A comedian may cost Trump the election: Puerto Ricans respond

NEW YORK: After comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made some racist ‘jokes’ about Puerto Ricans at Trump’s mega rally at Madison Square Garden, Latino voters have made their voices heard.

The comments made on Sunday, which called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” may prove to be the deciding factor in certain battleground states. For example, in Pennsylvania, nearly half a million residents are of Puerto Rican descent, and they made their voices heard immediately. Media sources are claiming that a protest is being planned for Trump’s upcoming rally in the Latino majority city of Allentown.

Florida, which has historically been a swing state, but has leaned Republican since Trump’s first election bid, also saw a large amount of fallout. The state has the largest population of Puerto Ricans in the US, which is about 1.2 million, according to the University of California. Members of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida voiced their disgust with the comments made on Sunday.

The president of the caucus, Rolando Barrero stated that “this language is not just derogatory, it’s dehumanising, and utterly unacceptable to anyone who’s aspiring to lead our country.”

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Barrero went on to say that “this is not an isolated incident, Donald Trump has a history of blatant disrespect and negligence towards Puerto Rico, Latino’s in general,” adding shortly after that “you have to remember these are American citizens you’re talking about.”

Candidate for US Senator Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who came to America from Ecuador, where her family grew up under a military dictatorship, explained that she understands “very well what it looks like when you have people in government, people in power that use democratic institutions, the election system, to obtain that power and then destroy everything that is important and valuable.”

“Last night at Donald trumps rally, we saw the continuation of extreme and disgusting rhetoric that him and Rick Scott have continued to push this entire time,” Mucarsel-Powell said, before reminding voters of Trump’s family separation policy, that separated migrant children “from the arms of their parents.”

“The insults aimed at our Puerto Rican brothers and sisters, there’s absolutely nothing funny about that,” the former congresswoman said.

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US Representative Darren Soto reminded voters of how the former President blocked aid to Puerto Rico after the US territory was devastated by Hurricane Maria. “Its clear discrimination what’s happening,” Soto said, adding that “it’s just more of this racism, more of this fascism of attacking minorities as vermin, as non-human. Those are classic fascist tactics.”

According to the BBC, Puerto Ricans are reportedly the second largest Latino subgroups in the swing states of North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, meaning the comments made by Hinchcliffe may be detrimental to Trump’s election bid.

The comedian responded to the backlash on X, formerly known as Twitter, as he responded to criticism from US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz.

“Wild that a vice presidential candidate would take time out of his ‘busy schedule’ to analyse a joke taken out of context to make it seem racist,” Hinchliffe wrote after stating that the two had “no sense of humour.”

The comedian went on to say that he loves Puerto Rico and vacations there, to which Ocasio Cortez responded by writing “You don’t ‘love Puerto Rico’. You like drinking pina coladas. There’s a difference.”

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