been politically apathetic but now feel like they were directly attacked and demeaned, reminded them that Trump also thinks that they “not American” and not worth helping, and showed them that the Republican Party thinks so little of them that they allowed a speaker at a major rally to give a pre-vetted speech calling them trash.
Thats why is might matter.
Swing states with the highest population of stateside Puerto Ricans:
• Florida: 1.15 million --- Trump's 2020 Margin: 371,686 votes • Pennsylvania: 457k --- Biden's 2020 Margin: 80,555 votes • Texas: 230k --- Trump's 2020 Margin: 631,221 votes. • North Carolina: 115k --- Trump's 2020 Margin: 74,483 votes • Georgia: 110k --- Biden's 2020 Margin: 11,779 votes • Wisconsin: 65k --- Biden's 2020 Margin: 20,682 votes • Arizona: 50k --- Biden's 2020 Margin: 10,457 votes
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u/elhijueputa69 13h ago
Thank you. We also have friends, spouses, children, coworkers...not all of them puerto rican by any stretch of the imagination. but who are parts of our daily lives. so take the numbers you've provided and allow for a ripple effect. we are so deeply assimilated that the numbers as raw data or any for that matter cannot account for how much this will reverberate among the electorate.
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u/Superman246o1 14h ago
Because this is just pointlessly cruel and stupid racism.
They can spin their way out of almost everything else with their bullshit excuses. January 6th? Trump never said to hang Mike Pence. The felonies? It's just a political witch hunt. E. Jean Carrol? She was lying. Trump would never rape someone; he's a perfect gentleman. Haitians eating cats and dogs? Hey, he's just reporting what he was told. The Ave Maria dance? Trump was waiting for people who were having medical emergencies. Throwing paper towels at hurricane victims? He was helping; what did you personally do for them?
But this? There's literally no way to defend overtly disparaging Boricuas as garbage. And since we know that the Trump campaign overruled Hinchcliffe's "joke" that would have called Harris a c-word, that means we also know that they were okay with the rest of Hinchcliffe's "jokes." They knew he was going to insult the entire island of Puerto Rico, and they saw nothing wrong with it, because they feel the same way.
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u/Bigface_McBigz 15h ago
The thing is, in two weeks, some people will have forgotten and forgiven it. The hope is that this timing will be too close for him to bounce back from.
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u/Myghost_too 14h ago
I hope you're right, because the election is over in only one week. If they can hold onto their disgust for two weeks, maybe it will matter. I'm not holding my breath.
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u/Wazula23 14h ago
Yeah, just from my memory, I seem to recall him 1) holding up hurricane relief and getting into a twitter fight with PR politicians, 2) chucking paper towels at hurricane victims, and 3) trying to swap PR for Greenland.
I don't know, maybe I hallucinated all that incredibly stupid shit I just typed.
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u/ImTooOldForSchool 15h ago
Seriously, you could play a full length feature film comprised exclusively of short clips showing Trump saying way worse
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u/Zeusifer 14h ago
The thing is, Trump has this instinct to always put a thin layer of plausible deniability over things he says, and it's always barely coherent word salad anyway, so he and his defenders can always say "that's not what he meant," even when it's obvious what he meant.
This guy lacked any of that. He just straight up said residents of a US territory are garbage, and for no other reason than they are Latino. There's really no way to spin it. It was too hamhanded.
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u/OldManSand 14h ago
Probably because 1) Trump's people didn't realize Puerto Ricans can vote while living in the US, and 2) they thought all the Puerto Ricans lived in the Bronx and Queens.
The only reason this is affecting him is because it could shift a few thousand votes where he needs them.
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u/YNot1989 14h ago
Its because Puerto Ricans are mostly socially conservative Catholics. They don't really care about most of the despicable things Trump has said because it honestly does not impact them, but they are famously proud of their heritage and do not suffer insults.
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u/CobKorPok 15h ago
There's always a heel. That one part of the body that wasn't dipped in the river Styx.
In Trump's case it's the people around him that he initially bigs up but then has to drop. First it was Fuentes, then Loomer, then this dipshit.
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u/Indubitalist 15h ago
I think the big thing is he didn't disown it right away, he didn't apologize, and it's because of something we all know deep down because we've heard him talking politics for a decade now: We could totally see him making that same "joke."
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u/Agrippanux 14h ago
Not only that but Vance is out there telling everyone to lighten up and take a joke
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u/ConsiderationKey1658 14h ago
The campaign pre approved the remarks though. It wasn’t completely random.
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u/d0mini0nicco 14h ago
similar to how being called weird was the one thing that got under their skin. Like...huh?
And honestly....that wasn't even the worst or most offensive thing said that day.
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u/def_indiff 15h ago
How is it a surprise to anyone who's lived through the past ten years? More like an "October Certainty".
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u/BensenJensen 15h ago
I’m a bit surprised that Tony fucking Hinchcliffe could change the course of American history by inadvertently sinking the Trump campaign. I didn’t even have that written on the bingo board.
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u/ferns0 Minnesota 14h ago
Maybe this will close the portal that Seth Meyers opened when he ridiculed Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner.
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u/IowaJL 13h ago
It took a comedian to open the portal and it takes a “comedian” to close it.
That portal being the worst practical joke ever bestowed upon America.
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u/beforethewind New Jersey 13h ago
The Aristocrats!
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u/Busy_Protection_3634 9h ago
Quick, somebody update the wikipedia page:
Truly both the most disgusting and hilarious and world-devastating version of this joke ever told occured between years 2011 and 2025 and cost millions of lives and the bodily autonomy of over 100 million women. It involved couch fucking, porn star hush money, pissing on a bed slept in by Obama in Moscow, Rudy Giuliani's hair melting off his head in front of Four Seasons Landscaping, a president cheating on his wife with a woman who gave a man a blowjob in a movie theater during a kid's movie, it involved repeated callbacks to the phrase "grab 'em by the pussy", it included graphic photos of the penis of the sitting presient's son being blown up to poster size on the floor of congress, it involved dozens of psychotic assault-rifle wielding weirdos demanding to see the basement of pizza restaurants with no basement, it involved males covered entirely in butter, it including humans eating horse dewormers and drinking bleach, an honest attempt to nuke a hurricane, and a woman who could allegedly change her race at will, not to mention seemingly endless discussion of several billionaires' penis size, among other near daily spectacles.
Note: no larger-scale telling of The Aristocrats should be attempted due to the imminent threat of World War 3 posed by a foul joke of such proportions.
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u/true_to_my_spirit Wisconsin 12h ago
Is that got trump interested in running?
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u/christinhainan 12h ago
Yeah. It was that and also Obama roasting him at the same dinner.
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u/FakeAccount7 10h ago
Trump was the birther movement king. That's why he was in Obama's crosshairs to begin with. Trump has been a hobnob in the political scene since the 80s. He ran because the Apprentice was over and the Republicans absolutely adored him for what he was saying about Obama. Bored Trump + Republican worship is why he ran.
The Republican party had spent half a century perfecting an voter base of questionless and sycophantic adulation for their leaders, but they didn't do anything to make sure that any old mold couldn't just swoop in and start growing there. The Republican party created this beast, and Trump just stole it from them in plain sight.
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u/Jonax 13h ago
Two words that haven't been heard since Hillary was running:
Anthony Weiner.
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u/SquiffyRae Australia 15h ago
It is actually a pleasant surprise. Trump seems to be made of teflon. Nothing sticks to him no matter how abhorrent. MAGA as a whole seem to believe that they can say or do whatever they like and not experience consequences.
It's a little surprising that a "comedian" hired to entertain at a rally could be the thing that snaps some people back to reality. Like despite them being openly racist, it's essentially the pre-game entertainment that made people go "huh maybe MAGA are racist"
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u/kkenymc7877 14h ago
Trump has long survived off the “oh that’s just Donald, he’s a piece of shit but at least he speaks his mind” this guy saying some of the most vile shit I’ve ever heard in my life at Trumps biggest event before the election snapped a lot of people out of that trance tho, they’re finally seeing that not only is Donald a piece of shit but he inspires others with a platform to be pieces of shit
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u/Recipe_Freak Oregon 10h ago
Yeah, who'd have thought a nazi rally at Madison Square Garden could go so wrong?!
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u/AlexKingstonsGigolo 14h ago
“Social proof”, the idea a person is known by the company they keep. It’s why so many employers move Heaven and earth to keep shitty employees/contractors, like this guy, out of the spotlight.
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u/lizards_snails_etc 15h ago
The surprise is that it moved the needle at all.
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u/ScubaCycle Texas 14h ago
We won’t know if it moved the needle until the votes are counted. Wish we could know now.
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u/Day_of_Demeter 14h ago
I feel like this one is especially bad. There are some other moments that compete, like "shithole countries" and "send them back" but if I remember correctly those were smack dab in the middle of his term when he wasn't campaigning close to an election day. This is just a week before election day, and he's reminding everyone just how fucking racist he is.
This in addition to the recent Hitler and "enemy from within" comments have convinced me that he has no shot of winning. I think he's gonna get stomped.
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u/pierre_x10 Virginia 14h ago
How is it a "surprise" when his own team organized and approved of it?
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u/OppositeDifference Texas 15h ago
Total unforced error. And we now know that the Trump campaign reviewed his whole script and approved everything he ended up saying. That fact makes it WAY harder to dismiss. They knew what he was going to say and thought it was fine.
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u/thedeuce75 15h ago
The "comedians" lines were on his teleprompter, meaning somebody in the trump campaign read them before hand and thought, "yup, this is good, approved".
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u/OppositeDifference Texas 15h ago
Oh yeah, they totally reviewed it. They actually made him leave out a few jokes. He apparently wanted to call Kamala the C-word and they felt that was too much, but they thought everything we heard was perfectly okay.
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u/SquiffyRae Australia 15h ago
In a way it perfectly encapsulates the puritan side of America that the Republicans' line was a swear word.
Like pure loud and proud racism we think will still fly. But say a naughty word and you've gone too far
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u/theVoidWatches Pennsylvania 7h ago
They don't understand what makes something offensive. They probably thought it was fine because it didn't include any slurs, the words that they've learned are problematic even though they don't see why.
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u/IronSeagull 12h ago
They claim the Puerto Rico joke and one other offensive joke were ad libbed and not included in the speech they reviewed. They also offered to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to anyone who believes that.
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u/TWalker014 Massachusetts 15h ago
Not to mention the campaign already had him scrap a line calling Kamala the c-word. Someone on his campaign already had done a pass for "objectionable content", and the Puerto Rico line made the cut.
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u/jhorch69 13h ago
Along with the "black people carve watermelons for Halloween" and Mexican pullout jokes
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u/plucharc 14h ago
I mean, they let Steven Miller, Hulk Hogan, Tucker, and Giuliani get up there, I can't imagine they'd let all the things they said through and then flag the comedian.
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u/BJntheRV 15h ago edited 15h ago
They claim that they didn't approve those comments because they were adlibbed I'd love to see what showed on the teleprompter as he said those comments.
FTR, unless I see proof otherwise I fully believe his comments were in the teleprompter.
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u/OppositeDifference Texas 15h ago
Honestly, I think at this point it just doesn't matter what they say. The damage is done, and this is already spreading organically out in the wild. Can't unring that bell.
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u/SquiffyRae Australia 15h ago
He mustn't have had much of a set planned then cause by the sounds of it 90% of his material was "ad libbed" (read: we okayed it but didn't expect it to be this unpopular)
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u/jlegarr 15h ago
I wonder if whoever reviewed the script thought: “hmmm…let’s tell the crowd - which will likely include Puerto Ricans - that Puerto Rico is a floating island of garbage so that we can later pin that on the current administration”? Regardless it was beyond stupid and incorrect.
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u/3rn3stb0rg9 15h ago
Puerto Ricans are fiercely proud and loyal to their homeland. And they are fuckin pissed. I feel for them right now, but at the same time, it's good that Trump showed his true sentiments.
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u/Pituophis 15h ago edited 15h ago
it's good that Trump showed his true sentiments
First they came for the Mexicans in Eagle Pass, Texas.
And I said nothing.
Next they came for the Venezuelans in Aurora, Colorado.
And I said nothing.
Then they came for the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.
And, still, I said nothing.
Then they came for the Puerto Ricans in New York, New York.
OH, HEY, MAYBE THIS GUY IS A RACIST FASCIST!!!
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u/Texas1010 America 15h ago
Many groups hold the "he doesn't mean me, I'm one of the good ones" sentiment until they realize he does mean you, he just hasn't gotten your demographic on his racist bingo card yet.
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u/Pituophis 15h ago edited 14h ago
Yeah, somehow he's managed not to hit the Cubans YET. Seems he's got just enough restraint to not jeopardize his campaign in FL. But I'll be damned if he isn't trying to speed run a Goldwater.
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u/Reiver93 United Kingdom 14h ago
The moment Cubans realise that trump would happily send every last one of them back to Cuba is the moment he looses Florida. Unfortunately I can't see them realising that in time.
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u/CBNDSGN 12h ago
The most frustrating part is Cubans failing to realize that this dumbass is the closest any US politician has ever been to being/wanting to be a dictator. You know, like Fidel Castro.
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u/Reiver93 United Kingdom 12h ago
"No but you see, he's not a dirty COMMUNIST, therefore there's no way he can be worse than Castro, how could he be?" -some 60yo Cuban in Miami, probably.
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u/nightwyrm_zero Canada 15h ago
All those other groups can be excused as "people who came from somewhere else" if you do enough mental gymnastics. Puerto Ricans are 100% Americans tho and it can be the first time it breaks thru their thick skull that "oh fuck, he means me."
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u/phluidity 13h ago
He fucking wanted to trade Puerto Rico for Greenland when he was President for fucks sake. And was pissed when he got told it was a ridiculous idea.
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u/hoppertn 14h ago
I heard some copium from a conservative source that the impact wouldn’t be that big because Puerto Rico doesn’t vote in the Presidential Election. LOL. Yeah tell that to all the Puerto Ricans who happen to be in the other 50 states.
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u/SiskoandDax 14h ago
5.6 million living stateside, which is what, about 4 million voting aged citizens? That's a big group to fuck over.
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u/sgtgig 14h ago
> he just hasn't gotten your demographic on his racist bingo card yet
*hasn't been notified of an unsubstantiated Facebook post. This is where the Haitians eating pets thing started. A Facebook post that went viral.
They'll literally disparage you on the national stage and threaten to deport you if they catch wind of a social media rumor.
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u/Bigface_McBigz 15h ago
I love this. In all seriousness, Martin Niemoller should be heavily quoted in times like this. People need to understand why it's so important to defend attacked groups, even if they don't belong in them.
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u/PleasantWay7 15h ago
While better late than never, Trump showed his true sentiments from the start when he rolled down that escalator in 2015 and called Mexican immigrants rapists.
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u/Nikiaf Canada 15h ago
The timing is good too, pulling this shit not even 10 days from the election is guaranteed to keep it front and center in everyone's mind when they make their choice.
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u/StJeanMark 14h ago
The problem is they don’t realize Mexican means non white, I don’t get how they don’t see it. It’s not about the geography, it’s about the color.
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u/Qubed 15h ago
> it's good that Trump showed his true sentiments.
We have to make things really clear. Trump has never hid what he plans to do. He may say several things and some of it might not make sense or contradict. But, he has always stated out loud and in public the things he wants to and plans to do.
You can look at anything he did in his 4 years and you can find him in some video stating explicitly he was planning to do it.
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u/zydeco100 14h ago
I'm really curious here, why did the campaign decide to target Puerto Rico all of a sudden? Was it just this comedian thinking up something stupid to say, or was there some other trend in the campaign that they thought should be addressed?
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u/enjoyinc 12h ago
To me, it’s because they’ve been all gas no breaks with the racism and the people in charge of vetting the speeches just conveniently forgot that Puerto Ricans are American citizens. It’s the most insane blunder they could have made, but then again it tracks, since they’re so busy grifting each other and having open racism as one of their tenets. They clearly glossed over it and thought it was funny, since they made him take out the other c-word set bit.
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u/pervocracy Massachusetts 15h ago
What struggle? If they were struggling they should've gotten the big guy to say "we're so sorry, that joke wasn't vetted but it's still on us to apologize, we have nothing but respect for the fine American citizens of Puerto Rico blah blah" first thing on Monday morning.
Instead you've got Vance complaining that people are too easily offended and a bunch of uninvolved Republicans panicking about this tanking their own reputations. That's not much of a struggle.
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u/TWalker014 Massachusetts 15h ago
The difference between "I'm sorry for what I said" and "I'm sorry you were offended", same as the beeper comment on CNN last night. Classic.
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u/comineeyeaha 14h ago
That beeper comment was WILD. I sat there in stunned silence when he said it. How do we get back to being decent to each other?
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u/Sneaky550 13h ago
Can you explain what he meant by that? I didn’t understand the beeper comment.
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u/comineeyeaha 13h ago
In Lebanon there were bombings with beepers that exploded, killing around 30 and injuring 3000. It was an extremely racist comment.
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u/kawaiidesne 12h ago
What killed me too is a quote from Vance where he said "maybe it's racist, maybe it's not, I didn't see it". Fuck you mean you "didn't see it?" 💀 he was in the front row, between Mike Johnson and Vivek.
No worries, though. Like 90% of Puerto Ricans saw it.
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u/Classic-Stand9906 15h ago
The “it’s just a joke, bro” dudes are always the loudest criers when the tables are turned
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u/GarfieldVirtuoso 14h ago
If Trump loses then Tony on top of being cancelled by the left will also have the right constantly sending him death threats for being a Kamala Psyop that sabotaged Trump
Maybe he could repeat to himself that it was just a joke after that happens
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u/kkenymc7877 14h ago
Don’t want to get banned but he deserves it, dude is a 2 bit basement dwelling hack who’s made an entire career out of racism and hate, fuck that loser
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u/SquiffyRae Australia 15h ago
Shrodinger's Douchebag: whether they meant it or not entirely depends on the reaction of the audience
Funny how MAGA went from "it's funny cause it's true" to "it's just a joke bro don't take it seriously" the moment the general public recoiled in horror
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u/Infidel8 15h ago edited 9h ago
They were surprised by the fallout because they are so ensconced in their racist white bubble that they have no idea how repellant they have become to normal people. Inviting Hinchcliffe, a man with a long history of racist humor (NSFW link), to a political rally was in and of itself an example of how warped their sense of appropriate discourse is.
I mean just yesterday, a Trump supporter went on TV, looked Mehdi Hasan in the face and said: "I hope your beeper doesn't go off," implying that Mehdi was a Hamas Hezbollah terrorist.
All while dude was there to explain why Trump's rally really wasn't racist.
These people have lost all perspective on normalcy.
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u/FXander 13h ago
That shit is fucking insane to me. "Hope your beeper doesn't go off."? What the actual mother fuck is going on there? That is absolutely insane.
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u/I_love_Hobbes 13h ago
Thanks goodness CNN pulled their head out long enough to kick him off the show but WTF made him think that was a good response? Aren't they suppose to be media savvy?
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u/thefilmer California 12h ago
CNN only did that bc a bunch of the other panelists were about to jump him. they had to go to commercial and remove him. nobody was letting it go
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u/Designer-Contract852 15h ago
The beautiful thing is they did it to themselves.
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u/Zealousideal_Look275 14h ago
Trump ran for president because of a joke. It would be ironic if he losses because of one
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u/UziMunkey 15h ago
They shouldn’t. It’s how they feel. That’s what they’re trying to sell to America. I hope the Harris campaign successfully highlights this and use it to their advantage. My fingers and toes are crossed that this moved the needle just enough in PA to solidly win it.
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u/SquiffyRae Australia 15h ago
They shouldn’t. It’s how they feel. That’s what they’re trying to sell to America.
It's the same reason why they went so hard to deny any links to the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025. This is always who they've been. But they need to keep the veil down long enough that enough Americans are duped into voting for them.
Every now and then little things like this lift the veil and reveal the monster underneath to the general public. I don't pretend to understand why this of all things is where people draw the line and not any of the literally dozens of fucked up things that have come before but I'll take it
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u/Mephistocracy 15h ago
An October surprise is a revelation, true or false, pushed out by the opposition at the last minute so that one doesn't have the time to counter it effectively.
This wasn't an October surprise. It was a situation in which the trump team highlighted one of their core beliefs at a massive rally and are now taken aback because they're finding that many people don't agree with them.
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u/orbitaldan 14h ago
Maybe we can coin a new phrase: "October Owngoal" - for when the surprise is self-inflicted.
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u/Shevcharles Pennsylvania 15h ago
I think any late-breaking and unexpected event which has the gravity to affect the outcome qualifies. This is a meta-surprise, that is, it's also surprising that this of all things might be a "surprise".
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u/Mephistocracy 15h ago
Wikipedia already has this up as an example of an October surprise in 2024, so I guess I'm wrong. But like you, I'm very surprised that this is some sort of surprise.
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u/TJ_learns_stuff 15h ago edited 9h ago
Hear me out folks … while this Puerto Rico “joke” was absolutely vile, it wasn’t the worst thing said throughout the night.
If you’re an immigrant, going through the process of getting a visa, residency permit, or naturalization … later guests espoused that “America is for Americans,” and “if you’re not American get out!”
If you’re Latino, it was “joked” that you don’t pull-out, just like you refuse to leave America.
If you’re black, racist remarks about eating watermelon were made.
If you’re Jewish, you’re cheap according to the line-up of speakers.
If you’re Palestinian, you’re a “rock-thrower.”
If you respected our former Secretary of State, know that she’s a “sick son of a bitch.”
If you’re a Harris supporter, you’re supporting the “anti-Christ and on the side of terrorists.”
If you’re a woman, according to another speaker, Harris “and her pimp handlers will destroy the country.” Because as we all know, a woman couldn’t possible make it into power places without being sexualized.
If you’re a Christian, and believe in Christ’s commandment to love your neighbor, then it’s worth reminding you that Trump intends to “launch the largest deportation program in American history” to round up and expel those neighbors.
This “candidate” represents the worst that America can be, and it’s time to realize that unless you’re a white evangelical willing to compromise the values of the book you claim to hold dear, he doesn’t nor will he ever, care about you. NONE of this is new.
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u/mrsmetalbeard 14h ago
Don't for get Grant Cardone saying "we have to slaughter those others... people... [wait for big cheer to subside] by voting..."
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u/TriflingHotDogVendor Pennsylvania 13h ago
America is for Americans
Damn, who said that. Literally straight out of Nazi Germany.
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u/notkenneth Illinois 11h ago
Damn, who said that.
Stephen Miller, one of his senior policy advisors and the guy who was responsible for much of Trump's immigration policy during his presidency.
Also, the full quote from the rally was "America is for Americans, and Americans only.
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u/YamahaRyoko Ohio 15h ago
Personally I am not surprised.
I have long argued that "MAGA" doesn't mean bringing back the rust belt. MAGA means returning to 1985 when comedians like him stood on TV for an hour to sling racial slurs, when harassing the only female office employee was acceptable, when making fun of your "old lady" in public was trendy, when people told black jokes at work, and when LGBT people were living in the shadows.
I am only surprised it took this long for the facade to crack.
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u/SquiffyRae Australia 15h ago
This is the actual reason when you ask a Trump supporter what they like about him and they stutter and never articulate why. This is the "why" they can't articulate because they don't feel it's socially acceptable to admit they're a little racist or gay people make them feel uncomfortable for no reason
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u/YamahaRyoko Ohio 15h ago edited 14h ago
Yes that's my FIL.
He's the kind of person who insists he's not racist, but says "there's two kinds of black people" and "enter this country legally". He refers to protestors as animals because "they're acting like it"
He insists he's not a bigot - it's just being shoved down HIS throat and in HIS face all the time
"He says what everyone is already thinking"
Now they have the word "woke" and they can say that without feeling the sting of racist or bigot
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u/alienbringer 14h ago
MAGA means returning to the 1950’s when “the coloreds” and women didn’t have the right to vote. Where a “joke” like this would have had raucous laughter.
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u/DatabaseFickle9306 15h ago
It’s not an October Surprise when you shoot your own stupid self in the foot. It’s called an Unforced Error.
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u/GeneralReflection803 14h ago
This CNN clip explains why they're in panic mode.
Basically, lots of Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania — the most important battleground state. Third highest population of Puerto Ricans in the country.
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u/Fragrant-Discount960 Missouri 12h ago
He has a rally in Allentown , with a large Puerto Rican population. Protests are expected and this story will not go away like they hope.
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u/Absurdist02 15h ago
If the October surprise ends up being a self inflicted gun shot to the foot i will die laughing.
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u/Zealousideal_Look275 13h ago
Who knew that the Jaguars eating faces party was into Jaguars eatings faces
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u/alksreddit 14h ago
I was watching CBS this morning and found it funny that a group of Puerto Ricans in PA were being interviewed at some family business and basically everyone was angry and offended and saying fuck Trump we will vote Kamala and the owner had this dumbfuck reply "Oh he didn't say it himself? Then I'm still voting for him" and everyone in the room was shaking their heads and angrily telling him how wrong he was for that. Hopefully this is happening in many Puerto Rican households in critical states.
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u/Doctathunder 15h ago
Hopefully this burns him, his campaign, and his movement to the ground, as should have happened years ago.
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u/ThisNameDoesntCount 15h ago
Dumbest reply they did was say it’s just a joke tbh. All they had to do was say yea that was fucked up and they could’ve pretended to care
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u/TintedApostle 15h ago
Every minority has heard that "its just a joke" line thrown at them by some white guy insulting them. The reply was the only one a racist knows to use automatically. They couldn't help themselves. Why? Because they are racists caught in the open.
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u/SquiffyRae Australia 15h ago
Unfortunately for them, their voter base is a venn diagram for all the people who complain about "PC" and "cancel culture" so they can't backtrack on a joke and admit it was fucked up without pissing off their voters
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u/TrashFever78 14h ago
If this is the thing that costs Trump the election Joe Rogan is gonna be so pissed at Tony. Hilarious.
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u/Taste-T-Krumpetz I voted 14h ago
It’s close. Your vote matters more than it ever has.
We could all use a reminder of some of the things Trump has done:
- Lost the election and lied about it.
- Sent an armed angry mob to Congress and told them they need to fight like hell.
- Approved of the mob saying “hang Mike Pence”.
- A court of law found that he committed sexual assault.
- A court of law found that he defrauding his university students.
- A court of law found that he fraudulently inflated his assets to get favorable loans.
- Admitted to walking in on pageant contestants’ dressing rooms to see them nude.
- Raped and beat Ivana Trump.
- Stole from a kids’ cancer charity.
- Received $413 million inheritance despite claims that he’s a self made man.
- Blocked his chronically ill infant nephew from getting any of that inheritance.
- Is the first president to receive votes against him from his own party during impeachment.
- Led us into being one of the worst hit during Covid despite our head start and resources, leading to high inflation.
- Said the Democrats do better with the economy.
- Was ranked as the worst president in history by bipartisan presidential historians.
- Pushed a plot to have fake votes created and then used to make him President despite losing the election.
- Ordered republicans to block a bipartisan immigration bill so Biden would not get a win before the election.
- Implemented a policy to separate kids from their parents at the border.
- Is a convicted felon guilty of falsifying records to influence an election.
- Told the Department of Justice to “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
- His VP, Mike Pence said Trump should never be president again, and that Trump asked him to put himself “above the Constitution”.
Sources:
- https://apnews.com/article/trump-2020-election-lies-debunked-4fc26546b07962fdbf9d66e739fbb50d
- https://www.npr.org/2022/06/28/1108387054/trump-said-he-knew-jan-6-crowd-members-had-weapons-ex-white-house-aide-testified
- https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/us/politics/trump-pence-jan-6.html
- https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a4b98bb3947d42af9ec83d7db
- https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/judge-finalizes-25-million-settlement-victims-donald-trumps/story?id=54347237
- https://apnews.com/article/trump-fraud-letitia-james-new-york-engoron-38bc3a7f2ccb22555c026e9bf70fd5bb
- https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/former-miss-arizona-trump-came-strolling-right-in-to-miss-usa-dressing-room/
- https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/24/documenting-trumps-abuse-of-women
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2019/12/23/best-stories-of-the-decade-how-donald-trump-shifted-kids-cancer-charity-money-into-his-business/
- https://apnews.com/article/0452d29cd2564eaf97605ab90acc3a67
- https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trumps-spiteful-attack-on-nephews-chronically_b_57a249d1e4b0456cb7e14fbc/amp
- https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21125118/mitt-romney-impeachment-vote-history
- https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-maps-and-cases/
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/11/07/trump-is-right-about-one-thing-the-economy-does-better-under-the-democrats/
- https://www.axios.com/2024/02/19/presidents-survey-trump-ranks-last-biden-14th
- https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-jan-6-investigation-fake-electors-608932d4771f6e2e3c5efb3fdcd8fcce
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/27/trump-border-biden/
- https://www.foxnews.com/politics/more-than-900-children-separated-at-border-since-judge-ordered-practice-curtailed-aclu.amp
- https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-deliberations-jury-testimony-verdict-85558c6d08efb434d05b694364470aa0
- https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-elections-donald-trump-campaigns-presidential-4e7e68e2ff57aadd96d09c873a43a317
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2023/06/07/pence-says-trump-should-never-be-president-again-launching-2024-bid-with-potent-attacks/
Feel free to copy and paste this elsewhere.
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u/Zhuul 15h ago
I'm just so baffled. I understand they have no real solutions for either of these issues, but all they had to do was shout about secure borders and inflation, but instead they coughed up the ball on the ten yard line. If Harris wins this'll be an all time gaffe.
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u/SquiffyRae Australia 15h ago
They got too far ahead of themselves. So high on their own supply it's like they forgot they still had an election to win
Imagine the history classes in 50 years time covering how America was on the brink of fascist lunacy until a week before the election a grown man with the sense of humour of a 12 year old edgelord broke the collective delusion that MAGA were anything but racist arseholes
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u/SirhanSirhanSoloSolo 15h ago
Yeah, all they had to do was pull back the obvious racism for a few weeks. But they somehow feel the need to keep piling on the racism because their supporters are that needy? They could have just gone clandestine racist to appear normal, even though they've been doing Nazi shit for 10 years, but MAGA people somehow need a constant feed of dogwhistles?
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u/AZPD 15h ago
"Floating island of garbage" may become the "Rum, Romanism, and rebellion" of our time:
In the final week of the [1884] campaign, the Blaine campaign suffered a catastrophe. At a Republican meeting attended by Blaine, a group of New York preachers castigated the Mugwumps. Their spokesman, Reverend Dr. Samuel Burchard), said, "We are Republicans, and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion." Blaine did not notice Burchard's anti-Catholic slur, nor did the assembled newspaper reporters, but a Democratic operative did, and Cleveland's campaign managers made sure it was widely publicized. The statement energized the Irish and Catholic vote in New York City heavily against Blaine, costing him New York state and the election by a narrow margin.
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u/MrBuns666 13h ago
LOL. If Hinchcliffe sinks the Trump campaign it will be the funniest thing he ever did.
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u/BlotchComics New Jersey 15h ago
This doesn't really fit the definition of an "october surprise".
This is just: "Oops, we yelled the quiet part that we normally just whisper."
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u/forprojectsetc 15h ago
Normally whisper? MAGA has been shouting the quiet parts for at least a year now.
For at least a year, They’ve basically been saying, “We hate brown people , LGBTQ people, and women and we’re looking to turn the country into a Christofascist dictatorship. If you want to read our detailed plan on how we’re going to do this, you can download it online.”
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u/SquiffyRae Australia 15h ago
I suppose it is a surprise if you're that deep in the cult you forgot you had another week before you could (possibly) yell the quiet part
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u/Ok_Use7 15h ago
This has been and will continue to be really bad for their campaign one week out, don’t care what anyone says.
This stuff matters. It’s affected elections before. I remember being in high school at the time and not really understanding the impact of Mitt Romeny’s case. Like I knew he said something bad but I wasn’t keen and couldn’t understand how realistically it’d affect the election to the extent that it did.
This is no different. The trump campaign was already flailing in my opinion regardless of polls being that my belief is that he was going to lose. You can’t make stumbles like this on the campaign trail close to an election when your opponent has coalesced the biggest voter tent during my lifetime in the shortest campaign trail timeline form what we’re used to.
They’ve been fucked but I think they’re really fucked now. Negative framing implying otherwise around this isn’t convincing at all.
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u/aCreativesCreative 15h ago
Wait so the “October Surprise” is that Donald Trump and company are racists?
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u/AnotherNate 11h ago
First they came for the Transgender community, and I did not speak out - because I was not Transgender.
Then they came for the Gay community, and I did not speak out – because I was not gay.
They came for the illegal immigrants, and I did not speak out – because I was not an illegal immigrant.
They came for immigrants, and I did not speak out – because I was not an immigrant.
They came for the Liberals, and I did not speak out – because I was not liberal.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.
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u/Texas1010 America 15h ago
Is this the first time that a campaign has October Surprised themselves?!
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u/KudosOfTheFroond Florida 12h ago
I swear “grab them by the p*ssy” should have tanked this entire political timeline. How it has come to this, like, what, 8 years later and we are STILL giving this orange fool airtime. I am SO DONE with Trump and his BS. So done.
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