Alas, poor Eric Trump. The middle Trump son has not been having an easy time on social media lately. Firs there was the scandalous, post-debate Lemonadegate controversy. Now, he seems to have heaped a little more embarrassment on top of the pile, posing for a photo with a young woman he probably thought was a Latina Trump supporter.
But a supporter she was not. To the contrary, the Cuban-American Annie Cardelle (along with her sister Ceci) is not a Trump loyalist, but a Hillary Clinton supporter and North Carolinian who decided to show up to Eric’s appearance in the Tar Heel State. And while she felt very nervous at the prospect of openly protesting, as she told BuzzFeed News, she ultimately decided to don some confrontational apparel. Cardelle wrote “Latina contra Trump” on a white t-shirt, and wore it to the event underneath her sweater.
For anyone who isn’t a Spanish speaker, “Latina contra Trump” translates to “Latina against Trump.” After the sisters arrived at the event, Annie stripped off her sweater to reveal the condemning message, expecting to see people perturbed and angry at her.
But she didn’t get anything like the reaction she expected. Seemingly no one had any idea what it meant, and indeed, may have mistaken it for a message proclaiming her support for the Republican nominee.
In fact, both Annie and Ceci scored a photo with Eric, which gave the Trump Organization executive vice president his latest deeply embarrassing viral moment.
https://twitter.com/AnnieCardelle/status/789587345087488000
Presumably, Eric was thrilled at the chance to be photographed alongside a young Latina supporter of his father’s candidacy, especially considering where the polls are at right now. Donald is currently losing Latino-Americans by a staggering 50 points, a margin that all but ensures he’ll be defeated on November 8th, assuming there’s sufficient voter turnout.
But, just like signing a business deal, it’s always important to read the fine print; in this case, the large marker lettering splashed across the front of someone’s t-shirt. It goes without saying that Eric didn’t realize what “contra” meant, otherwise he wouldn’t have happily posed for the photo. The thought that literally nobody at the event was able to tell what point she was making is pretty embarrassing, however, and seems to put a pretty fine point on the Trump campaign’s struggles with minority voters.
https://twitter.com/cecicardelle/status/789588565604925441
It’s not as though there was no benefit for Eric in all this. At the very least, this latest snafu elbowed out some of the coverage of his executive order on getting some free In-N-Out lemonade. In that respect, he took a page out of his dad’s book: When you’re in the hot seat over one controversy, just swap in a different one.
