Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures after speaking at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, October 27, 2024. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP)
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will now make their final remarks. Trump’s concluding remarks, however, are an invitation rather than a closing argument. In an attempt to provoke Harris and force her to conflate her parting message, he and his campaign are acting.
The Trump campaign has made racist, xenophobic, and violent words and emotions during the previous week, especially during Sunday night’s event at Madison Square Garden. To mention a few: The Trump campaign welcomed comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” The Democratic Party, according to radio host Sid Rosenberg, is “a bunch of degenerates, lowlifes,” and “Jew-haters.” Harris has “pimp handlers,” according to Grant Cardone, manager of a private equity fund. Additionally, Stephen Miller, a Trump aide, stated that “America is for Americans and Americans only.”
In addition to being a crass attempt to appease his detractors, Trump and his closest supporters have a history of using hate speech, which he has made it clear he plans to do in his administration. However, Trump is also trying to incite the opposition by pushing the boundaries of civility in American politics. His campaign is intensifying a well-known and frequently successful pattern: He makes provocative remarks or encourages them, then accuses his rivals or media outlets of exaggerating the situation, occasionally trying to retract his own remarks in the process.In an attempt to paint those who took him seriously as dramatic, he later claimed that he was joking when he told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he wouldn’t be a dictator “except for day one.” This is an illustration of the trolligarchy, as my colleague Megan Garber recently described it: She wrote, “A troll always has the right to be kidding.” “Even when it comes to issues of life and death.”
Trump is aware that a strong response from Democrats or the media is tactically advantageous. Trump stated during his rally on Sunday that “the other side goes crazy” when he refers to “the enemy from within,” a term he frequently employs to characterize anyone who is not a member of the MAGA world. Normally, Kamala Harris has stayed out of the fray, but in recent days, she has taken the offensive, calling Trump a fascist for the first time after The New York Times revealed comments made by former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly that Trump fit the definition of the term. However, she has repeatedly resorted to a message of solidarity.
