Why Trump's racist rally at the Garden is a turning point in the campaign

Those who say Trump's bigotry and hate are "baked in" aren't paying close attention to what's happening.

So, Donald Trump had his rally at Madison Square Garden, which many of us predicted was all about emulating the Nazi rally held at the Garden in 1939.

And we were, not surprisingly, right.

Racism, hate, and bigotry were spewed, and that was before Trump even got to the podium for his usual grotesque tirade. Puerto Rico was called an “island of garbage.” Latinos were demeaned in ways the Nazis talked about Jews.

But there was also anti-semitism, as well as misogyny, a comment about a Black man “carving watermelons,” and a lot of four-letter words spit out by hyper-masculine crackpots from the MAGA world most people have never heard of before.

One guy likened Kamala Harris to a prostitute, while another called her the antichrist while waving a crucifix, and still another called Hillary Clinton a “sick bastard” while labeling all Democrats “degenerates.”

After the uproar, we saw some MAGA pundits on TV trying to defend it. Some conceded that it was a “dumb idea” to have comedian Tony Hinchcliffe—who made the comments about Latinos and Puerto Ricans—do a set, but that still left out all of the other bigots who were on the stage. And whatever their take, the MAGA pundits pushed the idea that everything is “baked in” with Trump. In other words, nothing shocks anyone anymore when it comes to Trump, and nothing can hurt him.

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But this seems very different, as evidenced by a few things that quickly happened:

—The New York Times immediately called the rally a “Racist Rally” in its headline (instead of their usual “racially-tinged” or “crude” or “inappropriate”), a decision that affected other media. By the next day, the reporting on television broadcast news was vigorously pointing to the hate and how, even for a Trump rally, this had crossed the line.

—The attack on Puerto Ricans was jarring because this had nothing to do with immigration or people coming into the country illegally to supposedly take people’s jobs. Puerto Ricans are American citizens, millions of whom live on the island and millions of whom live across the United States. This was an example of outright hate and racism that couldn’t be couched as about immigration.

—Similarly, the supposed joke about “Latinos love making babies; they don't pull out... they just come inside,” is outright racist stereotyping about all Latinos, not immigrants.

—At the moment when the comments about Puerto Rico were being made from the stage, Kamala Harris happened to be in a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia, campaigning, laying out her plan for revitalizing Puerto Rico. All of that was pre-planned, not a response to the Trump rally. But it just organically blew up after the comments from the Garden, as Bad Bunny, Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and other Puerto Rican superstars shared Harris’ video, endorsed her, and slammed Trump.

—Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state, is home to almost 500,000 Puerto Ricans and hundreds of thousands of other Latinos. Chuck Rocha, a political strategist and founder of Nuestro PAC, told CNN:

Will this mean that all of them run to Kamala Harris? No, but I’ll tell you what: last night there was a group of Latinos that got together and said enough is enough.

And this morning, as Puerto Ricans are waking up in Pennsylvania, this video was on their cell phones because Democratic operatives, including me, Nuestro PAC, and a bunch of other folks, said enough with it being baked in. Let’s remind people about how they really feel about our community.

—There are 2 million Puerto Ricans in New York City—where the comments were made—and this story had spread like wildfire and rightly angered people. No, New York isn’t a battleground state, but it’s surely a place where a candidate would wrack up the popular vote in a presidential win and get a mandate. And there are down ballot House races in New York with vulnerable Republicans in Biden-won districts—five seats—where many Latinos and Puerto Ricans live. Then there is Florida, home to the second largest population of Puerto Ricans on the mainland after New York. Senator Rick Scott, running scared in a tight race against challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, put out a statement tepidly condemning the remarks, as did other Florida GOP members of Congress. So the ramifications for Republicans in places across the country are great, and all of that plays up and down the ballot, including in the presidential race.

—Trump’s campaign quickly put out a statement saying the comments on Puerto Rico don’t represent the campaign’s opinion. This showed the blood in the water, as the Trump campaign never apologizes for anything. The campaign’s strategists knew the damage this could cause. But Trump himself didn’t say say anything about it when he came on the stage—incurring criticism from the Catholic archbishop of San Juan, who said he must “personally” apologize—and J.D. Vance defended the remarks, chiding Democrats for not being able to take a joke. (Of course, this doesn’t address all of the other racist and misogynist comments, which weren’t even shrouded as jokes.)

This tells me that there’s fighting inside the campaign. Trump probably was angry at the campaign for putting out a statement while he was at the rally, and Vance may be playing to Trump. Trump’s now saying he didn’t know the comedian and hadn’t heard the comments, his usual bullshit that isn’t going to cut it this time. Meanwhile, the rest of MAGA is all over the place, with some pundits and politicians condemning or distancing from the remarks, while others are defending them, going full-on MAGA racist. It’s the GOP in disarray, one week before the election. Their racism in defending the rally even got one MAGA pundit banned from CNN for good because of on-air racism on CNN last night, as he made a disgusting racist comment toward Mehdi Hasan.

The race is razor close, but, as The New York Times reports, the Harris campaign is quietly telegraphing confidence about what it’s seeing, “bullish” on defeating Trump. The Trump campaign has of course been screaming out loud for a few weeks—including at the Garden rally—that Trump is going to win big. And they tried to stem the bleeding from the racist rally by planting stories in the usual places today, like Axios and Semafor, claiming their internal numbers show Trump is going to win.

But this seemed to be posturing by a nervous campaign that’s not been very controlled. They’ve been hiding Trump, who seems to have little energy, keeping him from doing media interviews, while also trying to obscure or downplay Trump’s vicious bigotry at his rallies. But then came the rally at the Garden, which blew it all wide open and out to millions of people even before Trump took the stage. And the story isn’t dying, with seven days left until Election Day.

Millions of people have already voted. Most who get out early are the hardcore base in both parties. Many of those who wait are those who are tentative, including those right-leaning independents and Republicans who don’t like Trump—precisely because of his hatred and bigotry—but don’t want to vote for the Democrat. The racist rally at the Garden is the kind of thing that could cause some of them to just stay home and even convince a few to vote for Harris.

For all those reasons, the rally is a turning point. MAGA pundits are cocky when they say it’s all “baked in” for Trump, but Kamala Harris is working to cook him for good.