Trump’s campaign may have launched the “October Surprise”–the game-changing event in the last days of the campaign–as a boomerang. The political columns, like Politico, are filled with reactions to the comedian’s line about Puerto Rico being “an island of garbage.” The outrage is loud and bipartisan, since Republicans realize the “joke” offended an important voting bloc.
The Archbishop of San Juan demanded a personal apology from Trump.
JD Vance said at a rally that people should not be so easily offended by a joke. But they are. Calling the island garbage means calling the people on it garbage. Why shouldn’t they be offended? Would Vance be so complacent if someone called Ohio “a garbage state?”
And the controversy revived memories of Trump throwing paper towels to people in Puerto Rico after a devastating hurricane, as well as Trump’s indifference to the island:
On the NBC website was news about the joke:
Apart from Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican singer Marc Anthony slammed Trump for his actions during Hurricane Maria as he endorsed Harris, posting on Instagram: “I remember after Hurricane Maria devastated our island… Trump blocked billions in relief … while thousands died. I remember that when our families lacked clean water and electricity, Trump threw paper towels and called Puerto Rico ‘dirty’ and ‘poor.’” He added he was not “surprised,” because Trump “launched his campaign by calling Latinos criminals and rapists.”
After the 2017 hurricane, Trump repeatedly opposed disaster funding for Puerto Rico as he disputed and failed to acknowledge Maria’s death toll — almost 3,000 people in the U.S. territory, making it the deadliest hurricane in the U.S. in 100 years. Trump also drew attention for disparaging statements about Puerto Rico after Maria, including “they want everything to be done for them,” and for tossing paper towels in a visit to the island after the deadly hurricane.
During his presidency, Congress approved a total of $20 billion in federal housing funds for Puerto Rico’s post-hurricane reconstruction, a historic amount. But the Trump administration blocked Puerto Rico from receiving such funds and obstructed a government probe looking into officials who withheld the aid, according to a Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General report.
All good news for Kamala, who had just released her plans to help Puerto Rico’s economy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Would be just poetic if an insult comic causes Trump to lose.
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I am so thrilled that young left wing supporters did not try to confront these big mouth MAGA supporters. Any altercation would have given Trump fuel to hammer the “radical left” and play the victim once more. This “big show” was a chance to display the racism and ignorance of Trump supporters. Right wing extremists got their free speech moment, it helped to make them look like the bigots they are.
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I agree! Free speech has consequences and the MSG rally just may be the death knell of the trump party.
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Ya’ll are reaching for straws. Sad. Puerto Rico already votes democrat, that is why democrats want to make them a state.
Meanwhile, Michelle Sourpuss Obama who said she was never proud of her country until her husband was nominated by the democrats. We remember. She managed to offend half the country in her lame speech (yes, I listened to it). She is a beautiful woman it is too bad she is so ugly on the inside.
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So you have no opinion on the racist insults hurled at Latinos?
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lol there are almost half a million Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania
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If they arePuerto Ricans that are democrats they probably don’t have a sense of humor; if they are republican, they do.
P.S. It was a comedian, not Trump.
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The comedian read from a teleprompter. The campaign staff knew what he intended to say. No one thought that Puerto Rico-is-a-garbage- island was funny. No one. What’s funny about it?
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Of course they’re Democrats. Now they’re motivated to vote.
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You can read about Trump’s MSG rally and stomach his and his speakers’ parade of insults about Blacks, Jews,Democrats(just for bring Democrats), immigrants, calling his opponent the Antichrist, but Mrs. Obama is an ugly person.
ok.
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The MSG rally was more proof that the Dem-hating/Putin-loving folks who who post here and pretend that they just want to defeat the Dems to “help Palestinians” have never cared at all about the Palestinians:
“Rudy Giuliani claimed that Hamas trains toddlers to kill Americans during an unhinged speech in support of Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
The former mayor of New York City rambled through a speech that claimed Hamas, the governing authority of the Gaza Strip, has a particular hatred for the United States.
“Hamas isn’t there for us,” Giuliani said, suggesting without evidence that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris wants to resettle Gazan refugees in the U.S. “The Palestinians are taught to kill us at two-years old.”…..
…Giuliani’s broad-brush take on Palestinian preschoolers left him afraid of any possible refugee program, saying that Democrats are on the “side of the terrorists.”
“She wants to bring them to you,” Giuliani continued. “They may have good people. I’m sorry I don’t take a risk with people who are taught to kill Americans at two.”
Trump’s rally included invoking hate toward even Palestinian children, taught to kill Americans at two.
This is no longer about Trump. It is about the character of the Americans who want Trump in power, or the ones who are more bothered by a Black/Indian woman being in power than they are bothered by a white supremacist demonizing Palestinians and many other non-white non-Christians.
Their hate of the Dems was never about the Palestinians, just like their support of Putin bombing Ukraine families was never about fighting Nazis. It was about why hate draws them in, especially hate of the other.
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Giuliani’s remarks about Palestinian children were horrific, but they were of a piece with the other insults and hateful remarks made by the other speakers and Trump himself.
As for J.D. Vance’s remarks about people being too quickly offended, being called the Antichrist, garbage, having our humanity called into question if we don’t worship Trump is worth getting angry about.
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Vance took offense recently at a video of Gretchen Whitmer handing out Doritos as if they were the Eucharist, so as usual he’s full of sh!t.
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Since I assume I’m being subtweeted here (I’m so flattered!), all I will say is that this has nothing to do with me since I’m not voting for him either. If Harris needs my vote to defeat this baboon (apologies to actual baboons), that’s on her for doing absolutely nothing to earn it (in fact, doing everything possible to spit in my face). If Trump is the existential threat you all claim he is, then it’s incumbent on the Dems to earn as many votes as they can, not Palestine around with Bush era terrorists while siding and abetting genocide. If Harris loses, you Dems/liberals have no one to blame but yourselves and your lousy candidate.
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If Trump wins, there is no one to blame except the voters who are determined to defeat Democrats at any cost.
This is no longer about Trump’s character. Or Kamala’s character. It is about each voter’s character.
It isn’t complicated. Using meaningless phrases like “earn my vote” to excuse the choices that they make is simply people trying to justify their complicity with Trump’s agenda.
There is something off about people who say that preventing Trump from seizing power – after all Trump has promised to be and the harm he has already done in demonizing the “other” – is simply not enough to “earn their vote”.
Stopping a far right wing president who has already spurned democracy and rule of law to incite an insurrection, stopping a leader spewing the most hateful racist lies about vulnerable non-white, non-Christians, a leader who PROMISES RETRIBUTION against those who disagree with him and promises authoritarian rule, is NOT enough to earn their vote? That doesn’t have enough value to “earn” their vote? Got it. They revealed who they are.
As AOC, Bernie and concerned Americans from the far left to conservatives understand, this is no longer about Trump’s character — it is about the moral character of the rest of us.
Demanding that a politician pander to all of their specific policy preferences to “earn” their vote or else they will withhold their vote because if they can’t get everything they want, they are perfectly content to be a citizen of a country led by an authoritarian president spewing violent, racist, xenophobic, anti-LGTBQ rhetoric who promises retribution against those who don’t quietly acquiesce? I don’t know why these folks aren’t bothered by the thought of Trump doing exactly what he has told them he would do, and why these folks aren’t bothered by the hate and fascism but they aren’t. That’s a very special quality they share with Trump voters. That’s what makes their character so similar to Trump voters and so different than the progressives who have spent their lives working hard for positive change.
Is it a coincidence that the same folks who don’t mind Trump’s authoritarian rule very much also excuse the worst aspects of Putin’s authoritarian rule?
These folks now frequently attack and demonize AOC and Bernie. Those two progressives’ moral stand for this country’s future stands in stark contrast to their own immoral stance that they’d rather blow the country up if they can’t get everything they want.
What makes someone who knows exactly how dangerous Trump is believe that Harris/Walz haven’t “earned their vote” so they are good with Trump’s rule?
Or is it simply that they don’t see Trump as dangerous just like they don’t see Putin as dangerous?
It seems to me that like Trump voters, they find something appealing at the thought that Trump would reign down retribution on the people they clearly don’t like. They don’t really have demands that anyone with a chance of defeating Trump could ever meet. As we can see by how fast they turned on AOC.
Maybe they can provide a list of their “demands” so we at least would know what orders Harris and Walz and all the Democrats must obey in order for them to join us to stop a very bad thing from happening that will hurt many of the most vulnerable folks in this country. And that may likely make it impossible for the people who want change to get it.
I guess if they think Putin’s okay, that doesn’t bother them either.
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TL;DR, but this: “Maybe they can provide a list of their “demands”….”
Simple (and already asked and answered): Arms embargo non-negotiable. M4A, GND and $25 minimum wage would be huge bonuses. In fact, Harris would win in a landslide.
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Oh, and this: “funny how fast they turned on AOC.”
Nah, I saw through her to begin with. But no one turned on AOC, she turned on what she claimed to believe and morphed into Nancy Pelosi. Her choice, not ours.
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Nancy Pelosi is wonderful!!
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Nancy Pelosi just told anti-genocide protesters to “go back to China where your headquarters are.”
Keep affirming my decision not to vote for this neoliberal nightmare. Mine and millions of others.
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I wish there were more Nancy Pelosi-s. She was incredibly effective. And brave. I recall when Trump gave a State of the Union filled with lies. She ripped it in half on national TV.
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Dienne, I don’t post insults directed at me. If you can’t be civil, post elsewhere.
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Question: What’s the difference between voters whose only goal is to defeat the Democrats because they want to elect a racist authoritarian president who incites hate and promises retribution to his enemy, and voters whose only goal is to defeat the Democrats KNOWING that means that a racist authoritarian president who incites hate and promises retribution to his enemies will be elected?
Answer: nothing.
I think your certainty that a candidate running to abolish all private health insurance would be guaranteed to be wildly popular mirrors your certainty that Putin invaded Ukraine to fight Nazis. I wish it were so that a candidate guaranteeing that people’s private insurance would be replaced with Medicare for All would gain a huge victory.
Perhaps you aren’t old enough to remember the many times the right wing propaganda machine and complicit media chewed up the politicians advocating for that supposedly wildly popular idea (until the public heard the details and Harry and Louise ads) and spit them out. Like Harris Wofford.
Do you know when the Dems had the best chance of passing universal health care? When Jimmy Carter was elected with one of the biggest Democratic majorities in history! 61 Senate seats!!!! Dems had 293 seats in the House and Republicans only had 143!
So why do you think Jimmy Carter made it his personal mission to BLOCK any chance of universal healthcare? If you think it was because Carter was obeying his neoliberal overlords, you’d be wrong. Carter knew it was a political landmine, not something guaranteed to be wildly popular.
When even Jimmy Carter doesn’t meet your strict requirements of “earning” your support against a racist, hate and violence-fomenting authoritarian promising retribution to Americans who don’t do what he says, and your only goal is to defeat the Democrats KNOWING that means that a racist authoritarian president who incites hate and promises retribution to his enemies will be elected? Then that’s a reflection of your character, not Jimmy Carter’s.
And your “non-negotiable arms embargo” requirement that would require the US stand down and stop aiding Ukraine militarily when Putin tried to take it over because Putin didn’t like that the leadership was so much more progressive than he was? Jimmy Carter was a peacenik, but he also fought in WWII and he most definitely understood that some things are worth standing up for. Carter’s 2022 statement:
“Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine using military and cyber weapons violates international law and the fundamental human rights of the Ukrainian people. I condemn this unjust assault on the sovereignty of Ukraine that threatens security in Europe and the entire world, and I call on President Putin to halt all military action and restore peace. The United States and its allies must stand with the people of Ukraine in support of their right to peace, security, and self-determination.” (not one word about fighting Nazis in Carter’s statement).
The irony is that real progressives – the ones working for progressive policies for many years if not decades – know that today’s far more progressive Dems want to expand health coverage and support climate change policies. As AOC made clear in 2020, she would rather have a president who supports the broad ideas of the GND because she knows it is far better to move the needle to the left and achieve some victories (if not all) instead of election someone who we all know will move the needle so far to the right that it’s possible this country will never recover.
In many ways, I think we share the same goals, assuming you actually want this country to move left and not to the far, far right. But your openness to Putin’s propaganda and your goal of defeating Democrats even when you know that means a far right authoritarian spewing violent racist rhetoric will move this country far to the right? It makes me wonder if we really do share the same goals.
But I am positive I share the same goals as AOC and Bernie because their actions show that they want to move the country to the left instead of turning it into a far right authoritarian state that models its faux democracy on Russia’s.
So I wonder what your real goals really are and whether your hate for the Democrats makes Trump’s promise of retribution against the enemy within something that you find a nice consolation prize for losing the progressive victories that have been won and moving this country so far backward that those things you say you want can’t even be talked about, let alone worked for.
Think about it. If you really are someone of character who believes in the policies you say you believe in, you might have a change of heart.
I once held Jimmy Carter to that impossible standard you invoke, and I was certain that it would be good for progressive ideas to soundly defeat Carter, even if it meant a right wing Republican like Reagan got power.
But I like to think that if Reagan had been as democracy spurning and unfit as Trump, there is no way I could be that stupid to think he was no worse than Carter.
And while I didn’t particularly like Mondale, I certainly learned fast that progressive victories aren’t achieved by empowering far right presidents. On the contrary, progressive victories just get much harder to achieve.
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The MSG audience cheered, as did Hitler’s crowds, the race baiting, the profanity, the outright racism all motivating the Trumpers, sadly “around” half of us are Trump acolytes, the toxic aromas of 1933-34 are wafting across America
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Peter,
Trump & company are complaining about the comparison to Nazis but if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and spreads hatred against others….
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DonOLD Drumpf has shown his true colors over and over again.
DonOLD Drumpf is full of hate for himself and thus he projects hate of others.
DonOLD Drumpf is unfit to serve and should be IN JAIL for his many crimes against others and America.
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Vance be skibidi toilet in Ohio rizz.
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?????
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LOL! Yeah, D, that’s the current slang of my students but I suppose it could fit Vance. I assure you it’s not vulgar. It means someone really weird and off-beat who flirts with women weirdly.
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Noe we see why Trump did not want a border bill to pass. It’s the only thing he has. Nobody really thinks they are worse off economically because of policy. Nobody really buys the idea that we can get any more chummy with big oil. The Trump argument actually comes down to one thing. Hatred for the other.
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Were you better off in 2020? Hell, no. We were in the depths of the pandemic. Trump was telling us to inject bleach. We were locked down. We are not going back!
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Diane
I was better off in 2020. 1.4% inflation, cheaper groceries, gas, better returns on my investments, a mostly secure border. That all changed when DT left office.
Blame China for the pandemic and it’s up to the individual states to enforce those lockdowns, ( see Newsome in Calif ). Especially those blue states!
But of course, it HAS to be Trump’s fault.
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Harry,
In 2020, we were in the depths of a pandemic. The economy was closed down. People were afraid to leave their homes. Many businesses went bankrupt.
Trump told the public that COVID would just disappear.
Trump invested in the rapid development of vaccines but then failed to urge people to get it because his base made false claims about the vaccine. He took it himself, along with his family, but no photos.
The American people couldn’t get tests but he supplied COVID tests to Putin. How thoughtful!
Over one million people died in the U.S. The death toll was raised by a lack of leadership by Trump, who never met a quack he didn’t trust.
Am I better off now? Yes, indeed. I’m alive and vaccinated. I trust that the President has hired top people in medicine and science and listens to them.
Trump says he will put crackpot RFK Jr. in charge of health. Please. He is a conspiracy theorist who thinks vaccines are deadly. Too much brain worm or drugs. Now, that’s scary. Which other crackpots and/or haters will he bring in? Mike Lindell? Gen. Flynn? Steve Bannon? Nick Fuentes? Rudy Giuliani? Alex Jones? Laura Loomer?
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Diane
RFK jr is a crackpot? Anyone you don’t agree with is a “crackpot”. That title belongs to Hunter Biden. Trump supplied covid tests to Putin???? Those leftist conspiracy theories are comical.
You need to stop watching the View, CNN, MSNBC, etc. You’re a little old to be playing on Tik Tok, aren’t you?
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Harry,
RFK Jr. is a crackpot. He opposes vaccines, which save lives. He does weird things with dead animals, like driving a dead bear into NYC and leaving its body in Central Park. His entire family disagrees with him. He admits he has a brain worm. He is a crackpot.
Putin said that Trump sent him COVID tests.
https://search.app/ojh9goYvC1wUkpNt9
I don’t watch The View or TikTok.
Clearly you have FOX News on 24/7.
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Diane
Would you be criticizing RFK jr if he was still a Democrat ? 🤥😏
I don’t watch Fox, or any other MSM networks. I watch only local newscasts from different markets around the country, as they have no political biases, just straight news, the way it USED to and SHOULD be.
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Harry,
Absolutely I would criticize RFK Jr if he were a Democrat! How outrageous that he warns mothers not to have their children vaccinated. Children have died because they did not get vaccinated. He’s a crackpot.
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Bravo
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There is no excuse for the MSG debacle. No running away from it. (Just like a 100 other things he/they’ve said and done)
As usual, the maga world can rationalize anything including lying to themselves and the “yeh whaddabout” defense.
Some are defending the remarks as “making a joke” like many other comedians. SNL is satire. Comedians make self-deprecating jokes about “who they are” among other folks who are also who they are. There’s a BIG difference between that version of humor and the crude attacks heard at this rally.
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I was thinking last night about how fortunate we are to have in Alexandria Ocasio Cortez a representative in Congress with the brilliance she possesses. Here’s her analysis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5WVtKxF64M&t=35s
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For me, Vance is not just weird, but extremely creepy. His statement about children being killed in school as a fact of life was deeply disturbing. He wants us to not be disturbed by a vulgar joke, yet he complained loudly about Trump being referred to as a fascist, claiming it a danger to Trump’s well being. Funny how he didn’t say the same about Trump repeatedly calling Harris a fascist, a communist and a socialist. Nor did he call out Elon Musk for remarking that no one had yet made any attempt on Harris’s life. In his own words, don’t be disturbed when someone hits a nerve.
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Don, exactly right.
Trump calls her dumb, stupid, lazy, socialist, Communist, radical left, a prostitute, etc.
But his feelings are crushed when she repeats what General Kelly and Milley and Mattis said.
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Wonderfully insightful and illuminating posts, with the usual suspect exceptions. I encourage us all to keep in mind, mouth, and typing fingers that Hinchcliffe’s purported joke (it wasn’t a joke, in structure) about Puerto Rico was anything but a one-off. Exhibit A: His joke (this one was) that began, “Latinos love to have babies,” and continued with such puerile vileness that I won’t sully Diane’s blog with the words. Note that this mega-slur applies not merely to the “floating island of garbage,” but to all Latinos. As you get out the vote over the next 133 hours—with setting the clocks back—forget not this sickest of jokes.
Incidentally: “Floating island?” Hinchcliffe don’t know much about geology, either.
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