Usually, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry only toils for the Obama administration on the weekends. Last Friday, she worked overtime. On the May 31 edition of Al Sharpton’s PoliticsNation, Harris-Perry fawned over the Democrat-controlled 111th Congress, which sat for the first two years of President Obama’s first term, as the “most incredible legislative session in American history.”
Yes, this is the same left-wing legislature that placed burdensome regulations on the financial sector under Dodd-Frank and rammed ObamaCare down the nation’s throat. Unsurprisingly, the liberal host is just fine with aggressive, one-party rule in Washington – as long as it’s the Left’s agenda being supported.
But Harris-Perry was not completely glowing. She added glumly that “2010 happened,” treating the midterm elections as if they were some horrible, unspeakable event.
And all of that progress that we’ve made as a country began to grind to a halt. And I just want him [President Obama] to say, over and over again, remember 2010?
Harris-Perry whined that “this Republican obstructionist Congress” has prevented President Obama from accomplishing his “legislative agenda.” The leftist host obviously ignored that the sweeping Republican victories of 2010 were, in fact, a national response to the Democratic Party’s extreme agenda. And although President Obama won reelection in 2012, House Republicans were returned to power and Democrats made only modest gains in the U.S. Senate, and that in large part because of a spate of disastrous unforced errors by arguably sure-shot Republican candidates.
Harris-Perry made her intentions clear, though, earlier in the segment, complaining that Republicans wouldn’t allow the president to “share the wealth.”
Sharpton’s banter with Harris-Perry quickly turned into a passionate get-out-the-vote call for progressives, who would typically stay home during a midterm election. Sharpton fretted that “it’s a danger in making people relax” about Republicans, while Harris-Perry urged liberals to “Remember 2010. Get out and vote.”
We’re used to seeing the Lean Forward network promote the president’s aggressively left-wing agenda, but it’s just sad seeing them double as campaign operatives for the Democratic Party. No doubt, as the 2014 midterms approach, we’ll continue to see MSNBC’s all-progressive lineup get out the Democratic vote wherever and whenever possible.
See the relevant transcript below:
MSNBC
PoliticsNation
05/31/13
6:03 p.m. Eastern
AL SHARPTON: Melissa, the president was really touting the comeback in a big way today. How much more are we going to hear it?
MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY: Well, I think a lot. I think this is actually going to be the most difficult challenge that the president is going to have going into the midterms. And it – in part it’s about shifting away from the scandals, or so-called scandals. They’re not really very scandalous. But it’s – on the one hand he’s got to be able to make a claim that we’re getting traction, things are starting to get better, without overselling it. Cause the fact is, that for ordinary people on the ground, the housing market may be improving but it is still really hard to get a new mortgage, right? There may be new jobs but people are still really struggling to put food on the table. And so it’s got to simultaneously be: we are coming back but also, as your president, I’m not putting on rose-colored glasses. I recognize that, in fact, people are still feeling the pain. And that they are largely feeling the pain because the president hasn’t been able to push the Republican-led Congress to, in fact, share the wealth. Right? That this is the problem.
(...)
SHARPTON: Wouldn’t the president have to really thread the needle carefully, Melissa, to get the turnout by saying yes, we made progress, but if we had not had the obstructionists we could have done more – so we need you to come out and vote because it’s a danger in making people relax. It’s a danger in overplaying that you haven’t got a lot done because then you played to the cynicism by the right. So isn’t this, like, really threading a political needle?
HARRIS-PERRY: I just want the president to just, over and over again in the next 18 months, keep saying remember 2010? Remember what happened in 2010? Between 2008 and 2010, with President Obama in the White House and Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, we had the most incredible legislative session in American history. Everything from the health care reform we’ve been trying to do for decades, one of the most active Congresses and then? 2010 happened. They gerrymandered these districts, as E.J. was just saying, and we get this Republican obstructionist Congress that has stood in the way of the president’s entire legislative agenda. And all of that progress that we’ve made as a country began to grind to a halt. And I just want him to say, over and over again, remember 2010? Don’t stay home. Remember 2010. Get out and vote.
SHARPTON: I think if he doesn’t remember it, a lot of us need to say it. Melissa Harris-Perry and E.J. Dionne, thanks and have a great weekend.
