When the Edge Lords Lead

Marc Caputo, one of the best-sourced reporters covering Trump, reports that Tony Hinchcliffe had been prepared to call Kamala Harris a “c*nt” on stage Sunday night, but the Trump team caught the line and asked Hinchcliffe to strike it.

The same people say Hinchcliffe ad-libbed his Peurto Rico joke and the one about the black man in the crowd carving a watermelon.

What did they expect?

Hinchcliffe is known both for telling racial jokes and for being an insult comic. It is what he does. And therein lies the problem with the Trump team. The people who organize these events are themselves Internet Edge Lords, who actually enjoy offending people, getting people mad, and upsetting the apple cart. Hinchcliffe is a reflection of them, and they, in turn, believe they are reflecting Donald Trump, oblivious to the fact that there is only one Donald Trump.

Bad Bunny, who you may not know, is one of the most popular Puerto Rican artists. A friend told me that to understand Bad Bunny’s appeal to the Puerto Rican community, you must combine Elvis and Taylor Swift, and you’ll get close to his cultural appeal. After the Puerto Rico joke, Bad Bunny endorsed Harris.

Late yesterday, the Catholic Archbishop of San Juan de Puerto Rico formally called on former President Trump to apologize, not just his campaign.

Will it matter? I actually don’t think so. But here is the thing — it should not have happened nine days before the election. It was an unforced error from a cavalier team of edge lords guiding the ground game for Trump.

My educated guess is that they saw nothing wrong with the joke until senior campaign officials and other Republicans saw a lot wrong with the joke and, still, I suspect most of them privately think the reaction is funny.

If these people go to the White House with Trump, he and the GOP are well and truly screwed by the midterms. They’ll have had a barrel of laughs, alienating everybody outside their diehard supporters.

And therein lies the rub. Virtually every Trump supporter is willing to say this is no big deal and, for some, that it was actually fine. But they are not the issue. The issue is the 500,000 Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania and other voters who are in the final days of telling themselves they can put up with Trump’s drama for a better economy.

Myself? I think the media is making so much out of Hinchcliffe because Trump did not give them the self-immolation they wanted. He was disciplined. And that is why I think this will not damage Trump enough to hurt his momentum. The people who have been warning everyone Trump is a Nazi are melting down that an insult comedian insulted people, not Trump.

But there are now seven days left. Every day, a voter will decide to vote for Trump or not vote for Trump. Every day, a voter will decide to vote for Harris or not vote for Harris. The more errors one side makes for itself, the better it is for the other side. The Edge Lords are tone-deaf to the voters they do not already have but need. Like the Democrats who bully voters into voting, the Edge Lords try to insult them into voting and it can often backfire.

The ads are done, the mail is printed, and it's time to knock on doors. The candidates' messages now will be about voting for them or discouraging people from voting for the other side. That’s why things like this matter.

We have one week left. Make the most of it. But, in the end, if he loses, it won’t be because the Edge Lords got sloppy. It can only be because it was stolen. His supporters, who saw no problem with Hinchcliffe, tell me that.