It is striking how “garbage” has entered the American electoral race as the presumed decisive day approaches. Both the Democratic and Republican campaigns, along with their supporters, have competed to turn garbage into political points, amid a frantic quest for voter support. They have used the concept of garbage either as evidence of arrogance and racism or as a sign of humility and connection with everyday people.
The campaign of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has struggled to respond to insulting remarks made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at one of their rallies in New York. Hinchcliffe stated, “Puerto Rico – a U.S. territory that is not a state – is just a floating island of garbage in the Atlantic Ocean.” Instead of condemning the comedian’s words, Trump’s campaign simply stated, “this does not reflect our position.” The situation worsened when Trump himself echoed this sentiment, claiming he had “not heard Hinchcliffe’s remarks” and relying on his familiar denial tactic: “I don’t know him; someone just put him there on the stage, I don’t know who he is.”
Citizens of Puerto Rico, who are American citizens, do not have the right to vote in the U.S. presidential elections; their participation is limited to primary elections if they reside on the island in the Caribbean, which is about a thousand miles from the nearest U.S. land point, Miami, Florida. However, more than five million Puerto Ricans living in the mainland U.S. can vote in presidential elections.
The votes of these Puerto Ricans only impact the outcome in four battleground states: Pennsylvania, where they make up about 3.7% of voters; North Carolina, around 1.2%; Georgia, approximately 1.1%; and Wisconsin, also 1.1%. Pennsylvania is the most important among these states, possessing the highest number of electoral votes at 19, and having the largest population of Puerto Ricans compared to other battleground states, about 472,000. According to recent polls, the Democratic and Republican candidates are tied at 49% each. Preliminary indicators suggest that there is growing anger among Puerto Ricans against Trump’s campaign due to these comments, which might motivate more of them to vote Democratic. Traditionally, Puerto Ricans, like most Latinos in America, numbering about 63 million (the second largest demographic group in the country after whites), support the Democratic Party, but they are also among the least likely ethnic groups to vote. This presents a challenge for Democrats, which they successfully addressed in the 2020 election by convincing as many as possible of them, along with other minorities that usually vote Democratic, especially African Americans, to participate in these elections either by mail or in person.
However, President Joe Biden, known for his loose speech discipline and emotional outbursts, gave Trump’s campaign an opportunity to counter the embarrassment it faced regarding comments about Puerto Rico when he said during a meeting with Latino voters, “The garbage is Trump supporters.” This sparked a storm of denunciations met with attempts to navigate around the demeaning statement. Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris ensured she distanced herself from the President by saying, “Let me be clear, I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on the candidate they support.” Because of Biden’s statement, Harris could not leverage the comment made by the Trump-supporting comedian against her Republican opponent.
The media’s focus on “garbage” and its implications in this heated election season has provided Trump with another opportunity to respond to one of the strongest ongoing Democratic criticisms against him – that he is wealthy from birth and does not relate to the experiences of everyday people. On camera in Wisconsin, he disembarked from his plane dressed as a garbage collector and headed towards a garbage truck bearing his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.” From inside the moving truck, he answered reporters’ questions.
This was a clever retort to Biden’s comment, aligning with Trump’s persona, which is known for his enjoyment of playing roles in “reality television” and following such programs. Days earlier, he had also appeared in Pennsylvania as a worker at a McDonald’s restaurant, serving meals from the drive-thru window to customers. Trump’s campaign understands the significance of sending such image-centric messages to a vast audience in battleground states that are concerned about the economy and suffering from rising prices. This is a key strength in the Republican presidential campaign, as it portrays their candidate as empathetic and understanding of the experiences faced by those with limited income.
In reality, Trump’s campaign has succeeded through these and other methods, including numerous visits to areas within these states and intensive promotional media efforts, in narrowing the gap with Harris and even slightly surpassing her in some states like Georgia and North Carolina. However, the crucial states for Democrats among these battlegrounds are Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. If Harris can win these three states – where her campaign is making considerable efforts – along with other reliably Democratic states known as the “blue wall,” in addition to one almost guaranteed electoral vote from Nebraska, she would have the potential to secure 270 electoral votes and become the next President of the United States. This represents the easiest electoral calculus for Democrats to maintain the White House.
This highlights the importance of Michigan and the rising Democratic interest in the Arab vote there, particularly after various polls indicated that a significant number of Arabs, possibly more than half, have shifted to the Republican camp, feeling disillusioned by the Democratic Party’s refusal to address their demands regarding ending the “Gaza War” and adopting a tougher policy toward Israel. However, Arab voting is not uniform or necessarily cohesive. Most Yemenis, approximately 35,000 in the state, are expected to vote for Trump due to other factors, including his hardline stance against the “Houthis,” as well as his socially conservative agenda and promises to address the discrimination they feel in obtaining public office in Dearborn, which has a majority Arab population and is home to the second largest Arab group after Lebanese Americans – against whom some right-wing discrimination claims are directed.
The recent visit of former President Bill Clinton to Michigan exemplified this relatively late Democratic interest in maximizing Arab support. However, it appears he incited anger among the Arab community by addressing the wrong and provocative topic for this audience, which reflects the official position of the administration and Democratic Party regarding Israel’s right to defend itself and the necessity of understanding its position, rather than focusing on the human suffering of Palestinians and what a future Democratic administration in the White House would do to end it and bring this war to a close. Clinton, at 78 years old, engaged in a lengthy political and historical argument to justify Israel’s actions in this war, borrowing some Israeli arguments about the high civilian casualty count: “I understand why young Palestinians and Arab Americans in Michigan believe that a lot of people have been killed. I get that, but if you lived in one of the kibbutzim in Israel near Gaza, where the people are most friendly towards Palestine, the strongest supporters of the two-state solution among any Israeli group, and Hamas killed them.”
The man continued to reiterate these arguments, emphasizing the wrongdoings of “Hamas”: “What would you do if this were your family, and you had done nothing but support a Palestinian state, but they came one day to kill you? … Hamas makes sure it hides behind civilians; it forces you to kill civilians if you have to defend yourself.” Ultimately, after blaming Yasser Arafat for not accepting the deal he offered him in 1999 to implement a two-state solution, Clinton asked his audience to “keep an open mind.”
Despite this poor performance, Democrats still have a reasonable chance in Michigan. According to the latest poll there, Harris leads Trump by three points, with approximately 48% for her and 45% for her opponent. Nevertheless, the same polls have become a source of doubt, especially as many Trump supporters tend to avoid participating in them, believing that the institutions conducting the polls are part of the “deep state.”
In a highly charged political electoral scene that is approaching its conclusion, and where uncertainty still looms due to the closeness of the numbers, it does not seem that November 5 will be decisive if the ballot boxes do not yield a clear winner that prevents the opposing side from navigating the judicial route to resolve the dispute over the results. This would mean a repetition of the 2020 scenario, implying that Trump, as a phenomenon rather than as an individual, remains skeptical of institutions and undermines public trust in them, persisting into future presidential elections.
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