Trump holds racist rally to help make people forget he’s a fascist

FILE PHOTO (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

Donald Trump has found a way to deflect all those new “f” word charges that hang around his neck like a medallion of Hitler’s head.

He’s hoping you’ll forget his fascist tendencies by surrounding himself with racist, sexist hate talk that is vile and vulgar.

His best defense is to share the stage with his minions who call Kamala Harris a prostitute; Hilary Clinton a b—tch; And then there was Tucker Carlson purposefully misidentifying Harris as a “Samoan, Malaysian” and not as a South Asian.

And this was supposed to make us all feel better about a second Trump presidency?

Dictator dreams

You’ll recall last week, there was that New York Times report citing Trump’s former chief of staff Gen. John Kelly, who believes Trump met the definition of a fascist and would rule like one.

Then there was General Mark Milley’s declaration in Bob Woodward’s new book that Trump definitely was a fascist.

Finally, there was the Atlantic’s story that not only revealed a racist President Trump reneging on paying for the funeral of a female Army recruit, a Mexican American bludgeoned to death by a fellow soldier, Trump saying, “It doesn’t cost $60,000 to bury a fucking Mexican.”

Of course, Trump was just getting warmed up, as the story also revealed how Trump as president said, “I need the kind of generals Hitler had.”

Those are all charges that would be hard to doff off, unless none of us really care.

But we all should.

Especially Asian Americans. Many of us are in the US because we escaped more current (post-World War II) and no less offensive despots than Hitler.

China has oppressed the Tibetans and the Uighurs. My late friend Dith Pran would always remind me of Pol Pot of Cambodia. And let’s not forget Bangladesh, Burma, the list goes on.

But Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos is always near and dear to our hearts. An authoritarian puppet supported by Reagan and Bush, big Daddy Marcos had human rights stats from the ’60s to the ‘80s in the Philippines that are monumental: 3,257 known extrajudicial killings, 35,000 people tortured, more than 700 people disappeared, 70,000 people incarcerated.

Most of them were political opponents who dared to cry out for freedom.

Could this happen in America?

It did in the Philippines where we saw what happened to those deemed “the enemy from within.” Ironically, that’s now a favorite Trump phrase.

And there’s no taking it back.

Instead of denying his fascist tendencies when the news stories came out last week, Trump went after the generals and reporters, who frankly have more credibility than he does.

And then just to prove who he really is, Trump followed up all the fascist talk with what he must consider his best defense—an unabashed cranked up Madison Square Garden party of racism, sexism and hate last weekend.

The rally doppelganger and the most offensive joke

For longtime political watchers it had to be like attending their first soft Klan rally.

This was a non-hooded, but still an inappropriate display, more fitting perhaps at a comedy club, not a political event. In fact, some observers saw it eerily similar to the second coming of a neo-Nazi assembly at the old Madison Square Garden in 1939.

The most offensive and ill-advised joke/comment may have been from Tony Hinchcliffe, the comedian/host of the podcast “Kill Tony,” and a Tom Brady Roast standout. He’s become a key gatekeeper of young comedians who seek his blessing to launch their careers. In the comedy world, Hinchcliffe is seen as a kingmaker.

But on Sunday, Hinchcliffe’s “Kill Tony” magic was more like “Kill Trump” as Hinchcliffe rocked the political world with this joke: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now, trash in the middle of the ocean and I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

Funny at a comedy venue maybe, but at an event in New York City, it’s a joke that could cost the former president.

Consider that in the battleground state of Pennsylvania alone there are nearly 500,000 Puerto Rican voters. Nationwide. there are about 5.9 million Puerto Ricans in the US. If they’re naturalized, they can vote, and in a close race like this year’s presidency, Trump needs all the votes he can get.

But if they live on the island, Puerto Ricans are second-class Americans who have no vote and no representation in Congress.

Either way, there’s nothing funny about Puerto Rico’s status. The joke was offensive.

It’s why Puerto Ricans, about five times smaller than the Asian American vote, immediately raised a stink with members of Congress who were highly critical of Trump and the jokesters. But so were those like Florida’s Republican Senator Rick Scott who needs the Puerto Rican vote.

That’s some leverage on the part of the Puerto Ricans. Move over Taylor Swift, here came JLo and Bad Bunny to the rescue.

Think about how AAPI compare. Did any AAPI person except me raise an issue about the misidentification of Harris by another Madison Square Garden speaker Tucker Carlson?

Trump PR folks disavowed the Hinchcliffe joke and the others in an attempt to make the problem go away. But they sure didn’t disavow Trump and his speech advocating for racist policies like the largest deportation program in American history.

There was also nothing to soften Trump’s s “enemy from within” talk that includes not just immigrants, but politicians and “the press.”

What are we left with? Just what Trump wants: Fear, hate, racism, sexism, misogyny. It’s Trump’s closing argument. He didn’t want to have another debate, or a rigorous interview, Trump wanted his garden party to showcase his detestable MAGA-based rhetoric.

With all the media and most Americans expressing disapproval, how can voters still say they prefer the jokers’ inspiration, Donald Trump?

Trump’s first words after he came to the rally stage was a question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

Frankly, four years ago we were relieved, thought to be done with Trump.

But when Trump continued to lie after his election loss and even staged an attempted coup, the country’s been in a funk, living in the shadow of Trump’s whining and historic criminal prosecution.

To date, Trump still hasn’t learned his lesson about the peaceful transition of power. A new poll says nearly 70 percent fear if Trump loses this time he won’t concede.

So, are we better off now than we were four years ago?

As long as Trump is kept in check, for democracy’s sake, yes, we are.

If not, that Trump rally signals we could have a long and ugly four years ahead.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He writes a column for the Inquirer.net’s USA channel. He’s covered politics and the news in Hawaii, California and Washington, DC where in 1989 he was the first Filipino American to regularly host a national news show at NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

He does a micro-talk show on www.patreon.com/emilamok. See him Nov. 4 and Nov. 18 at the Marsh in San Francisco doing an excerpt from an upcoming one-man show. Tickets are available here.