In the days since Donald Trump's hate-filled rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, what's striking is the pettiness of the stakes MAGA defenders have laid out. In the final days of a dead-heat contest for the most powerful office in the world, Republicans argued we must elect a textbook fascist to protect the sacrosanct right of a white man to be rude without being criticized for it.
Most of the racist diatribes at Trump's New York City rally were not jokes. But the comments getting the most media attention — especially calling Puerto Ricans "garbage" — were offered up in a joke-like cadence by podcast host Tony Hinchcliffe. This has allowed MAGA to pretend we're having a national debate about tastefulness, rather than fascism. Hinchcliffe said liberals have "no sense of humor." Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, said others should "stop getting so offended."
Trump, however, dispensed with the fiction that we are debating the subjective quality of humor. At a Tuesday press conference, he simply reified the true MAGA belief at stake: that Trump and his allies get to say what they want, and everyone else must shut up about it. This mostly came in the form of griping that Michelle Obama was allowed to criticize him: "Obama, his wife was very nasty to me. That was not nice."
Vance did not ask Trump to "stop getting so offended."
Even during the rally, Tucker Carlson's 9-minute speech centered around the outrage of experiencing criticism. "You're not going to bully me into silence anymore," Carlson whined, adding that being able to speak without blowback is what makes him a "free man and not a slave." As a pitch for fascism, "make the liberals fake-smile at me" is exquisitely childish. But it's not even a promise that Trump can fulfill. Even if he's re-elected, Trump can strip abortion rights and he can deport millions, but he can't make others giggle at stupid, bigoted "jokes."
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