By james art 
Waltz: Donald Trump’s closing arguments at Sunday’s rally in New York were hateful
Gov. Tim Waltz, speaking in Waukesha on Monday, blasted Donald Trump’s speech Sunday night at Madison Square Garden as a speech of hate and division.
Even by the extraordinarily lackluster standards of this election season’s rhetoric, Sunday’s rally for Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden set a new low.
The rally seemed to crystallize the former president’s contention that America is “like a garbage can for the world” because of the migrants and the Democratic leaders — the “enemy within” — who welcome them.
The announcements almost immediately sparked widespread pushback, particularly from Latino — specifically Puerto Rican — communities in states like Wisconsin.
“Yesterday’s Trump rally at Madison Square Garden echoed the dangerous rhetoric of the infamous 1939 Nazi rally held at the same venue,” Voces de la Frontera, a Milwaukee-based immigration rights group, said in a statement. “The event was filled with racist and offensive remarks.
Among the many statements made at the rally:
- Puerto Rico is a “floating pile of garbage.”
- Latinos keep having babies because there is “no way out”, just as they come to our country and never leave. (The actual line was an even cruder sexual reference.)
- Our country was built on hard work, not diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
- “America is for Americans and Americans alone.”
- Vice President Kamala Harris is a “Samoan, Malaysian, former California prosecutor with a low IQ.” (Her mother was born in India; her father was born in Jamaica.)
- Harris is the “antichrist” and the “devil”.
- Harris imported criminal migrants from “prisons and prisons, insane asylums and mental institutions all over the world, from Venezuela to the Congo.”
The sources for those comments were the raunchy comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, TV personality Dr. Phil, Trump adviser Stephen Miller, Fox personality and Trump whisperer Sean Hannity, Trump’s longtime friend David Rehm, and Trump himself.
Some observers saw the event as the latest in a campaign filled with hateful comments. Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera and a national immigration reform leader, called it a “distraction” aimed at creating more fear of Latinos and immigrants in the US
Others said they were shocked, especially by Hinchcliffe’s line about Puerto Rico, which even the Trump campaign tried to disavow. Prominent Puerto Rican artists, including Grammy winners Bad Bunny and Ricky Martin, condemned Trump’s remarks at the rally, as did many political officials who are Latino or have Latino constituents.
Closer to home, Avilda Bosque reacted emotionally after learning from her husband and daughter that her homeland had been mocked.
“This is no joke,” she said. “Puerto Rico is a beautiful island.”
Bosque has lived in Milwaukee for 20 years, she said, but grew up in Puerto Rico and returns often. The 53-year-old trustee said her entire family voted against Trump.
Although voters living in Puerto Rico and other US territories are not eligible to vote in presidential elections, Bosque framed the election in a larger context.
“Trump’s hatred is not just directed at us,” Bosque said. “This is also directed at our other brothers and sisters who are Latino. I hope the Puerto Ricans who are still undecided realize that he is a racist.
Brandon Yellowbird-Stevens, a father of four from Puerto Rico, is the vice chairman of the Oneida Nation. Yellowbird-Stevens added that Puerto Ricans are also indigenous, as the Tainos tribe is the indigenous people of the Caribbean, including the island that became Puerto Rico.
“To me, that really speaks to the type of people that Trump has in his camp … people with racist undertones,” he said, adding that he was speaking for himself, not the tribe. “It really speaks to the nature of how they view Indigenous people and people of color.”
CK Ledesma Borrero, 37, an interdisciplinary Puerto Rican artist in Milwaukee, echoed that perspective.
“This is the way the empire of the United States has always seen Puerto Rico since its inception,” Borrero said.
Borrero’s work interweaves culture, identity, and activism against patriarchy and capitalism, among other social issues. The positive, Borrero said, is that more people may learn about the mistreatment of Puerto Rico after Sunday’s rally.
“We hope this will make people understand that a particular party has no interest in representing us,” Borrero said.
Latinos constitute an important electoral bloc
Trump called immigrants “the bloodsuckers of our country” and vowed, if re-elected, to undertake “the largest mass deportation in our country.”
Yet Republicans are simultaneously courting the Latino vote.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican, voted against bipartisan immigration legislation earlier this year and accused Biden of wanting to “flood” the US with migrants because “they’re going to end up voting for Democrats.”
Yet last week, speaking at the Wisconsin Republican Party’s Latino Community Center on Milwaukee’s south side, Johnson said mass deportations were unrealistic. “They’re here, they’re working, they’re playing by the rules, they haven’t committed any crimes and stuff like that, that’s kind of the next layer (of immigration reform) and we’re going to figure out how to do that,” Johnson said.
Latinos make up nearly one in five people in the United States. Puerto Ricans make up the second-largest Hispanic group in the United States — after Mexicans — with an estimated 5.8 million people, according to the Pew Research Center. An additional 3.3 million live on the island.
In Wisconsin, Puerto Ricans make up 1.06 percent of the population, with just over 60,000 people, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. The state’s total Latino population is approaching half a million people and has grown nearly 8 percent in the past decade. It is the largest minority group in Wisconsin.
Forward Latino, a service and advocacy group based in Franklin, issued a statement Monday saying that while the Trump campaign has tried to distance itself from Hinchcliffe’s line, Trump’s actions while president suggest otherwise .
After Hurricane Maria in 2017, then-President Trump blocked the roughly $20 billion in emergency aid the island was approved to receive. “As a result,” said Forward Latino National President Darryl Morin, “numerous projects were canceled or delayed, and most of the island was without power for more than 10 months, causing the unnecessary loss of additional American lives.”
Morin also pointed out that more than a quarter of a million Puerto Ricans have served in military engagements from World War I to the present day.
Last night’s comments reminded the Hispanic and Latino communities and all their allies, Morin said, that “American freedoms and advantages belong not just to the privileged few, but to all Americans.”
Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz, during a campaign stop in Waukesha on Monday, took up the theme of unity over division.
“Their closing argument last night was clear to the rest of the world: it’s about hate, it’s about division, it’s about separation,” Walz said of Sunday’s rally at Madison Square Garden. “Kamala Harris is here making the case, as I do with all of you, that this is a new way forward, an opportunity to be president for all Americans.”
Cecil Negron, 71, moved to Milwaukee from Ponce, Puerto Rico when he was 8 years old. He said he was tired of Puerto Rico being underestimated.
“We are Americans,” Negron said.
Negron, a Caribbean jazz musician, said he is focusing his energy on motivating Puerto Ricans and Latinos to get out and vote. This election season, he played the conguero at several rallies urging Latino and minority voters to vote.
“We’re here,” he said, “and we’re not going anywhere.”
Sophie Carson of the Journal Sentinel staff and USA Today contributed to this report.