Trump Pushes Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric As He Tries Wooing Black-Latino Voters in South Bronx

[Webster]

(The Guardian) Trump pushes anti-immigrant rhetoric as he tries to woo Black and Hispanic voters in Bronx campaign rally
Thousands of Donald Trump supporters came out to Crotona Park in New York’s south Bronx on Thursday evening to support the former president as he rallied for nearly 90 minutes.

In attempts to woo Black and Hispanic voters in one of the country’s poorest and most diverse neighborhoods, Trump launched fiery tirades against immigrants and Joe Biden’s immigration policies. “African Americans are getting slaughtered. Hispanic Americans are getting slaughtered,” Trump said, adding that the flow of migrants into New York is hurting “our Black population and our Hispanic population, who are losing their jobs, losing their housing, losing everything they can lose”. At one point, Trump even accused migrants of wanting “to get us from within”, saying: “I think they’re building an army.”

In response to Trump, the crowd whooped and cheered, with many at one point breaking into chants of “Build the wall!” and “Send them back!”

Trump also responded to former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who said earlier this week that she would vote for him in November. “I think she’s going to be on our team,” Trump said, adding: “I appreciated what she said.”

Despite Trump’s legal woes and Biden’s handling of the border crisis, it appears that inflation is the biggest concern among voters. “The cost of living defines this election,” writes Amy Walter and David Wasserman in the Cook Political Report. A new poll by the Guardian and Harris released this week found nearly three in five Americans wrongly believe the country is in an economic recession, with the majority blaming Biden.

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Donald Trump’s rally in New York’s south Bronx on Thursday evening drew a significantly more diverse crowd compared to his typical white-majority rallies in other parts of the country.

The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington reports: Up to a quarter of the thousands of people who came to hear him (the New York City parks department said Trump’s campaign had a permit for up to 3,500 people) were Hispanic or Black. Some of the supporters wore their Make America Great Again politics proudly on their sleeves. “I’m a Black dyed-in-the-wool Republican,” read one T-shirt. A group of three Hispanic women waiting for the secret service to screen them at the start of the evening chanted “Trumpito!” “Trumpito!” as they danced to the official theme song of Trump Latinos.

Theo Diakite, 29, an African American who lives close to the park, said he was drawn to the rally out of curiosity. He has never voted in his life, but this year is feeling tempted to back Trump. He has noticed that other people in his neighborhood share that curiosity. “There are a lot of people who were firm against him in 2020, but are now not so sure.”

 

[Webster]

 

[Webster]

(The Guardian) There is no reason to think that Donald Trump will perform particularly well in November in the South Bronx, a diverse and impoverished neighborhood in New York city. But Trump went there anyway last week, in a perhaps quixotic attempt to rally Black and Hispanic supporters. The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington was on the scene: Even for a man known for his bombast, Donald Trump’s foray into one of the poorest, most diverse and staunchly Democratic parts of America, New York city’s South Bronx, on Thursday night was an offensive move of breathtaking audacity.

He held his rally in the crucible of hip-hop, where 95% of the population is Black or Hispanic and where 35% live below the poverty line. Being Trump, he declared it a historic success.

“When I woke up this morning I wondered whether it will be hostile or will it be friendly. It was a lovefest!” he said towards the end of his 90-minute speech.

Just a few blocks away from Crotona Park – the location of Trump’s first campaign rally in New York state since 2016 – is the congressional district of his nemesis, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Trump notoriously told AOC to “go back” to the country where she came from – a bold line to take with a woman born in the Bronx. Yet despite arriving in a New York borough that is home to some of his fiercest critics in the Democratic party, Trump strode onto the platform on a balmy evening as though he were returning to his own personal playground. “Right here in the Bronx, I’m thrilled to be back in the city I grew up in, the city I spent my life in,” he said.

 

[NeoMetallix]

Reading mainstream media is comical. They don't even try to be objective anymore.