On Saturday's installment of Velshi on MSNBC, left-wing activist, provocateur, and PoliticsNation host Al Sharpton joined fill-in host Lindsey Reiser to say that the country is heading back to the days of Jim Crow and to criticize Democrats for not passing Sharpton's partisan wish list.
Reiser got the hyperbolic segment started by quoting Sharpton's recent comments to Politico, declaring and wondering: "Do you feel, I feel like it was much more on the front burner several months ago when we were seeing states pass these restrictive voting laws and then like any news cycle the attention shifted. So, do you think the public attention will shift also?"
Sharpton claimed the shift in media attention "is what opened up the door to states like Georgia and North Carolina and Ohio and Texas to start changing state election laws and they've changed them right now." Adding: "You’ve seen in certain counties in Georgia where they literally changed the election boards of certain counties. Which means they would be able to count the vote. Well, those counties being stacked up by right-wingers appointed by state legislators would not have certified Biden as the winner."
There is no evidence to suggest that what Sharpton said is true, but he was just getting started. Next, Sharpton lumped abortion in with "voting rights" and claimed federalism equals Jim Crow:
So, we are going back to a states' rights model where they are no longer respects the United States of the union. They are saying we will decide state by state what is going to be the election laws, the abortion laws, the voting laws, the civil rights laws, and who would be the president. We cannot go back to the Jim Crow states' rights era all the way back until to the Civil War. We are in a state of emergency when it comes to the urgency of this moment.
Of course, even if Sharpton gets everything he wants, the states will still choose the president through the Electoral College. Reiser put this civic illiteracy aside and asked, "Rev, do you feel almost a year into the Biden administration that black voters feel let down, that nothing has been significantly passed on this issue? And again, if we go into 2022 and we don’t see important action, do you think it will impact the midterms?"
After declaring Biden has done some good things, he lamented there has been no progress on "voting rights" or police reforms and concluded by continuing his self-appointed leader of all black people schtick, "I think inaction on that level will lead to inaction on a lot of voter turnout. I'm getting it on my syndicated radio show, I’m getting it from chapters all over National Action Network which I lead."
Despite Sharpton's over-inflated view of his own importance, 63 percent of black Georgians support voter ID for absentee ballots.
This segment was sponsored by T-Mobile.
Here is a transcript for the December 18 show:
MSNBC's Velshi
December 18, 2021
8:46 AM ET(...)
LINDSEY REISER: You know, reverend, in an interview with Politico, you said that the, quote, “urgency could not be more palpable than it is right now” to take action on voting rights. So, why is this current moment that we’re in so critical? And do you feel, I feel like it was much more on the front burner several months ago when we were seeing states pass these restrictive voting laws and then like any news cycle the attention shifted. So, do you think that the public's attention will shift also?
AL SHARPTON: I think that, that is our job which is why we continue rallying and marching and doing what is necessary to keep the public's attention. The shift, in my opinion, is what opened up the door to states like Georgia and North Carolina and Ohio and Texas to start changing state election laws and they've changed them right now.
You’ve seen in certain counties in Georgia where they literally changed the election boards of certain counties. Which means they would be able to count the vote. Well, those counties being stacked up by right-wingers appointed by state legislatures would not have certified Biden as the winner. This is not something that would’ve be bad for Biden, it would have disenfranchised the voters.
So, we are going back to a states’ rights model where they are no longer respecting the United States of the union. They are saying that we will decide state-by-state what is going to be the election laws, the abortion laws, the voting laws, the civil rights laws, and who would be the president.
We cannot go back to the Jim Crow states’ rights era all the way back until to the Civil War. We are in a state of emergency when it comes to the urgency of this moment.
REISER: Rev, do you feel almost a year into the Biden administration that black voters feel let down, that nothing has been significantly passed on this issue? And again, if we go into 2022 and we don’t see important action, do you think it will impact the midterms?
SHARPTON: I think that we made it clear when we supported overwhelming the Biden ticket that we wanted voting rights and police reform. We are now a week from Christmas with neither. There’ve been other things that have been good. He helped fairly, I think, in some areas. But, the areas we most voted and rallied for, there’s not been significant movement. And I think inaction on that level will lead to inaction on a lot of voter turnout.
I'm getting it on my syndicated radio show, I’m getting it from chapters all over National Action Network which I lead. I'm saying it not to make a threat, but to give a forecast. Sometimes the weatherman tells you the storm is coming. Don't blame the weatherman for the storm. I'm telling you inaction is setting in. If there’s no action on the reason there was action in the first place.
(...)
