Four people stood behind podiums during the Rhode Island gubernatorial debate hosted by “The Public’s Radio” last night at URI. But only two of them actually mattered. Gina Raimondo looked surprisingly relaxed, competent, normal, and far from the Wall Street Reptile she is at heart. She’s boring of course and her policies are far from remarkable or progressive, but whatever, she’ll be fine I guess.

More interesting to me is Joe Trillo. I love this guy, his character, his look. I like how this big fat crow-man gets onstage and goes on and on about how it’s such an outrage we make these cops fill out a form every time they pull someone over. We’ve gotta untie their hands, let ’em loose on the scum that roam the streets of Providence, the degenerates playing hip-hop style music in parks at all hours of the night. Can you believe they call it the “Shoot Dance”?

See, the thing that Allan Fung doesn’t get, the idea that Gina Raimondo just can’t comprehend, is that we are STRANGLING businesses in Rhode Island. Regulations are unnecessary, costly, and frankly? they’re racist to Italians. I used to go to Federal Hill with my Grandfather, we’d go down to Carpone’s Chicken Villa. All these beautiful birds, they kept ’em in the windows, caged. You wouldn’t believe the noise! Squawking and hollering, “Ay, Giacomo, lemme get that one there!” my grandfather would point out a great bird with the cigar he clutched. Right there in front of us, Giacomo would grab the chicken, hold him by the neck, do a little flick of the wrist, and lemme tell ya that bird would be dead. Butchered on the spot, wrapped up. Ma would cook it that night.

But those days are gone now, stolen. Joe Trillo says he wants to protect animals, and the way they treat birds now is a disgrace. We need to get back to the days where you could snap a chicken’s neck right there in the butcher shop. We need to get back to the way Rhode Island used to be.

Oh, I can hear it now: “But didn’t Hitler love animals? Wasn’t he a vegetarian?” This is a harsh truth that every animal lover must reckon with at some point in their lives. Did Adolf Hitler love animals? Yes. Does Joe Trillo love animals? Yes. Does that make them similar? I suppose it does. But Joe Trillo is NOT HITLER. He’s a successful Italian businessman, a pillar of our community. There was a moment last night where Black Lives Matter protesters demonstrated against Trillo. They accused him of racism, they made claims that he uses the infamous “N-Word”, a term made famous by the North American Slave Trade and talk show host Bill Maher. This stems from a police report filed in 1975 by current Speaker of the RI House of Representatives, Nick Mattiello. Supposedly, the then 35 year old Trillo struck the then thirteen year old Mattiello with a caulking gun, then proceeded to threaten him by saying “I’ll beat the (expletive) out of you and I’ll get two (N-words) after you to crush your bones.” Trillo recently responded that this was nothing more than a “heated neighborhood moment,” a fantastic appropriation of what has come to be known as the PewDiePie Defense. Last night, he offered a similarly brave defense, assuring the protesters that “I never used the N-Word! I never used it! Let’s get this straight.”

What we have here is a man of striking contrasts. Does he want to unleash cops on society, freeing them from the already minimal restraints and accountability standards we hold them to? Yes. Is he an animal lover? You bet your ass. Does he believe the answer to fixing our struggling schools is simply “bringing back discipline”? Of course. Did he successfully recreate some of our favorite scenes in classics like “Goodfellas” and “A Bronx Tale”? One-hundred percent he did.

He may not be the best man for the job. He may not have even been the best man on stage last night. Hell, he might just be a bad person altogether. But, all that aside, I believe from the bottom of my heart that he loves animals, and, well, personally, I don’t hate animals.

Remember that when November comes around.