By Ron Cheong | Photo by A.I

Americans who cherish freedom, democracy, and opportunity only have one real choice in this election. America needs all right-thinking citizens, their families, and their friends onboard for this one.

A Disgrace Staged at Madison Square Garden

At what was supposed to be the climatic wrap-up of his 2024 campaign for the Presidency of the United States at Madison Square Garden, Trump and his cabal of invited speakers descended to a place of darkness not before seen at this level in public life. It was vulgar, hateful, offensive, vitriolic concoctions and lies, a descent into madness unbecoming of even – as Trump likes to put it, a “shithole nation,” much less the highly blessed United States of America.

Soul of a Trump Presidency on Display

And this was the tone right from the outset at Madison Square Garden, getting louder and more deranged with every speaker. The vitriol, hate, and threats continued throughout the night, even though the campaign vetted each speaker’s presentation beforehand and displayed it on a teleprompter.

Clearly, this was the tenor of the message they wanted to deliver during the rally to hype up the MAGA base. There is no room for subterfuge in claiming a mistake or spinning this any other way here; there was no mistake. 

The opening speaker spot went to right-wing podcaster and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who set what was to follow for the rest of the night, delivering with a dour expression, “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah, I think it’s called Puerto Rico”. 

These remarks have to be condemned in the strongest terms. But an even greater condemnation not limited to the speaker is that this verbal racist assault against citizens of the United States of America was greeted with cheers, laughter, and applause by the assembled MAGA supporters.

In another humorless, crass insult, he declared, “These Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.”

His diatribe further included the dog whistle of eating cats and dogs, inferring that Black people love watermelons, and denigrating Palestinians.

And it went downhill from there. Tucker Carlson insulted both Harris’ racial background and her intelligence.   In a crazed berserk delivery, he called Kamala Harris “the first Samoan-Malaysian, low-IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.”   

Other speakers added their voice with other misogynistic racial attacks, 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,” eliciting recollections of his stated wish to use the military against the American people

It is not surprising that reports say that Madison Square Gardens was deliberately selected to commemorate and reflect the Nazi rally at the exact location in 1939 and to be the crowning cap-off of Trump’s 2024 campaign. Recall that Trump’s former Chief-of-Staff reported that Trump told him that he wanted “the kind of generals Hitler’s had.” And that “Hitler did some good things.”   

Call to Action

The response by Puerto Rican officials, artists, the public, and clergy has been swift and angry. And they’re taking action. Entertainers Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Luis Fonsi, and Bad Bunny have endorsed Kamala Harris. Puerto Ricans who support Harris hope this will swing more Puerto Ricans living in the States to Harris. There are sizeable Puerto Rican populations in swing states like Pennsylvania 

Puerto Rico’s most prominent newspaper, El Nuevo Dia, endorsed Harris following the Madison Square Garden’s mess.

In a terse open letter to Trump, Puerto Rican Archbishop Roberto Gonzales Nieves called for Trump to apologize personally. But in a press conference from Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday evening, Trump seemed to dig in, using the occasion for more denunciation of immigrants and his continuing obsession with crowd size, bragging that he could have filled Madison Square Garden’s 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.” 

In an interview with ABC News, he claimed he didn’t know Tony Hinchcliffe or hear his speech: “I don’t know him; someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is.” This is par for the course for Trump. He doesn’t know about Project 2025 or that he had a white supremacist over for dinner, either.  

How Much More Proof Do People Need That Trump is Unfit for the Presidency?

The election is less than a week away, and the polls show it as a neck-and-neck race. Trump and his campaign will do everything to spin this latest example of his unfitness and minimize any loss in support. If successful, this could have tragic consequences in a race as tight as this.

But even if the race is not as tight as the polls say, this is no time to let down the guard. The stakes are too high. This is not one of those times to sit things out. Americans who cherish freedom, democracy, and opportunity only have one real choice in this election. America needs all right-thinking citizens, their families, and their friends onboard for this one.

Ron Cheong is a retired banker with extensive international experience, including the Caribbean, originally from Guyana and now residing in Toronto, as a Fellow of the Institute of Canadian Bankers with a BSc from the University of Toronto. He has contributed over 100 articles to various ethnic media publications and serves on the Ontario Council for International Cooperation.

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