Oh I 100% agree there. I just don’t think this event is very likely to turn the election. Is it possible? Sure.
No doubt. It’s an unforced error. It will likely cost him some amount of voters. It’s just hard to see it being a large number.
I also think doubling down here will work. It kills the story and it on brand. An apology would be a disaster for Trump. Never admit you did something wrong. Especially 8 days before a super close election.
SSC me but it’s possible it matters (e.g. makes someone get off the clinch and vote against him) for some number of non-Puerto Ricans also.
If nothing mattered then it’s silly to ever discuss anything during election season if everything’s already baked in.
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I do think it matters I just think I am seeing some pretty spicy takes (mostly other places than here) that this is the dam break moment for Donald Trump which seems ridiculous to me.
He has said and done so so so much worse than this and this wasn’t even him saying it. Why would you be ok with Trump for the last 10 years and suddenly bail out because some comedian makes a bad and racist joke at one of his rallies? The media is trying to make it a thing. Maybe they succeed and I’m wrong.
Maybe I am misremembering it but he said some pretty horrible things about Puerto Rico after the hurricane during his presidency also. If you are Puerto Rican you likely already know what Trump thinks about PR.
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He certainly won’t apologize. I don’t think he’ll double down either. (To me that means showing support or agreement for the comments or the commenter) He’s learned to say I didn’t see it, I don’t know who he is, and even so far as “I totally disavow” if pushed specifically, so it’ll be some version of that sprinkled into the rest of his racist, grievance ranting.
This is the type of stuff I am talking about. Trump has already treated PR terribly and talked horribly about it in the past. Are people really going to take this comedians joke as their moment to bail on Trump? They already should know what he thinks.
He didn’t toss them paper towels a week before an election.
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A Rogan bro making racist jokes and tanking a whole campaign is actually hilarious performance art. Trump and Vance should give it a watch some time!
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I know I’m oversimplifying, but he lost after people saw what he did as President. So it can’t hurt to remind people of those things. If he launched a J6 riot this week, I think we’d say it would probably hurt him, even though the electorate already knows he launches J6 riots. Timing matters, IMO.
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Sure but that is burying the lede. He withheld aid that likely killed hundreds of Puerto Ricans. The island has still not totally recovered. If you are Puerto Rican and were voting for Trump then I doubt this guy’s jokes are suddenly your turning point. Not that many people even live in Puerto Rico. Likely a huge percentage of people have family impacted by the hurricane and botched response.
Then again humans are stupid and have short memories so maybe some had forgotten and this refreshes their memory. I really have no way to know.
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And calling the whole island a floating pile of garbage is such a visceral, simple soundbite. It couldn’t be crafted any better to get through to normies.
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Update: I think the BBC got it wrong. This suggests the total Puerto Rican population is 470k. From Latino Data Hub :
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Pennsylvania has the tenth-largest population of Latino eligible voters in the U.S. Around 579,000 Latinos in Pennsylvania are eligible to vote, representing about 6% of the state’s electorate.
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Slightly more than half of PA Latinos are Puerto Rican.
But even if the number is 300k rather than 470k, you’re talking about 300k voters in the most important state, where the margin is likely to be razor thin (roughly 81k in 2020).
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It’s less than that because only a percentage will be registered to vote (the article I posted above says that PR voting participation is particularly low). So maybe 150k or something being generous. They trend Dem already so lets say 40% are GOP voters. That’s 60k voters. What percentage change their mind over this? 10% is 6k voters. Which isn’t totally insignificant. But it’s pretty unlikely PA comes down to that margin.
the whole plan is to do a fall of the soviet union style sell off to private industries. it’s crazy that it could even be possible in this country. but that is 100% the plan.
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I agree we don’t know and can’t know so this is all just speculation but it is the story of the moment. In the aftermath of the hurricane they had other problems. Here and now the whole country is focused on the election and Trump just publicly humiliated them.
Pulling up the ladder you used to climb polls really well. As much as car dealership owners in Indiana have zero to fear (and in reality, plenty to gain) by an “open border” policy (which of course isn’t the case), recent immigrants are the ones who might actually have to compete for jobs with new immigrants, legal or not. Established Latino citizens, even the children of undocumented immigrants, could convince themselves they had white status while they were on Team Trump, and Trump gave them people to look down on: “If you can convince the lowest [Latino] he’s better than the best [immigrant], he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” Same idea.
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It’s not just about changing Trump voters to Harris voters. It’s about motivating non-voters to vote against the pendejo. If you can convince Puerto Ricans to vote like white people, that’s a gain of tens of thousands of votes.
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Voter registration is closed in all of these places already isn’t it?
In PA, yes, but lots of people are registered who don’t vote.