MSNBC’s Joy Reid used the Friday edition of the The ReidOut to declare that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is “a curmudgeonly anti-black and anti-LGBTQ person” while BlackPac Executive Direction Adrianne Shropshire alleged DeSantis and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin seek to “demoralize” black people.
Another point of the segment was that their policies are not actually not popular as Reid argued, “Fifty-six percent in America says woke means to be informed, educated, and aware of social injustices. Fifty-one percent say woke means being aware of social injustice and not being overly politically correct. Seventy-two percent support teaching the ongoing effects of slavery and racism in the United States. Seventy-six oppose efforts by state governments to ban certain books in school classrooms and libraries. This doesn't even poll well. Who is his base?”
The problem with polling is that the definition of “ongoing effects” is open to vastly different interpretations and that the book banning premise is based off a straw man.
Pseudo-Republican Susan Del Percio nevertheless embraced the premise, “The candidates that the Republican base is putting up, the candidates that they like are candidates that lose. These are losing platforms. So what I hear is the base saying, we don't care if we win.”
Turning to Shropshire, Reid didn’t see DeSantis’s appeal “This guy just seems like a curmudgeonly anti-black and anti-LGBTQ person, and the reason he won so overwhelmingly in Florida is about 1.3 million people stayed home and didn't bother to vote. Apathy put him in, not excitement.”
If apathy put him in, that means Florida voters don’t view him as the menace MSNBC does and even if 100 percent of those 1.3 million people voted for Charlie Crist, DeSantis still would have won.
DeSantis also won around 13 percent of black voters, but Reid still mocked the idea that DeSantis could be popular “Will he get two percent of the African American vote or three percent because African Americans can see and have eyes and can hear.”
Shropshire accused DeSantis of pick a strategy “that's as old as the country, quite frankly, which is to pick a marginalized community, demonize them, in this case black people and the LGBTQ community. And use that as a way to consolidate your base around a single enemy.”
Shifting to Youngkin, Shropshire added “Youngkin did the same thing when he ran in 2021, rallying his base around CRT and book banning and eliminating any subject matter that had anything to do with the black experience in America, right? And so that is what they decided is a winning strategy. The poll you just showed clearly says that that is not.”
Despite the fact that Youngkin managed to get elected in a blue state and has an approval rating of 57 percent, Shropshire continued “Americans reject this kind of politics, and frankly, the last three election cycles ought to tell them that this does not play out … This is a play to mobilize the base and maybe demoralize some black folks, right, with the policies that we are seeing. Both of these governors are implementing them. Maybe demoralize some black folks.”
By spreading fake news about things such as book bans, MSNBC is doing more to demoralize black people than anybody they accuse of doing the same.
This segment was sponsored by Liberty Mutual.
Here is a transcript for the March 10 show:
MSNBC The ReidOut
3/10/2023
7:46 PM ET:
JOY REID: Ron DeSantis's personality is like nails on a chalkboard to me. He just says woke 477 times in a sentence. He just says wokism, woke thing, woke mob, woke mafia, woke, woke, woke, woke, woke, he keeps saying it over and over and over again.
Here's the polling. Fifty-six percent in America says woke means to be informed, educated, and aware of social injustices. Fifty-one percent say woke means being aware of social injustice and not being overly politically correct. Seventy-two percent support teaching the ongoing effects of slavery and racism in the United States.
Seventy-six oppose efforts by state governments to ban certain books in school classrooms and libraries. This doesn't even poll well. Who is his base?
SUSAN DEL PERCIO: People who –
REID: Other than TV commentators who seem to love him.
DEL PERCIO: Yeah, no, it's people who need an us versus them fight, who are resentful, but here's the thing, Joy. The candidates that the Republican base is putting up, the candidates that they like are candidates that lose. These are losing platforms. So what I hear is the base saying, we don't care if we win.
We're just -- we want someone who is going to be our voice because we have been in the minority so long, now there's someone to yell and scream for me. Except you know what people in politics like donors and establishment people and people who run political groups like to do? They like to win.
REID: Win.
DEL PERCIO: They like to win. And they know this is not the way you do it.
REID: You know, Adrienne, I think that the way the sort of political media zeitgeist works is they say, Donald Trump is losing, therefore Ron DeSantis is the new candidate and they don't analyze further. There is no difference between the two of them other than Donald Trump has a personality.
You know, and has some wit and has a smile on his face. This guy just seems like a curmudgeonly anti-black and anti-LGBTQ person, and the reason he won so overwhelmingly in Florida is about 1.3 million people stayed home and didn't bother to vote.
Apathy put him in, not excitement. And somehow, people have decided that that means that will translate outside of Florida where people just literally just are non-voters. So give me your perspective here. Will he get two percent of the African American vote or three percent because African Americans can see and have eyes and can hear.
ADRIANNE SHROPSHIRE: Yeah. That's right. I think that, you know, you can say or use the word woke as a slur as much as you want to, I guess. But clearly, it does not play outside of the base that he is playing to. I mean, Ron DeSantis has decided that the winning strategy for him is one that's as old as the country, quite frankly, which is to pick a marginalized community, demonize them, in this case black people and the LGBTQ community. And use that as a way to consolidate your base around a single enemy.
Youngkin did the same thing when he ran in 2021, rallying his base around CRT and book banning and eliminating any subject matter that had anything to do with the black experience in America, right? And so that is what they decided is a winning strategy. The poll you just showed clearly says that that is not.
That Americans reject this kind of politics, and frankly, the last three election cycles ought to tell them that this does not play out. It certainly doesn't play with black people. So to be clear, right, there’s no, as we continue to say, this is not a play to win black people. This is a play to mobilize the base and maybe demoralize some black folks, rightm, with the policies that we are seeing. Both of these governors are implementing them. Maybe demoralize some black folks. It's absolutely not about winning over black people.
