Transcript: Trump’s NYC Rally Could Cost Him Must-Win PA, GOPer Says
And this late-deciding voter, it’s the worst possible time for this fiasco, on behalf of the Trump campaigns, to happen. I want to really drive one last point home here, Greg: The reason why this has legs beyond Trump’s normal racist vitriol and dog whistling—and it’s not even dog whistling anymore, it’s just overt—is because it all came from other people on stage that he promoted. If this had been Trump … There’s already this cultural tendency to roll our eyes and say, That’s just Trump being Trump. It’s the same reason why a lot of Latino voters are saying, He’s not talking about me when he’s talking about mass deportations and border security, border enhancements. This is different. This did not come out of his mouth. They heard it from the voice of others. And it wasn’t just this one comedian, it was a lineup of people saying these horrible things. And that sticks different. It hits different.
In many ways, it’s almost a good thing because it reminds me that Americans, our sensibilities, still can be shocked. We still have some sense of shame, even in the Trump era. And while we may have lost it with him and disregard him as just this peculiar entertainer—he’s not real and he doesn’t mean it when he obviously does, we’ve become inured to that—when we hear it in other voices, and he’s platforming those voices, numerous ones, surrounding him with intensity, with passion and deep, deep offense, that’s why this is broken through. That’s why we’re seeing the reverberations that we are.
Sargent: It’s really interesting, as you point out: We’re talking about a certain type of low-propensity voter, maybe someone who isn’t paying super close attention, is deciding at the end, doesn’t pay attention to the media sources you and I pay attention to, working class a lot of them. These are the types of voters who Trump has to do well with. That support has to be solid for him, and it’s shaky. Your point, if I understand you correctly, is that this type of event is precisely the thing that penetrates to this type of voter via social media feeds, via influencers. These are voters who don’t listen to politicians, but they listen to influencers. These influencers are telling them, Hey guys, this is an important election, all of a sudden, and these voters are going to pay attention.
