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How Trump Is Baiting Harris

The Atlantic

www.theatlantic.com › newsletters › archive › 2024 › 10 › how-trump-is-baiting-harris › 680466

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This is the time for closing arguments from Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. But Trump’s closing argument is not a closing argument at all: It’s an invitation. He and his campaign are acting in hopes of provoking Harris, pushing her to muddle her final message.

The statements and sentiments on display from the Trump campaign this past week, and particularly at Sunday night’s rally at Madison Square Garden, have been racist, xenophobic, and violent. To note a few: The comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, invited by the Trump campaign, called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” The radio personality Sid Rosenberg described the Democratic Party as “a bunch of degenerates, lowlifes,” and “Jew-haters.” The private-equity fund manager Grant Cardone said that Harris has “pimp handlers.” And the Trump adviser Stephen Miller declared that “America is for Americans and Americans only.”

This incendiary language is not only a crude attempt to bait critics; it’s part of a pattern of hate from Trump and his closest allies, and a type of rhetoric that Trump has made clear he intends to incorporate into his plans as president. But in continuing to push the lines of decency in American politics, Trump is also attempting to goad the opposition. His campaign is ramping up a familiar and often effective cycle: He says or encourages something inflammatory, then goes on to blame his opponents or members of the media for overreacting, sometimes attempting to rewrite his own statements in the process. After he told the Fox News anchor Sean Hannity that he wouldn’t be a dictator “except for day one,” he later said that he was just joking, in an effort to cast those who took him seriously as dramatic. It’s an example of what my colleague Megan Garber recently called the trolligarchy: “A troll reserves the right, always, to be kidding,” she wrote. “Even about matters of life and death.”

A strong reaction from Democrats or from journalists is strategically useful to Trump, and he knows it. As Trump said at Sunday’s rally: “When I say ‘the enemy from within’”—referring to the phrase he often uses to describe anyone who is not part of MAGA world—“the other side goes crazy.” Kamala Harris herself has usually avoided taking the bait, although in recent days she has gone on the attack, referring to Trump as a fascist for the first time after The New York Times published remarks from former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly in which he said that Trump met the definition of the word. But she has returned consistently to a message of unity. Speaking to reporters today, she said, “When elected president, I’m going to represent all Americans, including those who don’t vote for me.”

Others on her campaign, however, haven’t been as careful. At an event earlier this week, Tim Walz said of the MSG rally, “There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden,” in apparent reference to a 1939 pro-Nazi rally that took place in the same arena. And on a call with a Latino voting group last night, President Joe Biden remarked, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters—his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.” Though Biden later claimed that he said “supporter’s,” referencing Hinchcliffe’s quote about Puerto Rico, and Harris quickly distanced herself from the gaffe, the damage was done. Biden’s blunder is reminiscent of the disparaging “basket of deplorables” comment that Hillary Clinton made about Trump supporters during her 2016 campaign, a comparison that Trumpworld has been quick to make. MAGA allies soon began campaigning off of Biden’s comment, and Trump’s campaign has even fundraised off it.

By provoking and then taking apparent pleasure in dramatic reactions from their critics, Trump and his team encourage his supporters’ feelings of vitriol toward fellow Americans—feelings Trump has spent years feeding by referring to his political opponents as enemies, “vermin,” “lunatics,” and “thugs.” Harris and her team will make a much stronger closing statement if they refuse to give Trump the satisfaction of being their campaign’s main subject. But it’s also up to the American voting public to resist being baited by the outrage that Trump stokes, and to refuse the path of vengeance that he represents.

Related:

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Trump pays the price for insulting Puerto Rico. Why Kamala Harris is targeting deep-red counties Elon Musk wants you to think this election’s being stolen. The worst of crypto is yet to come.

Today’s News

A divided Supreme Court allowed Virginia to continue its program targeting suspected noncitizen voters, which could result in the purge of more than 1,600 voter registrations. At least 95 people were killed after torrential rain caused dangerous levels of flash flooding in Spain’s Valencia region. An 18-year-old man was arrested near an early-voting site in Florida after he brandished a machete at two people who support Vice President Kamala Harris. A video shows him holding the machete while his companions wave Trump flags, according to The New York Times.

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Evening Read

Ok McCausland / The New York Times / Redux

Tobacco Companies May Have Found a Way to Make Vapes More Addictive

By Nicholas Florko

When a friend pulled out her vape at a playoff-baseball watch party earlier this month, it immediately caught my eye. I had grown accustomed to marveling at the different disposable vapes she’d purchase each time her last one ran out of nicotine—the strange flavors, the seemingly endless number of brands—but this product was different. It had a screen. While she vaped, the device played a silly little animation that reminded me of a rudimentary version of Pac-Man.

In the name of journalism, I went to my local smoke shop this week, and sure enough, vapes with screens were ubiquitous.

Read the full article.

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Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

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Trump Pays the Price for Insulting Puerto Rico

The Atlantic

www.theatlantic.com › ideas › archive › 2024 › 10 › bad-bunny-puerto-rico-trump › 680453

On Sunday, at a rally at Madison Square Garden, in New York, Donald Trump and his supporters gave their closing argument. It began with offensive, identity-based jokes straight from the ’80s; continued with a shout-out to a Black man involving watermelon; and at some point implied that Kamala Harris, the vice president of the United States, was a sex worker. Along the way were sprinklings of anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and xenophobic comments, including this gem from the Trump adviser Stephen Miller: “America is for Americans and Americans only.”

The vitriolic event included some choice lines about Latinos from Tony Hinchcliffe, the comedian chosen by the Trump campaign to kick off the event. Hinchcliffe, who is also a podcaster, began with juvenile sex jokes about Latinos—“They love making babies”—before moving on to describe Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

As a Nuyorican—what New Yorkers from the Puerto Rican diaspora affectionately call ourselves—I am keenly attuned to any mention of the island and my people. And for most of this campaign, little has been said. So it was a surprise to see that on the same day that Hinchcliffe spoke at Madison Square Garden, Vice President Harris released a video outlining her plan for Puerto Rico and visited a Puerto Rican restaurant on the campaign trail in Philadelphia.

The coincidence was fortuitous, because it offered Puerto Ricans a real-time split screen. Many saw Harris attempting to learn and address the concerns of Puerto Ricans; Trump showed that he was willing to welcome Latinos to his tent only if they were complicit with his racist worldview. The language used at the Trump rally “was so simple, and it just very genuinely showed how they really feel,” Paola Ramos, the author of Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America, told me.

After getting blowback for the “island of garbage” remark, the Trump campaign attempted to distance itself. (As everyone knows, Harris is responsible for everything anyone around her does, but Trump is innocent even of things for which he’s been found guilty.) “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump,” a campaign representative said.

As much as the campaign may try to disavow Hinchcliffe’s joke, it can’t avoid the way that that language merely reinforced the sense of disdain that Puerto Ricans had already experienced from Trump. The insult gave Democrats the perfect opportunity to remind Latino voters—and Puerto Ricans in particular—of something Harris raised in her video: Trump’s anemic, and insulting, response to islanders after Hurricane María, in 2017.

[From the November 2022 issue: Let Puerto Rico be free]

Hurricane Harvey had hit Texas a month earlier; there, FEMA had approved $142 million in individual assistance to hurricane victims within nine days. Nine days after María, FEMA had approved just $6.2 million for Puerto Ricans. In Texas, there were far more helicopters, meals, water, government personnel. When then-President Trump did finally visit the storm-ravaged island—nearly two weeks after the hurricane had passed—he told residents they were lucky they hadn’t endured “a real catastrophe, like Katrina,” and, in lieu of more meaningful assistance, threw rolls of paper towels to the crowd at a media event.

This year, Puerto Rican celebrities including Marc Anthony have already been working to remind voters of all of this while campaigning for Harris. After Sunday’s rally, Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez shared Harris’s video and announced that they were voting for her. Lopez will appear with Harris tomorrow.

But none of these endorsements have as much significance as that of the musician Bad Bunny’s. His fan base is enormous and young, and includes both men and women. And unlike many stars who avoid bringing politics to their platforms, San Benito, as he’s known to his fans, has made politics, and particularly the politics of colonialism, central to his art. He’s been active as Puerto Rico has approached its election for governor, also happening on November 5, purchasing billboards arguing that a vote for the ruling party is a vote for corruption. His take has weight.

For months, as megawatt celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have thrown their support behind Harris, I’ve heard people asking where Bad Bunny has been. Why hasn’t Bad Bunny been helping Harris? The answer seemed obvious to me: Despite being a U.S. citizen and a global superstar, Bad Bunny can’t vote in presidential elections.

Bad Bunny is a resident of Puerto Rico, and disenfranchisement is just one of the many inequities that define islanders’ second-class citizenship. But even if Puerto Rican residents can’t vote, they can influence the diaspora on the mainland, which can. And that’s what Bad Bunny is doing.

After Trump’s rally, Bad Bunny shared a segment of Harris’s Puerto Rico video to his 45.7 million Instagram followers several times. Specifically, he selected the segment in which Harris says, “There’s so much at stake in this election for Puerto Rican voters and for Puerto Rico,” and where she reminds people of Trump throwing paper towels to island residents after the hurricane.

Harris’s plan for Puerto Rico involves creating what she calls an “opportunity economy” on the island by shoring up the power grid, providing clean-energy credits to islanders, and developing affordable housing, job-creation incentives, and investment in Puerto Rican entrepreneurs and creators, among several other major initiatives. Her plan noticeably evades the big colonial issues, such as repealing the Jones Act—the 100-year-old tariff on produce and goods shipped to the island that costs residents an estimated $692 million a year. Nor does it address taking up the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act—a bill that Representatives Nydia Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have championed, which would allow islanders to vote on Puerto Rico’s status as a commonwealth. However, what Harris’s plan does offer are thoughtful solutions to many of the problems that have afflicted the island, especially in recent years, which is more than anyone can say of Trump.

The more that the “floating garbage” line is repeated—on television, on the radio—the more riled up Puerto Ricans are getting. More Puerto Ricans live on the mainland than on the island now. One result of the botched response to María has been, ironically, the migration of thousands of islanders—many to swing states such as Pennsylvania, where there are now nearly half a million Puerto Rican residents. Tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans currently reside in Georgia and Arizona as well. The Democratic strategist José Parra told The Hill that what happened at Madison Square Garden might make a real difference: “If Pennsylvania swings toward the Democrats, I think you can look back on this as a pivotal moment.”

Much has been made of the growing support for Trump among Latinos, and this offense is unlikely to sway any of his true believers. But it may motivate some Latinos who’d planned on sitting the election out. Victor Martinez, who owns a local Spanish-language radio channel in Pennsylvania, told Politico that a large portion of the community there had been on the fence about voting at all. The Trump rally shifted that. “If we weren’t engaged before, we’re all paying attention now,” he said.

Puerto Ricans love their island—even those who have never had the chance to go there. Yes, it has stunning beaches, lush green mountains, the sound of the coqui. But what we love most is the warmth of our culture: the music, the dance, the food, the art, our people. It is a place that calls to us when we’re far away and embraces us when we come home. The joke was not just an insult; it was a reminder of the neglect and disrespect the place and its people have faced for decades at the hands of the United States government, and especially during the Trump administration.

Once, when Bad Bunny was asked about his political engagement, he said, “I am not getting involved in politics; politics gets into my life because it affects my country, because it affects Puerto Rico.”