Much has been made out of the fact that Donald Trump's campaign did nix one "joke" in the now-infamous speech by podcast host Tony Hinchcliffe during the dizzyingly hateful MAGA rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday: calling Vice President Kamala Harris the c-word. As I wrote in the Standing Room Only newsletter, this shows that the campaign knew Hinchcliffe was planning a wildly racist set. I suspect the racism was a sick form of strategy, a continuation of Trump advisor Steve Bannon's infamous "flood the zone" tactics. Note that the Trump campaign only tried to distance themselves from the comments calling Puerto Ricans — who have a heavy voting presence in some swing states — "garbage," but not from the rest of his set or the many other vile things said by other speakers.
The censorship of the c-word likely happened because it's profanity, not because it's misogynistic. We know this because Hinchcliffe's other woman-hating "jokes" were left in, including fantasizing about the murder of pop star Taylor Swift. "I think that Travis Kelce might be the next O.J. Simpson," Hinchcliffe said of Swift's NFL-playing boyfriend. Swift has been the object of violent ire by many MAGA leaders, including billionaire Elon Musk, who issued an unsubtle rape threat after Swift endorsed Harris for president. And that is not out of character for Musk, who has purchased a spot so close to Trump's side it often looks like he's replaced Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. It's Musk who has shown, in the last few days before the election, that misogyny is right up there with racism as the Trump campaign's closing argument.
