A Hispanic pro-Donald Trump activist tried to do a bit of scaremongering on Thursday evening and it backfired. Badly.
Marco Gutierrez, the co-founder of āLatinos For Trumpā, warned MSNBC viewers that if Hillary Clinton won the presidency there would be ātaco trucks on every cornerā. And for some reason he seems to think Americans would see that as a bad thing.
āMy culture is a very dominant culture,ā Gutierrez warned on āAll In With Chris Hayesā. āAnd itās imposing, and itās causing problems. If you donāt do something about it, youāre gonna have taco trucks every corner.ā
Because God forbid they should have easy access to low cost, nutritional and delicious food from another culture.
Needless to say, a lot of people are pretty psyched about the idea of being able to get one of Americaās favourite foodstuffs so easily. Some even likened it to Republican president Herbert Hooverās promise of āa chicken in every potā.
The debate on Mexican influence in the United States has been raging ever since Trump announced his candidacy, with his flagship policy being the erection of a wall along the USās 1,989 mile southern border with the central American state.
The concept of Trumpās ābig, beatiful wallā, which became a key point for many of Trumpās anti-immigration followers, took a hit this week when the Republican presidential candidate was invited to a meeting with Mexican head of state Enrique PeƱa Nieto.
While Trump claimed the pair ādidnāt discussā where payment for the wall would come from, PeƱa Nieto said they did, and said it absolutely would not come from the Mexican government. This ran contrary to Trumpās claims throughout his presidential run, during which he often claimed he would use his business prowess to make Mexico pay for it.
After initially riding on his proposal for a border wall, Trump continued to alienate what little Latino support he had, referring to them as ārapists,ā ācriminalsā and ākillers,ā belittling their heritage and āusing them as props.ā
All this makes it understandable that Trump supporters might think of āa taco truck on every cornerā as a threatening ideal - but most people on the ground are fairly excited about the prospect.