MSNBC’s The 11th Hour host Brian Williams promised that his show would “cancel” itself after the election, but it was still alive on Wednesday night providing an enclave for liberal meltdowns over Donald Trump’s electoral win as Demos head Heather McGhee insisted that Donald Trump’s “megaphone” of racism followed in the footsteps of Ronald Reagan “perfect[ing] the dog whistle talking about welfare queens.”
McGhee built up to this liberal playing of the race card by first lamenting that “ever since Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, no majority of white voters has voted for a democratic president and that's something that a lot of folks in white liberal enclaves don't actually really sort of absorb as a fact.”
Bemoaning this “otherization of people who are not white” and turning “big government” into a codeword for whites to use to smear minorities, she trotted out the knock at Trump taking a racist cue from Reagan:
Ronald Reagan sort of perfected the dog whistle talking about welfare queens. Donald Trump turned the dog whistle into a megaphone and he just came out and came down those stairs and said Mexicans rapists and criminals.
She concluded that it’s distressing for people like her “who work in multiracial spaces and who do multi-racial advocacy and organizing” but also lectured white Americans to have “a conversation we need to have amongst ourselves about how someone who was ends the Ku Klux Klan could have won the majority of white voters.”
NBC News political analyst and former McCain campaign official Nicolle Wallace is usually on-set to oppose Trump and/or conservatives, but she echoed their feelings in responding to McGhee that while a discussion of race isn’t worthwhile, another realization about the media must be had:
[I]f there are walls up in our country, they are sort of walls around the coastal elites and the way they think and what is really felt as a slur when we talk flyover nation. I mean, we have really serious cultural divisions. People feel talked down to. People know that all of our national newscasts come from Manhattan and they think what do you know about my life?
The relevant portion of the transcript from MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Brian Williams on November 9 can be found below.
MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
November 9, 2016
11:38 p.m. Eastern
HEATHER MCGHEE: You know, ever since Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, no majority of white voters has voted for a democratic president and that's something that a lot of folks in white liberal enclaves don't actually really sort of absorb as a fact, but this has been a 50-year beautifully executed Southern Strategy to link otherization of people who are not white with all of the economic problems in the country and, most importantly, with the sort of idea of big government and some ways, Donald Trump — and it's usually been subtle, right. Ronald Reagan sort of perfected the dog whistle talking about welfare queens. Donald Trump turned the dog whistle into a megaphone and he just came out and came down those stairs and said Mexicans rapists and criminals. It really is shocking and I think for many of us who work in multiracial spaces and who do multi-racial advocacy and organizing, this is a moment when a lot of white Americans are saying this is a conversation we need to have amongst ourselves about how someone who was ends the Ku Klux Klan could have won the majority of white voters.
BRIAN WILLIAMS: And Nicolle, this was the path that no one kinda believed was possible because it would require exactly what Heather’s talking about.
NICOLLE WALLACE: Not only that it wasn't possible but why would it be desirable? You know, why would you —
WILLIAMS: Or conceivable.
WALLACE: Why would you want to run a party and win without women and minorities? I mean, women make up 53 percent of those who vote in a presidential election. No model prior to Trump's win last night had it even feasible to win with shrinking numbers in any Democrat graphic group, Latinos and African-Americans, and he did that, so I think the conversation about race is always important, should be the first priority but maybe the second or third should be a conversation about the cultural divisions and if there are walls up in our country, they are sort of walls around the coastal elites and the way they think and what is really felt as a slur when we talk flyover nation. I mean, we have really serious cultural divisions. People feel talked down to. People know that all of our national newscasts come from Manhattan and they think what do you know about my life? And that was, again, again, not putting on par with how important this conversation is because I think people are scared today and people are afraid and we heard them in their own words but there is also a conversation to be had and some understanding about how the Republican Party especially grew so separated from its own voters.
