It was a potpourri of evil and stupid Wednesday night on MSNBC’s The ReidOut as host Joy Reid and a conga line of like-minded guests shoveled more poison to viewers by talking about everything from tens of millions of Americans embracing “Republican extremism” to the GOP consisting of criminal delinquents you shouldn’t leave alone with children to white Christians being deep-seated racists filled with hatred for Black people instead of love Jesus.
Reid had plenty of invective for non-progressive Democrats, accusing Senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) of colluding with “all-white conservative[s]” to screw over Black people by opposing President Biden’s $3.5 trillion boondoggle.
While even the White House press corps focused their questions to Press Secretary Jen Psaki on the dissension in the Democratic ranks being the source of strain, Reid started the show by decrying “Republican extremism” as tens of millions have “surrendered any semblance of a soul that it once might have had to” Donald Trump and thus been “zombified into an extremist force.”
Reid’s derangement dragged on as she blamed the GOP for a potential government shutdown, spewing more incendiary and potentially dangerous rhetoric about how the GOP would “inflict” “rampant insanity” on America “if they can just only get the chance” (click “expand,” emphasis mine):
Take, for example, the supposed party of fiscal responsibility is recklessly gambling with the entire United States economy. Senate Republicans’ chief ghoul Mitch McConnell continued to wake up and choose chaos, blocking efforts to raise the federal debt ceiling, bringing the U.S, a step closer to fiscal catastrophe because what's more extreme than lighting a match and gleefully watching your own house burn just to own the libs? Well, extremism is the name of the game for the party of Trump. They’re content to cover up the atrocity of the January 6th insurrection and in states across the country, they're showcasing the rampant insanity that they'd inflict on the entire country if they can just only get the chance.
Case in point Texas where Republican Governor Greg Abbott is doing the Orange Man's bidding, looking into last year's election for something that doesn't exist while throwing the doors of Texas businesses and schools open to Covid. And the state's equally attorney general Ken Paxton is going all in defending the state's law effectively banning abortion, even in cases of rape and insist. Did I mention Ken Paxton is also under indictment for securities fraud? He is. But, anyway, the Republicans in the state legislature, fresh off passing voter suppression legislation are now cravenly trying to steal elections through redistricting, racially-gerrymandering congressional districts to reduce the effect of population growth which, per the recent census, came entirely from black and Hispanic Texans to instead boost the political representation of the white voters who keep Republicans in power. Of course, open racism from Texas Republicans is sadly no surprise since the Lone Star State's lieutenant governor, former right wing talk show host Dan Patrick, lied and blamed Democrats and black Texans for the state's surge in Covid.
With Texas on her mind, Reid spent much of the rest of the A-block serving as a launch party for Texas lieutenant gubernatorial campaign of Matthew Dowd, the longtime faux Republican-turned-openly Democratic ex-Bush official and political charlatan.
Gushing that Dowd’s someone offering “a challenge to all that tomfoolery in Texas,” Reid lamented that Dowd’s running in a state in which Republicans embrace “open racism” while supposed Republican and possible Maryland gubernatorial candidate Michael Steele swooned that he was so “excited for” “my man, Matt.”
Dowd, who recently said the events of January 6 were worse than 9/11, waxed poetic about how he would “tell” Texans “the truth” and take out incumbent Dan Patrick (R) and be a candidate “who believes in common decency.”
In response, Reid, went through a list of Republicans embroiled in controversy led by “people like Matt Gaetz who is accused of sex trafficking a child” to that it speaks to the repugnant nature of rubes who don’t vote like she does because even though “the quality of leadership is so bad, but these people can still get elected.”
In the B-block, Reid continued her streak of demanding Manchin and Sinema join her side by hurling smear after smear in their direction (click “expand”):
As you can see, Sinema is being a little cagey, which is wild, given the impact that this legislation could have on millions of Americans, including in Arizona. And progressives in the House are getting a little bit sick and tired of Kyrsten’s diva act. Axios reports that California Congressman Ro Khana described Sinema’s evasiveness as “insane.” He got some backup from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who told reporters that House Democrats want a firm agreement on legislative language on reconciliation. Sinema's ally in this obstruction, Senator Joe Manchin told reporters, no dice.
[MANCHIN CLIP]
Just a quick refresher here for all of you folks at home. The people who negotiated the infrastructure bill a month ago? They all seem to have some things in common. So, it should come as no surprise the majority of the far more diverse — ideological and otherwise — progressive caucus lack trust and still plan on blocking the infrastructure bill[.]
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[TO CONGRESSMAN RO KHANNA] Do people consider her at this point to be an honest negotiator or just doing that smirky, comedian thing, whatever she thinks she knows she's doing and not acting in good faith?
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I think, for a lot of people who are observing this, it feels like Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin just want to bank the $1.2 trillion bill that they negotiated with an all-white conservative set of friends. They want that bill to pass and then afterwards, think have no problem walking away from the $3.5 trillion bill.
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[TO KHANNA] Do you imagine that maybe the alternate explanation is that her don — she’s doing what her donors want because maybe she doesn't care about running for reelection? Perhaps her relationship with those financial donors is what she wants?
Teased throughout the show, the third segment featured Reid warning of “the disturbing reality of the white evangelical movement” that, in her world, consists of no more than almost terrorist-like fiends who “believe the gospel of Trump and anti-vax and QAnon.”
Backed by left-wing Christian pollster Robert P. George and his claim that a quarter of white Christians embrace QAnon, Reid felt right at home trashing people who believe in, first and foremost, establishing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and recognizing one’s need for a savior.
For George’s part, he used his personal upbringing of not knowing about events such as the murder of Medger Evers to ironically spin a conspiracy web that Christians everywhere acted in coordination while “construct[ing]” Christianity in America that has “actively work[ed] against equal rights for black and brown Americans at the same time can really exist.”
Things got nastier as Jones asserted that immigration concerns showed white Christians are, deep down, glorified KKK members as racism was “deeply in [their] DNA.”
And as the country changes demographically, Jones told Reid that white Christians are suffering a collective “psychic break” as “marching with the Christian flag alongside the Confederate flag on our Capitol” wasn’t seen as a good thing (click “expand”):
REID: You've polled this question: Are immigrants invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background? 68 percent of Americans say no. 59 percent of white evangelicals say yes. They're the only group, religious group per PRRI polling with a majority that believes immigrants are invading our country. That's frightening. What's behind that?
JONES: You know, it's a very old idea. We've been hearing a lot about it on Fox and other places, kind of replacement theory, right? As we’ve been hearing this and again, as a scholar, as someone who studied American history, this comes right out of the Klan. I mean, this is old white supremacist language that, you know, we thought, again, you know, that we had moved past but we're finding it circling back around again, and not just being hinted at but said very openly, right, this idea — and the only thing you have to do to interrogate that language is ask, well, who's the our who's being threatened here, right? And their clear answer is it's white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant Christians that are being threatened here and this idea — yeah.
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REID: Is that all it takes to send people into the arms of what used to be Klan thinking?
JONES: You know, it’s — it’s pretty much that. I mean, really, it’s fairly straightforward. It's really this idea that America was define to be and intended to be divinely ordained to be a white Christian country, right? And that is deeply in the DNA of many white Christians, as the country is changing, as it’s shifting, what we're seeing this psychic break. And I mean, really, that’s the reason I wrote the piece today. I think, in many ways, what we’re — if you look at the school board meetings with people just ranting about vaccines or critical race theory, I mean, this is so far from our, you know, marching with the Christian flag alongside the Confederate flag on our Capitol. I mean, this is so far from the prince of peace, turn the other cheek, you know, Jesus of the New Testament —
REID: Yeah.
JONES: — that we really are seeing a kind of break, and that break, I think, is linked to the fact that we use a good sociology word here, the plausibility structures — right — have collapsed, right? That world that used to be the dominant forces in America, those institutions have kind of collapsed and the theology now is, I think, in a desperate kind of free fall, and so this is what we're seeing is people that literally is a kind of psychic break, and a kind of desperate flailing around that we're seeing in public as people are trying to wrap their heads around this.
And to close out the show, Reid started where she began with the dangerous implication that the 70 million-plus right-of-center Americans are indeed terrorists with violent intentions lurking around every corner (click “expand”):
In fact, NPR reports today that the 12 months that followed Trump’s notorious statement have overall been a period of growth for the Proud Boys. It's one example of how Trump's call to arms has heralded one of the most dangerous period in the history of American politics. Since then, we’ve increasingly seen Republicans cozy up to these right wing militias and extremist groups... They’re following Trump's lead, trying to make the fringe mainstream, and that's exactly true of the sedition caucus in Congress who have been rallying behind the alleged perpetrators of the attempted coup. In doing so, the GOP is enabling and empowering these extremist elements to commit more violence.
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All of this explains why the right's embrace of domestic terrorists and their attempts to normalize violence as politics — which one might call fascism — is the absolute worst, and that is tonight’s ReidOut.
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s The ReidOut on September 29, click here.
Reid’s latest episode of dangerous, poisonous rhetoric against conservative Americans was made possible thanks to the endorsement of advertisers such as HughesNet, Liberty Mutual, Lincoln, and Uber Eats. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
