According to experts, after the recent insults towards Puerto Rico made by a famous comedian during a rally Donald Trump last Sunday in the city of New Yorkwhere they called the territory “floating island of garbage”the tycoon could experience a reverse in the elections, because approximately one million Puerto Rican voters live in “swing” states.
Before the 78-year-old tycoon’s speech, which took place at the Madison Square Gardenthe comedian Tony Hinchcliffe argument “There is literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now, I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”unleashing hundreds of thousands of rejection comments.
The teacher the teacher Chicano Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Raúl Hinojosa, told EFE that everything that happened “is definitely going to cost Trump very valuable votes.”
And it is that a large number of artists, politicians of both parties and both the Puerto Rican and Latino communities in general found in the United States, have repudiated the racist rhetoricespecially since Hispanics were singled out for “reproducing too much.”
Although the campaign spoke out yesterday, Monday, ensuring that the comedian’s words do not represent Donald Trump, the damage seems to be imminent, and the insult would cause thousands of people from Puerto Rico to elect Kamala Harriswho also last Sunday presented a plan to support the island.
Regarding the situation, Miguel Tinker Salas, analyst and retired professor of Latin American Studies at Pomona Universitypointed out that Hinchcliffe’s insults reveal the rhetoric of racism that has always characterized Donald Trump and all the people around him.
“These messages have been repeated over and over again during the campaign, when it is said that immigrants poison the race. That is an example of this rhetoric, they cannot hide from the fact that it was a joke.”
It must be considered that more than 470 thousand Puerto Ricans reside in Pennsylvania, 132 thousand in North Carolina and another 124 thousand in Georgia. Census Bureau data indicates there are tens of thousands also living in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona.
It is worth noting that most of the criticism focuses on Donald Trumpfor not censoring the comedian’s words immediately. For his part, Democrat Josh Shapiro explained that the Republican candidate did not stop Hinchcliffe because “he has made a career of attacking others, stepping to the line, trying to just be provocative at other people’s expense.”
Various Latino organizations raised their voices to demand that the campaign issue an apology, remembering that during the Trump administration, the politician had already targeted Puerto Ricans and also Mexican Latinos.
The insult made to Puerto Ricans could mean a large bill for Trump in various states of the country that he supposedly has already won, and for candidates who support him. In fact, the Puerto Rican Roundtable of Florida issued a statement indicating that the Republican “should not forget” that there are nearly 800,000 Puerto Ricans in the state who can exercise their right to vote.
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