After the cast of MSNBC's Morning Joe recently spent time praising Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for helping to end the partial government shutdown, on Thursday, the Republican leader suddenly became a racist for daring to question Democrats' proposed election reforms.
The segment started with a video of McConnell denouncing the Democratic proposal to make Election Day a federal holiday as a power grab, because federal workers overwhelmingly support Democrats. He also argued that federal workers simply do not need another paid day off.
According to the Morning Joe panel, however, the only reason one could oppose such a move was if there was something more sinister at play. After Joe Scarborough said that it was a Republican ideal to make it easier to vote, co-founder and managing editor of The Beat D.C. Tiffany Cross interjected, saying the real reason McConnell opposed the Democrats' proposal was because an increase in voter turnout hurts Republicans:
This has been a consistent tactic of the GOP at the state, federal and local level to keep people from voting. We just wrote about in TheBeat D.C. this morning that in 2020 Hispanics will make up a large portion of the voter share and eventually will be the biggest minority group of voters. This is something that scares the Republican Party.
After saying that the Democratic side of the House of Representatives “really did look like America" and that the Republicans, "really did look inconsistent with the way America is going,” as “a party of increasingly older white men,” Cross explained to a confused Mika Brzezinski that, “To us it seems absurd. There are people in America who will consistently back Mitch McConnell. They share this fear and anxiety of a more diverse America.”
Senator McConnell fears a more diverse America so much that he married, Elaine Chao, the Secretary of Labor from 2001-2009 and the first Asian-American woman to ever be a cabinet member. She also currently serves as the Secretary of Transportation.
Here is a transcript from the January 31 show:
7:13 AM ET
TIFFANY CROSS: It’s not a good thing for the Republican Party, because the more people who show up to vote, it impacts the Republican Party. The more people that are at polls, they don’t vote for Republicans. This has been a consistent tactic of the GOP at the state, federal and local level to keep people from voting. We just wrote about in the Beat DC this morning that in 2020 Hispanics will make up a large portion of the voter share and eventually will be the biggest minority group of voters. This is something that scares the Republican Party. I’ll tell you, I had the opportunity to be on the House floor during the swearing in. When you look at the chamber, on one side you had a Democratic Party that really did look like America. On other side, on the Republican side, it really did look inconsistent with the way America is going. It was a Party of increasingly older white men that's not and this is just not where the country is going. That’s what this is about, it’s not necessarily he’s painting this picture that we’re giving federal workers a paid holiday…
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: What was the picture he was painting? It didn't seem compelling.
CROSS: …To us it seems absurd. There are people in America who will consistently back Mitch McConnell. They share this fear and anxiety of a more diverse America. So they share this fear and anxiety they of people who look like me and other people showing up at the voter polls, so they hear that and they think, “Yeah, that’s my guy,” not the majority of America, but certainly there’s a faction of the Republican Party who echo those sentiments and agree with him even at their own peril.
