Advertisement
Supported by
“I’m a liberal guy,” said Thomas Bosco, who is facing backlash after he said in an MSNBC interview that he voted for the president in 2016 and was likely to do so again.
By Azi Paybarah
At Indian Road Cafe in Upper Manhattan, a Black Lives Matter sign hangs in a front window. Local writers, artists, musicians and political activists are regulars. And for years, two drag queens have hosted a monthly charity bingo tournament there.
Many in the surrounding Inwood neighborhood considered it a community hub and a progressive oasis.
But then the cafe’s owner, Thomas Bosco, said in an MSNBC interview in late spring that he voted for President Trump in 2016 and was likely to do so again.
The backlash was swift, as you might expect.
Neighbors railed in the comments on various neighborhood Facebook groups, posting hundreds of angry messages aimed at the cafe — and one another. Some people called for a boycott.
“How could I be against Trump and all that he stands for and go somewhere and patronize someone who supports this demon?” Douglas Henderson, 62, a lawyer and nearby resident, said in an interview.
Glennis Aquino-Gil, 37, a resident of Riverdale, in the Bronx, vowed she would never go to Indian Road again.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, who lives nearby, wrote on Facebook: “It’s hard to ever go back.”
The two drag queens have said they will move their show to a different venue.
The controversy, coming in the middle of a pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, shows how in a highly polarized social media era, a few comments in an interview can reverberate: Mr. Bosco said the fallout from his TV appearance, in a segment about small business owners and workers, might put him out of business.
Advertisement