Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 02:05 pm
The co-hosts of Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski, and Joe Scarborough, are all in for Trump after the bumpy ride of the campaign. To hear them talk now, Donald Trump is and has always been a populist hero:
“And I don’t think racists and bigots voted for Donald Trump. I think people who were really hurting voted for Donald Trump,” insisted Brzezinski, giving Fox & Friends a run for their money where wild flights of fantasy are concerned.
She must have missed the Hitler salutes and Seig Heils and all those Confederate flags, not to mention the KKK endorsement.
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She insisted,
“So that accusation, I’m sorry, about having white supremacists and racism lead your campaign, is like calling all the voters for Donald Trump racists and bigots. They aren’t. They aren’t.”
Watch courtesy of Media Matters for America:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: I understand the edge, Mark Halperin, on both sides. I understand the resentment on both sides. Call somebody a racist, their back’s going to be up. [Donald Trump’s campaign manager] Kellyanne [Conway] brought up, I think, the most important point, which is this was about Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton failed to deliver a message that could drive people to the polls in states —
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: And I don’t think racists and bigots voted for Donald Trump. I think people who were really hurting voted for Donald Trump. People who would have voted for Bernie Sanders voted for Donald Trump. People who were left out of the system, Elizabeth Warren’s people, voted for Donald Trump. So that accusation, I’m sorry, about having white supremacists and racism lead your campaign, is like calling all the voters for Donald Trump racists and bigots. They aren’t. They aren’t.
[…]
SAM STEIN: I think actually both sides are right here, which is one, that Hillary Clinton didn’t step foot in Wisconsin in the general election. That is a strategic mistake, that you can’t connect. On the flip side, while you’re right that these voters weren’t racist themselves, I do think it’s fair to say that a lot of what was coming out from the Trump apparatus were dog whistles. For instance, just one thing —
BRZEZINSKI: Oh no, no, no, no, no. Hold on. Don’t say the word “dog whistle.” I will tell you there were ugly, racist issues that were on the forefront. There were some stupid comments by the — no, hold on.
SCARBOROUGH: The Muslim ban? Racist. Judge Curiel? Racist.
BRZEZINKI: Let me. And stupid comments by the candidate himself, blurted out, on the forefront, not a dog whistle and stop saying “dog whistles.” What are these people who voted? Dogs? OK now, stop.
Anyone who voted for Donald Trump gave their tacit approval to Trump’s racism, homophobia, and bigotry. Yes, people voted for Trump for a variety of reasons, but to say that Clinton, who won the popular vote by going on 3 million votes, did not deliver a message is a lie.
So did Donald Trump deliver a message, by normalizing white supremacy, by accepting the support of groups like the KKK, neo-Nazis, and others, and by repeating anti-Semitic Nazi tropes in his speeches.
Brezinski can pretend it is not true, but those who voted for this signaled their support for such positions. Thus the signs at anti-Trump rallies announcing a vote for Trump as a hate crime.
The problem was not Clinton or her message, but the mainstream media’s refusal to talk about policy positions in favor of normalizing Trump’s deplorable comments on African-Americans, women, Jews, Mexicans, Muslims, and others.
Clinton had a message; people like Brzezinski simply refused to cover it so they could repeat fake scandals and conspiracy theories instead while ignoring Trump’s very visible associations with white supremacists.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
