‘It Wasn’t Just the Comic’: Trump’s NY Rally Used Language of Hitler
Former senator hones in on use of direct Nazi rhetoric at Madison Square Garden
In the hours and days since Donald Trump’s big campaign rally in New York City, much of the outrage has been focused on the offensive language of one comedian insulting Puerto Rico.
But one former senator explained how the hate permeated the entire Republican event at Madison Square Garden — and especially one notorious Trump advisor’s direct use of language lifted from Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
The Trump campaign has been in damage control since a comedian during the Sunday rally called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”
The offensive remark incensed Puerto Ricans across the country, including a number of Puerto Rican celebrities who came out strongly on social media.
But there was much more hate and bigotry on display during the nearly six-hour event, according to Claire McCaskill, a former Democratic senator from Missouri.
Specifically, she cited the remarks by Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s hard-line and xenophobic immigration policies back to Trump’s first term in the White House.
“It wasn’t just the comic. It was the entire six hours,” McCaskill said.
She began by recounting the offensive ways speakers at the rally spoke about Trump’s current political opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“I mean, she was called the Antichrist. Another speaker talked about her pimp,” said McCaskill, now a political analyst for MSNBC.
She went back into the history of Nazi Germany to reveal the origins of rhetoric Miller used in his speech to those at Madison Square Garden.
McCaskill quoted from an article dating from 1940 that ran in her hometown newspaper, the St Louis Post-Dispatch, in which Hitler was interviewed ahead of the United States joining World War II.
“I’m quoting from this article where he was interviewed, he said, ‘Therefore, I say, America is for Americans,’” she said. “Stephen Miller took the stage on Sunday evening, and he said, ‘America is for Americans and only Americans.’
“Now, ironically, as President Obama pointed out, Puerto Ricans — even those living in Puerto Rico — are Americans. They’re American citizens,” McCaskill said. “But here’s the hypocrisy of Stephen Miller. He is the genius behind the mass deportations. His great grandfather escaped Jewish persecution in Europe, came to Ellis Island and couldn’t speak English, came into this country as a foreigner with no English skills whatsoever.
“Of course, his family worked hard through the generations and through the decades and became very successful, and Stephen was raised in a wealthy family,” she said. “And now he is parroting the exact words of Adolf Hitler at a rally for somebody who is running for president of the United States.
“Somebody ought to really think about the level of hypocrisy and hate that this campaign is focused on,” McCaskill added.
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