Trump’s affront to Mexico may contain a silver lining

Like most attention-craving clowns, Donald Trump has to turn up his asinine rhetoric on a regular basis. Last week, while announcing his presidential run, he hurled uber-asinine insults at Mexico — calling migrants from our southern neighbor “drug dealers, rapists and murderers.”

Normally, I’d condemn the Comb-Over King for that kind of anti-Latino bigotry. And a big part of me still most vehemently does.

But I gotta admit: Part of me also wonders if we shouldn’t urge The Donald to keep it up — not just in Mexico but all over Latin America.

Why? Because the Trump Affront could mean curtains for the retro parade known as the Miss Universe contest, which Trump owns and which this year was held in Miami.

That in turn might help change Latin America’s benighted attitudes toward women — which are some of the most benighted in the world.

The backlash against Trump’s remarks so far is encouraging. Mexico’s beauty pageant boss has threatened to pull the country out of the Miss Universe competition. Colombian regaetton star J. Balvin canceled his performance next month at the Miss USA pageant, which is owned by Miss Universe.

To read the remainder of this column, go to:

http://wlrn.org/post/could-donald-trumps-mexico-insults-mean-end-miss-universe-lets-hope

Tim Padgett is WLRN’s Americas editor.

This story was originally published June 29, 2015 at 6:42 PM with the headline "Trump’s affront to Mexico may contain a silver lining."