Trump's Haitian immigrant comments create a storm in Florida

[Zorro]

When a group of 50 Democrats of Caribbean descent gathered to watch the presidential debate in a South Florida suburb this week, the room filled with stunned laughs as former President Trump repeated a baseless rumor that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were stealing dogs and cats so they could eat them.

“How can this person be a candidate to be president?” asked Guithele Ruiz-Nicolas, past president of Haitian American Democratic Club of Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale.

The laughs quickly turned to anger, said Ruiz-Nicolas, who came to the United States with her parents as a child in the 1960s, and has seen new and shocking levels of bigotry directed at her people, who she said were long welcomed with open arms.

“Our best revenge is to go out and get the votes out,” said Ruiz-Nicolas, adding that Trump’s comments have fueled new efforts to achieve that goal.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2024-09-13/2024-election-trump-haitian-comments-florida

[Botany]

1. Doesn't Florida have a nice population of Haitians?

Ruiz-Nicolas, “Our best revenge is to go out and get the votes out,”

Keep talking Donny.
What voting block hasn’t he and J.D. Guy-Liner pissed off.

[Tribetime]

3. Yes over 2%, by far the most of any State

[Botany]

6. A blue Florida?

The women’s pro health care vote along with other voter blocks just might bring
Florida home. And even some MAGA types are tired of Trump’s act.

Btw the powers that be in here in Ohio are worried and they working to suppress the
vote as are the PTB in Texas too.

[obamanut2012]

19. I worked with quite a few Haitian Americans in SOFL, first and second gen

Almost wholly GOP, and very publicly so, including loving Trump. Even a colleague who was gay loved him, enough so her wife actually left her because of it. And, I am in a profession whose staff generally lean very liberal.

They tend to be quite religious, gender traditional, and homophobic. Again, plenty are liberal, but not a lot IN MY EXPERIENCE.

[marble falls]

2. They only way he could have done worse would have been to promise repatriation of all Cuban immigrants ...

... I hope TFG just doubles down on that bullshit.

[haele]

4. A lot of Haitian emigres I've met are conservative.

And, like most Cuban and Venezuelan emigres, have been fairly reliable GOP voters over the past couple decades, even though the GOP has continuously belittled or ignored them. It's the GOP lies that "Democrats coddle gang members" and that if they (the Haitians) just work hard and go to the right church, they can become accepted and comfortably rich like the GOP Chamber of Commerce types.

Haele

[Wiz Imp]

12. The pet eating garbage should change that.

I'm sure some will continue to support Trump, but this obviously racist demonizing of Haitians should open some eyes. I'm sure a much more significant number than usual will vote for Harris this year.

[Coexist]

23. I don't know about that, but it might make them less likely to pencil in that circle next to TFG's name, which is good

enough for me!

[GusBob]

5. This is a true voting bloc

Of course many of them live and work together (nursing homes which are plentiful in Florida are big employers)
But more than a few a very religious and evangelicals, so no guarantee

[rockbluff botanist]

7. Certainly unintended consequences for repugs

Repugs cannot connect the dots.

Haitian Americans will vote with a vengeance; as if their very lives depended upon it.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

8. Even Naturalized US Citizens should vote Democrat as well.

Wherever they came from, marginalizing Legal Residents from Haiti, is marginalizing them as well.

Voting Republican makes NO SENSE at all knowing how tRump feels about them.

[ArkansasDemocrat1]

15. I'm naturalized and a person with disabilities

My sister likes TCF. I don't talk to her much.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

18. Love your sister. But pity her ignorance at the same time.

For Jesus said to His Father with his last breaths while on the cross..."Father, forgive them. For they know not what they do."

Forgive her if she asks that of you. As Kamala said, "There is more that unites us than divides us."

Thank you for becoming an American.

[ArkansasDemocrat1]

21. I do, but relationships are two way streets

And thanks. I was born in an autocratic theocracy, don't want to die in one.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

22. Hugs to you.

[IronLionZion]

9. Make Florida Blue Again

Obama did it so it's possible. The Senate race there is also close.

[Quixote1818]

10. There are 500,000 Hatians in Florida. Nt

[ProudMNDemocrat]

11. Should half of them vote for Kamala, Florida could flip.

I am sure Jamie Harrison is aware of that. The Democratic Party candidate for the US Senate is aware of that. As are Democrats running for the US House and down ballot races are aware.

I still think the Harris campaign should do some town Halls or rallies in Florida. Set ole Ronnie D in a bind.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. "Our best revenge is to go out and get the votes out,"

And THAT is what they need to be doing.

Before all the nonsense came out about "Haitians bring AIDS", many of them were supporting Raygun and Republicans. The RW loons would have some call in to their talk shows back in the '80s and early '90s in order to denigrate others in the black community.

Then things changed and as many continued to flee Haiti, these same GOPers let them drown in capsized boats because they weren't eligible, like fleeing Cubans, for the "wet foot/dry foot" policy (that Obama finally ended) -

End Of 'Wet-Foot, Dry-Foot' Means Cubans Can Join Ranks Of 'Undocumented'


January 15, 2017 7:07 AM ET
Adrian Florido


There's a popular saying in Spanish — O todos en la cama, o todos en el suelo. It conveys a selfless commitment to equal treatment, and translates roughly like this: Either we all get the bed, or we all get the floor.

Among many immigrants in the U.S., there's been a feeling that when it comes to the spoils of U.S. immigration policy, the government has given Cubans the bed all to themselves, while it has relegated others — Mexicans, Haitians, Central Americans — to the floor.

This is because of the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot policy, which since 1995 has granted Cubans who touch American soil a privilege not afforded other immigrants who come without a visa: the right to stay and get on a fast track to citizenship.

This special treatment ended this week when, in the final days of his administration, President Obama announced an abrupt end to the policy, a capstone to his two-year-old effort to re-establish relations with Cuba. Effective immediately, Cubans arriving on U.S. soil without a visa will be treated just like any other immigrant. They will be turned away.

(snip)

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/01/15/509895837/end-of-wet-foot-dry-foot-means-cubans-can-join-ranks-of-the-undocumented

[Warpy]

14. The only contact that stupid fucking asshole has ever had with a Haitian

is to sneer at the one running the floor polisher in the lobby of one of his buildings. He's deigned to sneer as he walks by.

He is a horrible man who is not willing but eager to believe the worst lies about anyone who isn't him. He will never change.

[ffr]

16. Finally! People are questioning how TSF could be a candidate for president.

It's the shit sandwich with turds vs. a chicken sandwich, where the question becomes how the chicken was cooked.


This race shouldn't even close. In fact, if you put an R by Kamala Harris, without her changing policy, the QOP would go crazy for her. It would be 99% approval. But instead, we have 24% of our population that are stuck in the 1880s, the current QOP

[poozwah]

17. concern

it ain’t the haitians that trouble should trouble us. rather, it is the hatetians that should be troubling us.

[2naSalit]

20. It's like he's obsessed...

With smacking, with a baseball bat, every hornets nest he can find.

I hope it kills him like a massing attack of hornets.