11 Incredibly Racist Moments From Donald Trump's Rally Yesterday

This is not an exaggeration. The phrase "Nazi Rally" trended throughout the event, with half a million posts using the language on Twitter (now known as X).

What could have led to this? Well, the event — which was meant to kick off the presidential candidate's final stretch of campaigning — was full of Republican speakers who, to be frank, made incredibly racist and alarming remarks.

1. Much of the immediate backlash was directed toward comedian and podcast host Tony Hinchcliffe, who received gasps from the crowd after referring to Puerto Rico as literal garbage. He said, "There's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it's called Puerto Rico."

The video of his statement garnered heavy criticism after it amassed over 25.3 million views online. Later, in a statement to Forbes, Trump campaign senior advisor Daniella Alvarez seemingly tried to distance themselves from Hinchcliffe, saying, "the “joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

2. That was far from the only criticism received by Tony. He also drew ire from former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro — and the general public — after falling into the tired, racist trope of oversexualizing Latinos while relating families seeking refuge in the United States to a failed version of the pull-out method.

Tony said, "And these Latinos, they love making babies, too. Just know that. They do. They do. There's no pulling out. They don't do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country."

4. AND THEN he pointed out a Black man in the crowd who he said was a "buddy" he "carved watermelons" with at party.

(There's a trend here of the jokes not only being very unfunny but also incredibly uncreative. He just touted the most commonly used racist stereotypes that have existed for decades.)

5. Moving on (finally) from Tony, disbarred lawyer Rudy Giuliani took the stage to declare "Palestinians are taught to kill us at 2 years old... and Harris wants to bring them to you."

The statement is fearmongering and demonization of a group of people at its core. 

6. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson also delivered remarks, saying, "It's going to be pretty tough for them, 10 days from now, to look in the eye of America with a straight face... and say, 'You know what, Kamala Harris got 85 million votes because she's so impressive.' As the first Samoan, Malaysian, low I.Q. former California prosecutor ever to be elected president."

Ignoring the suggestion that Harris has a low I.Q. — an idea without base that is arguably rooted in eugenicist theories surrounding the intelligence of Black people —  Tucker misidentifying Harris's race as "Samoan or Malaysian" is clearly meant as a dig. My question is: What about being Samoan or Malaysian is insulting? 

...The billionaire wore a Make America Great Again hat featuring the now-less commonly used Faktur font, which was heavily used in Nazi campaigning. Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf cover features the title in hand-drawn Fraktur font, and the style was reportedly adopted on many official Nazi documents and letterheads.

10. This list would not be complete without an appearance from the man of the hour himself, Donald Trump. During the rally, he promised to "invoke" laws from the 1700s. "Think of that," he said. "That's how far back — that's when they had law and order."

The period of "law and order" he praises included a time when women and Black people were not allowed to vote, and slavery had yet to be abolished. 

On top of this, Trump specifically pointed to reawakening the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 which, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, "is a wartime authority that allows the president to detain or deport the natives and citizens of an enemy nation. The law permits the president to target these immigrants without a hearing and based only on their country of birth or citizenship." Furthermore, "it can be — and has been — wielded against immigrants who have done nothing wrong, have evinced no signs of disloyalty, and are lawfully present in the United States."

What are your thoughts about the rally? Let us know in the comments.