Trump had a rally in Madison Square Garden this weekend and it was reminiscent of a Nazi rally. They brought on a ‘comedian’ who made a ‘joke’. I don’t know if you know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.
Ocasio-Cortez said it all in the clip above: this is what the Republican party is, a clique of elitist thugs who willingly insult entire ethnicities because they believe that they, by virtue of their whiteness, are truly superior. The Trump campaign is scrambling to distance themselves from this alienation of part of the electorate, but you know this is what the think, deep down. Notice that the audience laughed at the ‘joke’.
Walz was characteristically pithy: Hinchcliffe is a jackwad.
Hinchcliffe has responded!
Oh. It was just a joke. It was taken out of context. Where have I heard those excuses before?
This was deliberate. Get a bunch of racist shit head “comics” to say racist shit, then mine the justifiable outrage for right wing, smack-talk material.
“See! Liberals can’t take a joke!”
“The PC Thought Police want to make comedy illegal”
“Liberal Snowflakes! They’re sooo emotional and get upset over NOTHING!”
Called it.
That defense could have worked… if the thing was actually funny.
Oh, It was a “joke.” Here’s a joke: New York has made a giant stream of garbage, it’s called Donald Trump. Just kidding folks!”
How about replacing Puerto Rico with Bermuda, also an island, and a well known playground of rich white people? Because it wouldn’t be “funny” if the joke is about whites!
“I made fun of everyone” is not… there can be substance to insult humor, but it usually requires a) not punching down and b) some sort of participation on the part of the insulted. That he went on to denigrate all Jewish people and other groups isn’t the out he seems to think it is. It’s just that he’s an equal-opportunity dick.
Saying it was a joke is the cover for saying anything you want? That opens the possibilities. I’m certain if I said stuff like that at my job I wouldn’t last a cay. Especially if I said it to my Puerto Rican co-worker who walks around during his shift knocking Democrats to anyone he can get to listen.
“It was a joke” and “Don’t get offended at a joke” and even, “Comedy is supposed to offend you” are fairly common defenses that I hear comedians use for the flashback they get over their jokes. Ricky Gervais uses it a lot for religious people who get upset about his god and bible jokes. John Mulaney, Dave Chapelle, and Jimmy Carr also ridicule people who get offended at jokes. It would be interesting to hear what these guys have to say about Hinchcliffe’s remarks.
So what draws the line between “OK” offensive and “Not OK” offensive? I don’t think this joke is OK. It’s not funny. It might be funny if he turned it into a jab at American policy on Puerto Rico which is why the island is so downtrodden, but that almost certainly didn’t happen.
I bet John Stewart covers this dichotomy tonight on The Daily Show. It’ll be interesting to see.
Maybe try being funny?
I think it is telling that in the comedian’s “defence” of being insulting to Puerto Rico, he is misogynistic.
Matt Walsh is claiming victory: “I hope everyone appreciates the masterful strategy here. Trump is goading the Dems into spending their final week crying about jokes. They are absolutely taking the bait. They can’t help themselves.”
@10 Ever notice how these imbeciles employ the ad iram fallacy? Whenever anyone criticizes them, they launch straight into the “UR MAD LOL” response – it’s always calling their opponents’ complaints “crying”, “screaming”, “losing their minds”, etc. It’s the same kind of language you’d expect to see in the title of a clickbait video, with the words in question in all-caps, and a thumbnail featuring stock art of an angry yelling woman or sonething.
If you have to Foghorn Leghorn, “That’s a joke, son!” then you ain’t funny.
Don’t take my advice to go out to YouTube and pull up clips from so-called “conservative” comedians. I am not responsible for your brain damage. It’s mostly childish insults and projection. But, once you’re done, take a nice Ricky Gervais shower or watch for the 100th time Eddie Izzard’s “Cake or death” routine.
Thank me later.
Maybe this idiot can explain what’s “funny” about his “joke”.
There are situations where insult humor can work. A political event isn’t one of them because at a political event everything you say is being judged on it’s politics. You can’t make fun of somebody or some group and then claim it was just a joke. By definition it’s a political event, it’s all politics.
Backlash to the unfunny joke has been so overwhelming that Trump campaign had to issue a statement distancing themselves from the comments. “Obviously, that joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or our campaign, and I think it is sad that the media will pick up on one joke that was made by a comedian, rather than the truth that were shared by the phenomenal list of speakers that we had.”
Yeah, I’m not buying it. It does reflect Trump’s views.
A sampling of the coverage, as reported by Talking Points Memo:
– NYT: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism
– Axios: MAGA speakers unleash ugly rhetoric at Trump’s MSG rally
– Politico: Trump’s New York homecoming sparks backlash over racist and vulgar remarks
– WaPo: Trump rally speakers lob racist insults, call Puerto Rico ‘island of garbage’
And there’s this:
Image of the cover can be viewed here:
https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1850739671954813080
or here: TPM link
There’s actually even more disturbing stuff at that Madison Square Garden rally than a bad joke. For example, it harkens to a Nazi rally at the Garden on February 20, 1939. And it goes on, per Heather Cox Richardson:
But the particularly scary part is Donald insinuating that he and Speaker of the House Johnson, who was there, have a secret plan. Trump said, “I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House, right? Our little secret is having a big impact, he and I have a secret, we will tell you what it is when the race is over.” Per Richardson the secret is probably similar to what Trump attempted in 2020: disrupt the electoral vote and throw it to the state reps where each state gets 1 vote. There are more GOP states than DNC states. Johnson will probably go along with it, although the President of the Senate presides which I guess will be Harris.
At one time, not so very long ago, that joke all by itself would have ended Trump’s bid for the White House. In fact, there’s a long list of things that in the not so very distant past would, each of them standing alone, have ended Trump’s bid for the White House.
I don’t know at this point who is going to win the election. But the fact that a multi-times-convicted felon, who has also been found by a jury to have engaged in rape and civil fraud, and who just told us that Hitler did some very good things, and who also tells us that immigrants eat cats and dogs, and is obviously mentally incapacitated, and by the way sent a mob to the Capitol to try to over turn the last election — the fact that after all of that, he is still a viable candidate for president, tells me that the country may be beyond saving at this point.
We may just be entering a dark phase of our history, and there’s nothing to be done except get through it, minimizing the damage where possible. Meanwhile, as I look at the US, I feel like the teacher of a brilliant but lazy student who could be making straight As but instead is barely making Cs. Deep sadness, coupled with a pang for what might have been.
And here’s the thing: Even if you are an honest conservative who votes Republican because you disagree with national health care and abortion rights, there were other conservatives running who would have given you conservative policies without also being convicted felons, openly racist, and arguably demented. You could have voted in the primaries for DeSantis, or Nikki Haley. So no, Trump was not the only game in town for honest conservatives. Republicans picked him explicitly because of what he is. And that’s even more frightening.
Ever noticed that right-wing jokes are literally never funny? Conservatives just don’t have any sense of humor.