As has been
widely reported, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos was
thrown out of a Donald Trump press conference Tuesday, because apparently Trump didn't feel he's done enough to alienate Latino voters. Trump's gonna be Trump, so he's kicked off an insult spree aimed at painting himself as the innocent victim of a crazy, emotional brown guy. During the event itself, Trump told Ramos to "go back to Univision" and then said Ramos had "stood up and started screaming." Trump
followed it up Wednesday morning by calling into the
Today show to say Ramos was "ranting and raving like a madman."
It's not news that Trump thinks "asking me difficult questions" or "not hating Latino immigrants" equals "madman," but let's consider just who he's aiming his abuse at this time. Trump has already sued Univision for dropping his Miss Universe pageant, and now he's going to war with its most followed journalist. Ramos has two million nightly viewers and is, according to the Boston Globe, "the second-most recognized Latino personality in the United States, after Supreme Justice Sonia Sotomayor." Not Donald Trump-level famous nationally, maybe, but hugely respected with a group whose votes are expected to be a little bit important in 2016.
Trump's clash with Ramos doesn't begin and end with Trump, either. Other Republicans will feel inclined to pound their chests about it in less-than-helpful ways. Take MSNBC's right-wing bloviator, Joe Scarborough, who opined that Ramos was "looking for his 15 minutes of fame." By contrast to Ramos' two million nightly viewers, Morning Joe has notoriously bad ratings, frequently drawing less than 400,000 viewers. Maybe Scarborough, who has 314,000 Twitter followers to Ramos' 1.48 million, was looking for his 15 minutes of fame.
This whole episode will probably play really well with the kind of people who explain their support for a racist bloviator by saying "We know his goal is to make America great again" because "It's on his hat." Trump's base, in other words. Diversifying the appeal of the Republican party, on the other hand ... not so much.