Like millions of his fellow Americans, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough woke up Thursday morning to learn virtually nothing new about the ongoing election. Understandably frustrated on Morning Joe, he ranted his way into a pit of confusion as he tried in vain to understand both conservative Christians and his own friends and relatives who support President Trump.
First, MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle gave a surprisingly fair assessment of the minds of conservatives:
I was speaking to a person yesterday, a Trump person, loves Donald Trump, loves what he's been doing, and I ask about the other side. ‘You know, well Joe Biden, good guy, you know the Democrats, blah blah blah.’ And they boil it down to the following sentence: “I'm tired of so many people telling me what to think, how to live, and now they're telling me what to eat.” I mean, the take that so many people have, about the interference in their own personal lives, by an overwhelming apparatus of government, the flood of social media, the autopsy on this is gonna be among the most interesting American experiments we have ever done and it has to be done.
Blinded by rage, Scarborough lacked Barnicle’s perspective: ”Well, there’s also, I know you just have to add in there, and I say this as a guy who was a Republican for 20, 25 years, so much of that also comes from just an overwhelming sense of victimhood.“
Rambling on about the invalidity of Christians’ concerns about religious persecution from the Left, and forgetting that he gave Republicans the middle finger years ago, he snarled:
The sense of victimhood is outrageous. You know what makes it even more outrageous, I'm sorry to get on this-- this soap box, is [these] same people that are talking about religious liberty are supporting a guy still who promoted a Muslim registry. Yes, yes, a Muslim registry. Sounds an awful like Jewish registries in Nazi Germany. ‘Oh, you can't say those words, can’ -- but wait. That's what he proposed. And a lot of you evangelicals that run around screaming about religious freedom and religious liberty and how-- how the libs are coming after you and your church and your beliefs with-- while you're ignoring Supreme Court decisions, one precedent after another, protecting your rights, which of course I support, ‘cause I'm a conservative, you don't feel that way.
And forgetting President Obama’s disdain for non-liberal Christians when he was in power, the ex-Republican acted like Christians have been a bunch of whiny hypocrites:
I mean, the victimhood. I mean, come on. Stop being a victim. Stop being a snowflake. I've got the same most likely a lot of the same beliefs that you have. But those similarities stop when I think that the protection of my faith, of my evangelical faith should only be applied to me and not applied to Catholics, not applied to Jews, not applied to Muslims, not applied to the others. The blinders. I gotta say after all these years, the blinders are- are- are just extraordinary, Mika.
After thoroughly bashing conservatives and Christians, he concluded with a quasi-unifying message (although it was sad and strange, and kind of fell flat):
Yeah, I don't understand why people voted for Donald Trump, I don’t. I don't understand why my family voted for Donald Trump, I don't understand why my best friends voted for Donald Trump. I don’t understand why everybody in my neighborhood voted for Donald Trump, I don’t understand why everybody that I know voted for Donald Trump. But I got to get along with them. I love ‘em. I'm not gonna throw away 57 years of friendships over one election. We gotta stop thinking that it's the end -- everything is the end of the world. (…) And we'll survive four years or eight years of Donald Trump. We'll survive four years or eight years of Joe Biden.
Scarborough left viewers to feel unsure whether to resent him or to just pity him. But clearly, he has personal issues with the people in his life who support President Trump, and he’s acting like a victim and a snowflake.
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Read the transcript below:
Morning Joe
11/5/20
7:15:29 AM
MIKE BARNICLE: And the Packer piece is really interesting, as you’d expect from George Packer. And it points out something that we all should be acutely aware of in this ongoing autopsy that we're going to do on the two Americas that we talk about each and every day. And this did not begin with Donald Trump. What the roots of our divisions were there long before Donald Trump. And as Jeffrey just pointed out, you just get the sense that the explosion of social media, Twitter and Instagram and everything that surrounds us every day in communications terms, we’re inundated with it, we’re flooded with it every day, and you end up talking to people who voted for Trump or who believe in Donald Trump, and you get amazingly simplistic themes about why they're divided. I was speaking to a person yesterday, a Trump person, loves Donald Trump, loves what he's been doing, and I ask about the other side. ‘You know, well Joe Biden, good guy, you know the Democrats, blah blah blah.’ And they boil it down to the following sentence: “I'm tired of so many people telling me what to think, how to live, and now they're telling me what to eat.” I mean, the take that so many people have, about the interference in their own personal lives, by an overwhelming apparatus of government, the flood of social media, the autopsy on this is gonna be among the most interesting American experiments we have ever done and it has to be done.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, there’s also, I know you just have to add in there, and I say this as a guy who was a Republican for 20, 25 years, so much of that also comes from just an overwhelming sense of victimhood. I swear if I hear one more friend of mine who's an evangelical talking about ‘they're coming for us, and the persecuted church, and I politely and gently remind them that over the past five years, no Supreme Court in the history of this republic has done more to protect religious rights than has the [Chief Justice] Roberts court. And I can go down one ruling after another after another. You know what? I can't help you with what's on TV. I can’t help you with what’s on at the movies. I can't help what your kids are watching on iPhones, I can’t help what your kids are streaming on your television sets at home. Or many of the other challenges that we all face with teenage children, but to suggest that somehow this federal government is hostile to faith and we must vote for Donald Trump to protect Christendom is one of the stupidest arguments I have ever heard in my life. Look what the Supreme Court has done on religious liberty, specifically protecting religious liberty of conservative Christians. People that I have grown up with and been with in churches for, you know, the past 57 years. The sense of victimhood is outrageous. You know what makes it even more outrageous, I'm sorry to get on this-- this soap box is [these] same people that are talking about religious liberty are supporting a guy still who promoted a Muslim registry. Yes, yes, a Muslim registry. Sounds an awful like Jewish registries in Nazi Germany. ‘Oh, you can't say those words, can’ -- but wait. That's what he proposed. And a lot of you evangelicals that run around screaming about religious freedom and religious liberty and how-- how the libs are coming after you and your church and your beliefs with-- while you're ignoring Supreme Court decisions, one precedent after another, protecting your rights, which of course I support, ‘cause I'm a conservative, you don't feel that way. You don't have those same concerns for the others. And it's just the damnedest thing. You talk about pro-life, you talk about protecting unborn babies, you just don't care about babies that are born, that are locked in cages. Oh, you say ‘Barack Obama’ -- no, it wasn't Barack Obama's policy to deliberately find children and lock them up. But that was Donald Trump's policy. In fact, they had a cabinet meeting where everybody raised their hands to support it, except for Kirstjen Nielsen.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Who got blamed for it.
SCARBOROUGH: That was—that was a stated policy. So I- I really don't get it. I mean, the victimhood. I mean, come on. Stop being a victim. Stop being a snowflake. I've got the same most likely a lot of the same beliefs that you have. But those similarities stop when I think that the protection of my faith, of my evangelical faith should only be applied to me and not applied to Catholics, not applied to Jews, not applied to Muslims, not applied to the others. The blinders. I gotta say after all these years, the blinders are- are- are just extraordinary, Mika. I do want to say one other thing too. I mean… again, there are people -- and I'm gonna upset- set maybe some people on the left. There are people who are acting like it's the end of the world ‘cause we may have divided government. I go back again to Thomas Ricks' book coming out in the next couple of weeks where again, the separation of powers. This frustration that stops tyrants from taking over governments or stops parties from darting too far in one direction or the other direction. That is not a bug of our government. That is a feature. That is not a bug in the Constitution. That is a feature. Those of you talking about how we need to change the Constitution, you need to take a long, cold shower because checks and balances, that's what this government's about. And that's what scared me so much over the past four years of the Trump presidency. And by the way, we're not -- the world’s not coming to an-- the end, okay?
Yeah, I don't understand why people voted for Donald Trump, I don’t. I don't understand why my family voted for Donald Trump, I don't understand why my best friends voted for Donald Trump. I don’t understand why everybody in my neighborhood voted for Donald Trump, I don’t understand why everybody that I know voted for Donald Trump. But I got to get along with them. I love ‘em. I'm not gonna throw away 57 years of friendships over one election. We gotta stop thinking that it's the end -- everything is the end of the world. Bill Clinton was the end of the world. George W. Bush, the end of the world. Barack Obama, the end of the world. Donald Trump, the end of the world. Joe Biden is going to be the end of the world. You're in good company. As Rick said in his book, George Washington died believing that the republic he built was doomed. Thomas Jefferson died believing the Declaration of Independence that helped launch the United States of America was doomed. They died pessimists believing their government and their nation was moving in the wrong direction. We're still here. And we'll survive four years or eight years of Donald Trump. We'll survive four years or eight years of Joe Biden. It's time for us to take a deep breath and just move forward with our lives and stop obsessing so much over politics. Now let's continue with our three-hour show on politics. Mika?
