Hold Trump's Beer, Puerto Rico — Now They're Calling Harris a "C--t"

Musk's PAC calls Harris "the c-word" and MAGA chants to lock up...Michelle Obama

Oct 29, 2024

Oct. 29: Rally speaker had a scripted line calling Harris a “c--t” … Musk PAC wields “c word” against Harris, AOC, Biden, Sanders … Philly D.A. goes after Musk $1 million giveaway… Today’s payback day for the Georgia election workers Giuliani lied about …

You can listen to the TFN podcast here.

Still from campaign ad posted online by the political action committee created and funded by Elon Musk. (Screengrab / America PAC video.)

I know, I know. This is The Fucking News, if anyone should be able to write out c…u… the c-word…it should be TFN.

But we called ourselves The Fucking News to make clear that we don’t respect norms that don’t protect or help people. Saying “fucking” doesn’t actually hurt anyone. Not so the c-word, or the n-word, or others. Will TFN write some hurtful, weaponized words in full, in context? Yeah, probably. If TFN had its shit together, it’d probably have a style guide for this kind of thing with thought-out ~~reasons~~ excuses for each.

But the reality is that on any given morning, our culture or the person writing this may differ from the previous day — so the sensitivities and reasons may vary. For now, for cultural and historical reasons, the c-word and the n-word have, for TFN anyway, unique and painful power.

I don’t profess to understand why it’s cute across the pond when Ricky Gervais does it. But we ain’t him and this ain’t there. Here it’s a weapon against women that feels like violence, like hatred of them and their bodies, like resentment of women’s existence.

And now, while Team Trump is still trying to put out the Puerto Rico wildfire ignited by an arsonist that Team Trump invited into a dry woods with a box of matches, we have two instances of Team Trump applying the c-word to Vice Pres. Kamala Harris.

The same podcaster, Tony Hinchcliffe, who gave us his Puerto Rico-bashing had a scripted line ready to go for his appearance at former Pres. Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in which he referred to Harris as a c--t. Here’s The Bulwark’s reporting:

“He had a joke calling [Vice President Kamala] Harris a ‘cunt,’” a campaign insider involved in the discussions about the event told The Bulwark. “Let’s say it was a red flag.”

OH, YA THINK? THINKS YA? “Let’s say” that? What, because it might not be?

It wasn’t red enough for Team Trump to bounce Hinchcliffe from the building! Not flaggy enough to cancel his appearance!

I mean, Republicans have opposed actual red-flag laws meant to protect women against physical violence, so why should rhetoric be any different?

And whatever Hinchcliffe was told, apparently he wasn’t sufficiently chastened by having the Trump staff cut his joke — the Trump staff! — to rethink his approach to the “humor” of female body parts.

Because afterwards, when Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) pushed back on the jokes Hinchcliffe was allowed to say, the podcaster responded: “I'm a comedian Tim...might be time to change your tampon."

The idea, of course, is to dismiss Walz’s objections as the product of female hormones. (Can’t imagine what the guy thinks of Puerto Rican women.) Which, again, not an aberration. The entire Republican Party…or at least its subsidized trolling wing…has been calling Walz Tampon Tim, not merely because Walz made sure that transgender kids who need tampons will have access to them in school, but because it’s an insult to tie Walz to a product related to female biology.

So much for the wonders of life and the biological miracle of its creation. To the 14-year-old boys running the Republican Party it’s all cooties.

And then there’s the ad, a full 30-second video, that compulsive CEO Elon Musk’s political action committee posted last week.

The video starts with a disclaimer “warning” viewers — because warning people is hilarious™ — that the ad uses “the c-word.” And then:

“Kamala Harris is a c-word. [Audio of people gasping because hilarious™] You heard that right. A big old c-word.”
Then, pictures of Pres. Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) appear and the narration continues: “In fact, all of the other c-words think she’s the biggest c-word of them all. That’s right, she’s a tax-hiking, regulation-loving, gun-grabbing communist.” [A cat in Soviet uniform meows to remind dim viewers that they’re also calling Harris a slur for female genitalia. Both slurs, I guess. It’s not especially sleek in its “comedic” reasoning.]
…
“Kamala Harris: The c-word we can’t afford.” [Which bizarrely suggest they purchase other c-words. Again, the “comedic” thinking: pretty incoherent.]

The point, obvi, isn’t just to label them falsely as communists, but to make it okay to think of Democrats — anyone — as a c--t. That’s how the normalization-chain works.

I didn’t really say it.
It was a joke, so it’s okay, even if I did flat-out say it.
Saying it as a joke doesn’t make me a bad person.
Saying it however I want is okay and doesn’t make me a bad person.

Musk created his PAC to help Trump. It’s worth noting — and perhaps face-tattooing — that both men are credibly accused of sexually abusing women unfortunate enough to be near them. And Trump, of course, was found by a jury to have raped writer E. Jean Carroll.

By contrast, as Politico’s Brittany Gibson brilliantly suggests, when Trump talks about male genitalia — Arnold Palmer’s, to be way too specific — it’s not only a compliment, it’s what makes Palmer an exemplary man.

And now, this is the message from Musk’s PAC, created and funded by the world’s richest man…to reduce the woman who might be the first elected as the most powerful person in the world down to nothing more than that terrifying, mysterious fact of nature between women’s legs.

Going after Harris might be punching up, but using the c-word to do it is punching down because now it’s attacking everyone who’s got one or ever been called one.

Comedy is punching up. Punching down is bullying when one person does it. When power does it, it’s called fascism. And the people who do it are dicks.

Why Is This Stuff Sticking?

The media are wondering why all of this hatred and misogyny and dehumanization is sticking, this time. After all, Trump didn’t even say the worst of it. Is it because we’re so close to the election and now people are paying attention? Maybe!

But maybe the factor that should be mitigating — that it wasn’t Trump talking — is why it’s sticking.

When Trump says shit, people know Trump and they can make their own judgments about whether he’s “kidding,” whatever the fuck that means.

But when Trump puts a nobody on a national stage and they say it, that does two things. One, it means people are hearing it from someone they don’t know and therefore can’t write it off as Ironic™ or whatever. Two, it means now it’s not just Crazy Uncle Don (who’s otherwise supported by alleged Grownups™ like the Rex Tillersons of the world). Now it’s Trump choosing yahoos to use his platform to push hatred and dehumanization.

And Now They’re Going After Michelle Obama

Former Pres. Donald Trump yesterday responded as best he’s able to former First Lady Michelle Obama’s criticisms of him on Saturday.

Harris had dared refer to Trump’s criminal record and just some of his lengthy legal record. She referred to his “gross incompetence,” “erratic behavior,” and “obvious mental decline.”

Trump responded with what for him amounts to restraint.

“I always [sic] tried [sic] to be so nice [sic] and respectful [sic]. … She opened up a little bit of a box…
“She was nasty … That was a big mistake that she made.”

Once Trump had pointed them at the prey, Trump’s Georgia MAGA audience knew what to do. They chanted — and TFN can’t stress this enough, about a former first lady accused credibly or incredibly of absolutely zero criminal behavior — “Lock her up! Lock her up!”

Trump told the MAGA chanters, “Be nice.” Because I guess he’s woke now. But it was too late. His MAGA audience had already shown us that justice, even fictional justice, is no longer relevant. Now it’s just straight-up cages for enemies.

What Team Trump Approved

As your ahead-of-the-Times TFN noted yesterday morning, Team Trump’s non-apology attempt to distance themselves from the Puerto-Rico bashing was notable because of the negative space it created — in which all the other toxic, negative shit from Sunday’s rally did not get a disavowal.

Which is the functional equivalent of an avowal.

And, sure enough, that Bulwark piece on the “c--t” script1 confirms that the Trump campaign — or at least elements of it — were just fine with what Hinchcliffe had to say. (See below for updated list of the rally’s people-on-shitting.)

Again, from The Bulwark:

“It’s a joke. People need to grow up,” one Trump adviser in the no-apology camp told The Bulwark. “This is what we’re campaigning against: PC culture run amok.”
…
Campaign advisers are united in their opinion that the Hinchcliffe controversy will blow over. Some were heartened by the fact that for once it wasn’t Trump who was at the center of the maelstrom. Others noted that they have overcome far worse.
“Heading into the rally, we were called Nazis. Do voters really care about a comic telling a joke that offended people who weren’t going to vote for us? No,” a third campaign adviser said.

Fun fact: Growing up typically involves becoming more thoughtful and sensitive in one’s speech and more willing to apologize when one upfucks therein.

And the reason to do so — if giving a shit about how other people feel doesn’t do it for you — is because this is where dehumanization starts. This is the first step when you enter “fascism” as your destination in Google Maps. The final stop is a population okay with concentration camps because the people in them have been dehumanized as scum preying on “our” women and stealing our jobs.

Philly D.A. Sues Musk for Criming

At least one Democrat is doing something about recidivist criminal Elon Musk’s latest crime.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner yesterday filed a civil suit against Musk and his political action committee for running an illegal lottery. That’s Musk’s promotional campaign giving $1 million every day to one swing-state registered voter, which is illegal because you can’t pay people to vote.

To be clear, Krasner is using lottery laws to shut this shit down. Because you use the best weapons the law gives you! Here’s the suit:

“America PAC and Musk are lulling Philadelphia citizens — and others in the Commonwealth (and other swing states in the upcoming election) — to give up their personal identifying information and make a political pledge in exchange for the chance to win $1 million. That is a lottery. And it is indisputably an unlawful lottery.”

The vote-buying aspect is a federal (and maybe state?) crime. But all Attorney General Merrick Garland has done about it is send Musk’s PAC a letter advising them that they’re criming.

Because that’s what rich people get when they commit crimes: Free legal analysis.

Three Quickies

Today is Fork It Over Day for former respectable and welcome-in-polite-society person Rudy Giuliani. As TFN has written about before, he’s got to hand over a ton of stuff, including his multi-million-dollar Manhattan apartment, to the two Georgia election workers he lied about. This will be the second piece of Manhattan real estate Giuliani has lost to bad judgment. It was Giuliani’s brilliant decision in the ‘90s to site the city’s emergency management office in the World Trade Center complex, less than a decade after the first terrorist attempt to blow it up.
Israel just updated its to-do list, with Hezbollah making Naim Qassem its ~~new leader~~ next martyr. Israel might have sent a congratulatory message, but it was otherwise occupied, killing 60 people in Lebanon and another 93 people — including 25 terrorist children — with an airstrike in northern Gaza. That brings the death toll to 43,020 Hamas members killed in the 11,000-member terrorist group.
A guy used threats to keep his workers in line and exploit their labor, so now he’s been sentenced to more than eight years in prison. Stavros Papantoniadis, who owns a chain of pizza stores, is planning to appeal his sentence and/or accept a nomination as Labor Secretary, depending on what happens Tuesday.

Correction/Update

Yesterday’s TFN referred to David Rem — who called Vice President Kamala Harris “The Antichrist” — as Trump’s childhood friend instead of saying accurately that Rem was listed as Trump’s childhood friend. TFN regrets the error but reserves the right to screw up again.

Investigative journalist Jacqueline Sweet reports that Rem’s father knew Trump’s father, who helped out the Rem family. And that Rem pleaded guilty in 1991 to charges of drug dealing after getting busted for hauling kilos of blow onto a train.

Also, your aspiring but imperfect TFN missed a couple lines yesterday in its attempt to inventory every attack voters should be aware of from the Sunday Trump rally at Madison Square Garden.

But trust Heather Digby Parton at Salon to catch some more. And after TFN’s list went out, the New York Times did one of its own. So, here’s the updated list, which we’ll continue to update, of things said at Sunday’s Trump rally.

Democrats are the “enemy from within” and “A bunch of degenerates.”
Undocumented immigrants are “fucking illegals.”
"When I [Trump] left, New York was the place you wanted to be and now people just don't speak well of it."
A Black man in the audience had “carved watermelon” the previous night.
“America is for Americans and Americans only.” (“America for Americans” is a Ku Klux Klan slogan).
“Travis Kelce might be the next O.J. Simpson.”
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is a “sick son of a bitch.”
Harris is “The Antichrist.”
Harris is a “Samoan, Malaysian, low-IQ, former California prosecutor.”
Harris “and her pimp handlers will destroy our country."
Harris has “imported criminal migrants from prisons and jails, insane asylums and mental institutions from all around the world, from Venezuela to the Congo. A lot of people are coming from the Congo prisons… Over the last month, 181 countries violated our laws.”
“The Palestinians are taught to kill us at two-years old,” according falsely to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He added, “They won’t let a Palestinian in Jordan. They won’t let a Palestinian in Egypt. And Harris wants to bring them to you. [Crowd: “Noooo.”] They may have good people. I’m sorry, but I don’t take a risk with people who are taught to kill Americans at two.”
“When it comes to Israel and Palestine, we're all thinking the same thing: Settle your stuff already. Best out of three: rock, paper, scissors. You know Palestinians will throw rock every time. And also we know Jews have a hard time throwing that paper.” (Accompanied by money-dispensing hand gesture.)
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff is a “crappy Jew.”
"There's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it's called Puerto Rico."
Latinos “love making babies. There’s no pulling out. They cum inside, just like they do to our country.”

TCB

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NICOLE SANDLER Well, that was awkward. I joined Nicole Sandler for yesterday’s weekly installment of The Fucking News segment on her show…while she was on an extended crying jag about Election Day. She spoke with wonderful, moving candor about the hard time she’s having, but is putting in the work to be there for her listeners. She pulled it together with me, and I let loose with a rant or two that I was pretty proud of. You can watch it here and, with the exception of next week, you can catch us both every Monday at 5pm on The Nicole Sandler Show, which you can watch live at her website.

Go get ‘em, kids!

TFN’s official editorial policy is not to dignify Tony Hinchcliffe by calling him a comic nor to dignity his insults by calling them jokes. Comics are not just people who with they were funny and jokes are not just words that their utterers assert are funny. Cutting someone open and removing their spleen isn’t necessary surgery and the serial killer who does it isn’t necessarily a surgeon.