The MSG Hatefest

Trump held a rally at New York's Madison Square Garden last night and it went exactly how as you might have expected.

I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.

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We’re eight days out from Election Day, and I’ll send updates every day between now and then on the state of race and the latest doings. I’ll try to keep as many of these posts as I can in front of the paywall, which means that if you’re enjoying Truth of Consequences, please consider a paid subscription.

MAGA world had a moment last night …

Former President Donald J. Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday opened with a standup comic who called Puerto Rico an “island of garbage” in a set that also included derogatory remarks about Latinos generally, African Americans, Palestinians and Jews.

… The comic, Tony Hinchcliffe, was the warm-up act ahead of several other speakers whose remarks were laced with vulgar insults, profanity and racist comments.

The crowd inside Madison Square Garden was predominantly white, with a significant number of Latinos. Many groaned at Mr. Hinchcliffe’s insult to Puerto Rico. Still, he told a tasteless, vulgar joke about the size of Hispanic families, mentioned watermelons as he called out a Black man in the audience and mocked Palestinians as rock-throwers and Jews as cheapskates.

Hinchcliffe’s truly tasteless Puerto Rican joke has gotten most of the attention, in large part because there are a large number of Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania and Florida. Indeed, Puerto Ricans are so electorally crucial that even Republican politicians like Florida Senator Rick Scott are condemning Hinchcliffe.

You may notice that Scott has much less criticism for Trump’s unceasing attacks on Mexican immigrants or Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio.

According to Danielle Alvarez, who is a senior advisor to the Trump campaign, “This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” which would perhaps be more credible if Trump wasn’t running the most openly racist and xenophobic presidential campaign in modern American history.

But really, the entire rally was vile and gross. The Times called it a “A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism.”

From the Washington Post write-up of the event.

Grant Cardone, a businessman, said Vice President Kamala Harris and “her pimp handlers will destroy our country,” a metaphor that casts the Democratic presidential nominee as a prostitute.

David Rem, a childhood friend of Trump, called Harris “the devil” and “the Antichrist.”

And former Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked the attention paid to Harris’s racial identity: “She’s just so impressive as the first Samoan, Malaysian, low-IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president,” Carlson said. (Harris’s father is from Jamaica, and her mother was from India.)

Honestly, it’s remarkable to me why any self-respecting person would want to have anything to do with this party of racists and degenerates. I felt like showering after watching just a small snippet of the event.

I also listened to part of Trump’s speech, and it was unbearable. He rambles, he slurs his words, he goes off on weird tangents, he spews hatred and division, and he makes insane statements and tells bizarre stories that even a child can figure out aren’t true (but not, it seems, the people who attend Trump’s rallies). None of it makes any sense, and it’s unremittingly dull.

I’m generally an empathetic guy, and I try to put myself in other people's shoes. Moreover, as someone who writes about politics, I want to understand why people make their political choices.

Still, as long as I live, I will never understand how anyone is capable of voting for Donald Trump. There’s absolutely nothing redeeming about him. He’s a pathetic whiner; he’s dumber than a box of rocks; he’s utterly charmless; and, above all, he’s boring. I get the argument that he echoes his supporters’ political beliefs and channels their fears about the future. I have no doubt that’s true, but at the same time, he’s so transparently dishonest and so ragingly insecure that I’m flummoxed as to how the people who adore them don’t see through it. The level of cognitive dissonance that it takes to support Trump is seemingly limitless. To support him is to wave away so much terrible behavior and so much obvious contradiction.

I sort of get how the genuinely cynical can do that (it’s the nature of cynicism, I suppose). Still, the people who don pro-Trump paraphernalia wait in line for hours at his rallies, listen to his interminable, Fidel-esque speeches, and cheer his inane utterances … those people are a mystery to me, and they always will be.

As for the political impact of this event … while it’s unlikely to change a lot of minds, it’s hard to imagine that it’s helpful for Trump that the next few days will likely be focused on these racist utterings, rather than his case for another term or his criticisms of Harris.

At this point, it’s all about motivation and winning over that handful of undecided voters — and in a race this close, every little bit matters. But, in general, if at this point you don’t know Trump is a horrible racist, I’m not sure what happened at MSG on Sunday will make much of an impact.

This Twitter comment from a former Republican captured much of my feelings about last night's event. To support Trump is to debase oneself.

Could Nebraska Go Blue?

I’ll have more to say about the Nebraska Senate race later this week … but suffice it to say, this could be the biggest shock of the 2024 Senate cycle.

One thing worth pointing out about the Texas Senate race. A GOP incumbent up by 4 in a state that traditionally goes Republican is a tough hill to overcome, but the poll also has Harris down 10 to Trump. Considering that Biden lost Texas in 2020 by 5.5 points, that number seems a bit high … and if that number is high, it’s possible that Cruz’s lead isn’t as large as 4 points. There’s good reason to doubt that Democrats will win this year in Texas, but this race might be closer than this poll indicates.

Musical Interlude

I’ll also have more to say about Phil Lesh's passing on Friday morning. It’s gutting news, but at the same time, Phil was 84 years old. He entertained and brought joy to millions of people, and his musical legacy is simply extraordinary. His was a life very well lived.

The September 16, 1990, Dead show at MSG was, in effect, the Brent Mydland funeral show. He had died two months earlier. Phil’s bass on this soulful “He’s Gone” is fantastic. The post Drums/Space “Standing on the Moon” is pretty great, too.