In the wake of the fallout stemming from the attack which injured Congressman Steve Scalise and several others, the mainstream media rushed to explain away the narrative that the shooter, James Hodgkinson, was a radical progressive who hated Republicans. They opted instead to lay the blame at the feet of a toxic political environment created by none other than President Donald Trump. Co-host Mika Brzezinski obsequiously did so on Thursday’s Morning Joe when she proclaimed, “What Bill Clinton did to the issue of sex to an entire generation, I believe this President is doing on issues of decency, on issues of conspiracy theories, on issues of fake news.”
The Morning Joe cast began first by seeking to equalize the rhetoric on both sides while conveniently ignoring recent instances of mock beheading and assassination of the President. They then moved in to target Trump with talk of a "new dynamic" in the political discourse:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Mika, not only do they go home to the social media and hatred, they also go home to town hall meetings. If you're a Democrat, chances are good that if you're Nancy Pelosi and you go home to your district, everyone is going to be asking her why are Republicans so evil? Why are they so this, why are they so that? If you are a Republican you'll go to a district where everyone asks why are Democrats so evil? Because the gerrymandered districts and the facts that we are sorting ourselves out selectively, everyone goes home and they go home to a bubble.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Well, Joe, I think very carefully we have to talk about the added dynamic here because you have the right and left, the extremes on the right and the left. You have fake news, you have conspiracy theorists who are really muddying the waters and we have become desensitized. We also have a president who pushes fake news and conspiracy theories from birtherism to promoting violence on the campaign trail. This is the new dynamic here. I'm not putting anything squarely on the president, but I have to say that this is the new added dynamic to what is a very dangerous climate.
Brzezinski and Scarborough would later up the ante even further as Brzezinski compared Trump to Clinton and Scarborough mocked Trump by saying he should “try some decency” in the hopes of raising his poll numbers.
BRZEZINSKI: I know what I'm trying to say here and I'll try to give you a parallel to help you understand. What Bill Clinton did to the issue of sex to an entire generation, I believe this President is doing on issues of decency, on issues of conspiracy theories, on issues of fake news. I think it's that simple and we're desensitized if we even argue it.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, Mika, you know firsthand I have had incredibly tough meetings and incredibly tough talks with Republicans and have -- it has gotten ugly. But I do it behind closed doors when they act like this is normal. It's not normal. There is truth. We all know what the meaning of is "Is". All I'm saying is there has been a corrosiveness in political culture, whether it started Atwater gate or whether it started with Bill Clinton when he first came into office and his supporter David Gethan said lied incredibly effectively. It's been this way for some time. I'm saying it did not start with Donald Trump, but let us pray that it ends with Donald Trump.
And I am forever hopeful that perhaps this is an inflection point and one that the President and the people around him will take as an inflection point cause, Mike Barnicle, even if they want to be cynical, it couldn't get much worse for them. They're sitting at a 36% approval rating, 60% disapproval ting in Gallup as we showed yesterday. Why not try to work together with everybody on the other side? Work for what you believe in. But sit down with Democrats and Republicans alike. It can't get any worse than it is right now. Try a little bit of decency. Try a little bit of humanity. Try to bridge both sides. Bring them together. Who knows? It might even get your approval ratings in the 40s while making our republic stronger.
One underreported piece of news is that yesterday was, in fact, Donald Trump's birthday. As would be expected, the President had plans in place in order to celebrate, but shelved them so that he could go and vist Congressman Scalise at the hospital. How's that for decency, Joe? Oh, and who was it that declined to wish the President a happy birthday?
