Could this be the most cynical statement of the campaign season? The woman whose recent wedding President Obama attended is okay with stoking the racial fears of black Americans—if that's what it takes to drive them to the polls and secure Dem victories. Alex Wagner devoted a segment of her MSNBC show today to the naked appeals to the racial fears of black Americans that Democrats are making in campaign ads. Wagner discussed Dem ads that seek to stoke black fear toward Republicans by invoking Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.
You might think Wagner would have condemned these ugly tactics, explicitly aimed at driving Americans apart based on their race. Think again. To the contrary, Wagner concluded the segment by saying that it shouldn't have to be the kind of threats contained in these ads that get people to vote, "but if it does, so much stronger the party is for it."
ALEX WAGNER: Democrats hoping to get minority voters to the polls have instead focused on race and racial bias. In North Carolina, Harry Reid's Senate Majority PAC ran this radio spot attacking GOP Senate candidate Tom Tillis.
AD: Tillis won't fight for us. Instead he made it harder for communities of color to vote, by restricting early voting and voter registration. Tillis even led the effort to pass the type of stand your ground laws that caused the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.
WAGNER: In Georgia, state Democrats printed a flyer warning that the way to prevent "another Ferguson" is to vote. Arkansas residents meanwhile, received a mailer showing a man in a hands-up, don't shoot position made infamous in the wake of Michael Brown's killing. The mailer reads: "If we want to end senseless killings like Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, we need to vote . . . It's important to say that it shouldn't have to be the threat of undermining civil rights that gets people to vote, but if it does, so much stronger the party is for it.
