Not even 24 hours removed since the most potentially impactful foreign policy summit in a generation, the mainstream media has returned to its Trump-bashing obsession. On Wednesday morning, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough declared: “Primary voters in the Republican Party have devolved into a Trumpist cult.”
The insults were aided by national affairs analyst John Heilemann, “It's clear that conservatism, liberalism, voting records, none of those things matter, it's a cult of personality and the president has an extraordinary hold over his base.”
JOE SCARBOROUGH: It has devolved into a cult. Primary voters in the Republican Party have devolved into a Trumpist cult.
JOHN HEILEMANN: It's clear that conservatism, liberalism, voting records, none of those things matter, it's a cult of personality and the president has an extraordinary hold over his base. Cult of personality is one good description for it. For all of the people out there, at various times everyone at this table and me, all of us who have sat and said, why are Republicans afraid of Donald Trump? Why do they -- why will they never cross him? He's terrible, he's this, he's that they should have the courage of their convictions and stand up to him. This is a good example. Mark Sanford didn't even really stand up to him, but President Trump brings the wrath and Mark Sanford loses his job. The fact is, if you get on the wrong side of Donald Trump, his power over his base is significant enough that he can kill you, regardless of how conservative voting record is. Regardless of your history in the Republican Party. Regardless of your ideology, regardless of everything else, if he wants to put a target on your back, he can and will.
SCARBOROUGH: The Republican Party is not a conservative party. It's not conservative intellectually. It's not conservative physically. It's not conservative temperamentally. You look at everything whether, from Edmund Burke, through Russell Kirk, through William F. Buckley. Straight into Ronald Reagan. What's happening today is an aberration of all of those things. That's fine, I wonder where conservatives go now.
Scarborough, the one-time GOP Congressman representing the Florida panhandle went as far as stating that “The Republican party is not a conservative party. It's not conservative intellectually. It's not conservative physically. It's not conservative temperamentally. You look at everything whether, from Edmund Burke, through Russell Kirk, through William F. Buckley. Straight into Ronald Reagan. What's happening today is an aberration of all of those things. That's fine, I wonder where conservatives go now.”
These ad-hominem attacks from the Morning Joe host have become routine while he continues his self-appointed crusade to delegitimize the President of the United States.
While steering off script and levying unhinged attacks has become the new normal for Morning Joe and MSNBC, Scarborough, and his hosts find themselves again in an awkward position where the facts disagree with him and his fellow hosts. In a report released from the Heritage Foundation earlier in the year, Donald Trump has successfully compiled a record of meeting sixty-four percent of their policy recommendations from the “Mandate for Leadership”. Additionally, according to director of Heritage’s congressional and executive outreach, Thomas Binion, “We’re blown away” and Trump “is very active, very conservative, and very effective.”
