By Ron Cheong
Special to News Americas
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Thursday. October 31, 2024: In what was supposed to be the climactic conclusion to his 2024 campaign for the Presidency of the United States at Madison Square Garden in New York, Donald Trump and his panel of guest speakers descended into a place of darkness never before seen in this level. in public life. They were vulgar, hateful, offensive, false inventions and lies; a descent into unseemly madness — as Trump likes to put it, a “nation,” much less the much-blessed United States of America.
It was the soul of a Trump Presidency exposed
And that was the tone from the start at Madison Square Garden, getting louder and crazier with each speaker. The vitriol, hate and threats continued throughout the night, even as the campaign screened each speaker’s presentation in advance and played it on a teleprompter.
Clearly, this was the core of the message they wanted to convey throughout the rally to galvanize the MAGA base. There is no room for submission in claiming error or spinning this in any other way here, there was no error.
The opening speaker slot went to right-wing podcaster and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who set what he was going to follow for the rest of the night, saying with a sheepish expression: “I don’t know if you know this, but there literally a floating island of junk in the middle of the ocean now. Yeah, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
These remarks must be condemned in the strongest terms. But an even greater condemnation that is not limited to the speaker, is that this racist verbal attack on the citizens of the United States of America was met with cheers, laughter and applause from the assembled MAGA supporters.
In another humorless and false insult, he declared: “These Latinas, they like to make babies too. Just know this. They do. They do. There is no withdrawal. They don’t do that. They go inside, just like they did with our country”.
His diatribe further included dog-whistles about eating cats and dogs, implying that blacks love watermelons and denigrating Palestinians.
And it went downhill from there. Former Fox host Tucker Carlson insulted both Vice President Kamala Harris’s race and her intelligence. In an insane delivery, he called Kamala Harris “the first low-IQ California ex-Malaysian prosecutor to ever be elected president.”
Other speakers added their voices with other misogynistic racial slurs, including calling Harris the “Devil” and the “Anti-Christ.”
Trump, for his part, threatened “the largest deportation program in American history.” He also claimed to be fighting “the enemy from within,” evoking memories of his stated desire to use the military against the American people.
Not surprisingly, reports say that Madison Square Gardens was deliberately chosen to commemorate and mirror the Nazi rally at the same site in 1939, and to be the crowning glory of Trump’s 2024 campaign. Trump’s staff reported that Trump told him he wanted “the kind of generals that Hitler had” and that “Hitler did some good things.”
Call to Action
The response from Puerto Rican officials, artists, the public and clergy has been swift and furious, and they are taking action. Entertainers Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Luis Fonsi, Don Omar, Mark Anthony and Bad Bunny have all endorsed Kamala Harris. Puerto Ricans who support Harris hope this will sway more Puerto Ricans living in the United States to Harris. There are significant Puerto Rican populations in swing states like Pennsylvania
Puerto Rico’s largest newspaper, El Nuevo Dia, also endorsed Harris after the riot at Madison Square Gardens.
And in an open letter to Trump, Puerto Rico Archbishop Roberto Gonzales Nieves called on Trump to apologize in person. But at a press conference from Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night, Trump just seemed to dig in, using the occasion for more denunciation of immigrants; and for his constant obsession with crowd size, boasting that he could have filled Madison Square Gardens three times over.
He described the event at the Gardens as a love fest. “It was like a love fest, an absolute love fest, and it was my honor to be involved,” he said.
In a separate interview with ABC News he claimed he did not know Tony Hinchcliffe and did not hear his speech. “I don’t know him; someone put it up there. I don’t know who he is,” he claimed, which is par for the course for Trump. He doesn’t even know about Project 2025, or that he had a white supremacist for dinner.
How much more proof does the American voter need to know that Trump is unfit for the Presidency?
The election is less than a week away and the polls have it a neck and neck race. Trump and his campaign will do everything they can to fend off this latest example of his ineptitude and minimize any loss of support. This could have tragic consequences if it succeeds, in a race as close as this.
But even if the race isn’t as close as the polls say, now is not the time for anyone to let their guard down. The stakes are very high. This is not one of those cases to sit things out. Americans who value freedom, democracy and opportunity have only one real choice in this election. America needs all right thinking citizens, their family and friends on board for this.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ron Cheong, born in Guyana, is a community activist and dedicated volunteer with an extensive international background in banking. Now residing in Toronto, Canada, he is a Fellow of the Institute of Canadian Bankers and holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Toronto.
