Residents say a speaker calling Puerto Rico garbage before a packed Donald Trump rally in New York was the latest humiliation for an island territory that has long suffered from mistreatment.

Puerto Ricans cannot vote in general elections despite being U.S. citizens, but they can exert a powerful influence with relatives on the mainland. Phones across the island of 3.2 million people were ringing minutes after the speaker derided the U.S. territory Sunday night, and they still buzzed Monday.

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is competing with Trump to win over Puerto Rican communities in Pennsylvania and other swing states. Shortly after stand-up comic Tony Hinchcliffe said that, “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny announced he was backing Harris.

After Sunday’s rally, a senior adviser for the Trump campain, Danielle Alvarez, said in a statement that Hinchcliffe’s joke did “not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign.”

  • TRBoom@lemm.ee
    171·
    24 days ago

    Because each state is given the power to elect a president, not the voters. Puerto Rico isn’t a state so their voters aren’t represented properly.

    • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
      71·
      24 days ago

      i mean the technicallity is that washington dc isnt a state either, so the better answer is that you need to live in a region where you have representatives.

      • zombyreagan@lemm.ee
        63·
        24 days ago

        Dc does not have voting representatives in congress. They only get electoral votes because of the 23rd ammendment

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          59·
          24 days ago

          The better question is “why didn’t the 23rd grant voting rights to all US citizens in all territories?”

          • rsuri@lemmy.world
            29·
            24 days ago

            Because of slavery, basically. The US couldn’t have a directly-elected president at founding because that would mean slaveholding states would get less power per person actually living there, unless they wanted to let slaves vote which of course they wouldn’t. So 3/5ths compromise, electoral college, yadda yadda yadda, and 250 years later power still is filtered through the states. So now that that’s the case, giving any new people voting rights would change the power balance between the slaveholders right and abolitionists left. So as a result, places like PR that have an abnormal amount of minorities Democratic voters tend to be unable to get Congress to grant them voting rights.

      • UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world
        5·
        24 days ago

        Also because DC and PR would most likely vote democrats it makes it harder. Most of the time when a state joined the union there was a fight.