Donald Trump knows New York. So surely he knew that holding a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden would inevitably evoke allusions to the one that out-and-out Nazis staged there in 1939.
Trump’s Sunday night rally didn’t just recall that event; it resembled it. There hasn’t been anything so hateful at America’s most famous sports palace since Nazis flaunted swastika flags and cracked jokes about “President Rosenfeld.”
Back then, the targets of hatred were Jews. Today’s targets of hatred are immigrants, especially if they speak Spanish.
Trump selected so-called comedian Tony Hinchcliffe to open the program. Here’s what he said: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”
Another despicable off-color remark followed, about Hispanics and birth rates.
Perhaps Hinchcliffe doesn’t know that Puerto Ricans are American citizens. But that’s beside the point.
The sewage that spewed from his mouth at MAGA Square Garden is consistent with the tenor of Trump’s campaign. He’s as responsible for what Hinchcliffe said, despite his campaign’s feeble attempt to disclaim it, as if he had said it himself.
It’s not only Puerto Ricans who rightfully resent what was said. Every decent American should. A campaign that consistently appeals to people’s worst instincts to get votes takes them to be as bigoted as the campaign itself.
Hinchcliffe wasn’t the only invited speaker spewing vile hatred at the Garden.
Sid Rosenberg, a conservative New York radio “shock jock,” referred to Democrats this way: “The whole f—g party, a bunch of degenerates, lowlifes, Jew-haters and lowlifes.” He said that “f—g illegals get whatever they want.”
These were the warmup speeches in advance of the headliner, who just might be the next president of the United States.
What has happened to this country? After nine years of Trump, too many Americans have grown numb to his nativist, racist, sexist ways, from “Lock her up!” to “Grab ’em by the p—y” to “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats.”
Trump’s campaign conspicuously did not repudiate the vile comments by his speakers (except for the “island of garbage” talk), and Trump himself repeated a refrain about “the enemy within.”
The enemy within is that kind of an appeal to voters. It should not be only the Democrats and the media who take a stand against it. Republicans should, too, but too few have.
It’s time for all Republicans to reaffirm, repeatedly and unmistakably, what Americans once took for granted: We’re a nation of immigrants. We owe our greatness to their ambition, talent, energy, hard work and, above all, overwhelming patriotic love for our democracy.
