-PJ
Posted on 04/20/2020 8:30:17 AM PDT by Morgana
Today's AM Joy show on MSNBC provided a virtual parody of liberal-elite condescension to Trump supporters. Joy Reid kicked things off by finding it "confusing" that Trump's populist base supports him despite supposedly not "getting anything economically out of this plutocracy."
It's a recycling of the old liberal complaint of "What's the Matter with Kansas?": those poor, benighted cultural conservatives allegedly voting against their own interests (against redistributing all the wealth).
Ultraliberal writer Jane Mayer of The New Yorker [infamous for co-authoring a book trashing Justice Clarence Thomas with Jill Abramson while they were reporters at The Wall Street Journal] explained to the befuddled Reid that Trump's "racist and anger-laced" rhetoric "excites the lower-educated part of his base, the white-male base, particularly. And so he's saying things that make his supporters feel good."
In other words, according to Mayer, those racist hayseeds, hicks, and rubes are too dumb to understand, or just don't care, that they're getting ripped off by the ruling class. Mayer sounds like a perfect echo of longtime New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, who proclaimed in 1972 “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon."
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC AM Joy 4/19/20 10:52 am EDT
JANE MAYER: It's all about winning. And nothing will stand in the way of them [President Trump and Mitch McConnell] trying to win.
JOY REID: And this is where it gets a little bit confusing for me. I'm going to read another piece from your article, and this is where you’re quoting James Hacker and Paul Pierson, who are a couple of political scientists who wrote a book called Let Them Eat Tweets.
[Note: The book comes out in July, but you should notice Jane Mayer provided a blurb for the cover -- two, actually, according to Amazon. There's also a blurb from canceled MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, who Joy Reid replaced.]
Quote, in order to win election, Hacker and Pierson explain the Republican party has had to form a coalition between corporatists and white cultural conservatives, who are galvanized by Trump's anti-elitist and racist rhetoric. The authors call this hybrid strategy Plutocratic Populism. Hacker told me that the relationship between McConnell and Trump offers "a clear illustration of how the party has evolved," adding, "they may detest each other, but they need each other."
The thing that’s ironic about that is that on the populist side, they don’t actually get anything economically out of this plutocracy. They are actually being pushed to maybe infect themselves with coronavirus. They are on the losing end economically, but somehow they’re still allied with the plutocrats. Is there an explanation that you got in talking to these political scientists about that?
JANE MAYER: Well, I mean, Trump’s rhetoric, which is often racist and anger-laced, and anti-elisist, is the language that excites the sort of, the lower-educated part of his base, sort of the white-male base, particularly. And so he’s saying things that make his supporters feel good.
Nothing racist here folks...move along please.
Someone forgot to tell me that the booming Trump economy was actually a “plutocracy”. Who knew?
One plays a ‘reporter’ on tv, the other a racist idiot.
They live in bizarro world. Trump has not forged a coalition between “corporate elitists” and normal people.
In the real world, corporate elitists are Democrats.
Trump’s coalition is traditional Republicans and Reagan Democrats. In other words, Trump has stitched together the Reagan coalition. He is trying to add working class minorities to that coalition.
This idiot is too stupid to understand he she would among the first to be hung if the rats ever got total power.
Jane Mayer would make an excellent academic study in pathology: “Mental Incapacitation from the Interaction of Irrational Fear of the Chinese Virus with Racism and TDS.” Hell, I’d read it!
The findings are slightly off because so many Democrat voters are becoming Trump supporters.
Who knew that the snot-nosed, butt-kissing little girl in your fourth grade class would grow up to be a petty tyrant wanting to impose her feelings on everyone?
I'm so smart, so why can't I understand conservatives??
Really smart people can't understand dumb ones. Don't worry. It's because you are SO SMART that you can't understand.
OOooohhhhhh.... thank you!! You're smart too!!
Oh thanks, thanks... yes... we are very smart. Don't worry. We are the smart ones.
(mutual sighs of relief)
Who watches this racist negro anyway?
I really am quite tired of being slandered at every turn based simply on the color of my skin.
That none of these morons claiming white privilege see the irony of painting a vast swath of humanity with such broad brush strokes while also claiming the mantle of moral superiority for noting individual contributions of POC is just mind boggling.
Joy Reid has the absolute most hateful, disgusting people on her show. How does she continue to get away with this—I know, but don’t get it. So horrible.
If the liberals are so smart, how did they take the popular vote, in the biggest states, and still lose the presidential election? They ran into a business man that plays the game better than they do.
That either adds up to arrogance, bad thinking, or just plain stupidity.
rwood
Projection. It’s not just for opera singers anymore.
White females, too. Guilty as charged.
They also are under the impression that a college degree means they are more intelligent than other, yet by their behavior they consistently prove otherwise.
-PJ
New Yorker Snob
Flat out fear in motion the left know Trump will have a second term the public gives the left the finger suck it up boys and deal with it.
and say good by to your crazy lazy congress.
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