On Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC, anchor Chuck Todd seemed to be hoping for the Republican Party to be punished in the upcoming midterm elections for what he claims is “overreaching” in the culture wars.
The leftist host remarked to his assembled panel “one hallmark of the culture wars in this country is the party that overreaches is who gets punished.” He then asked, “are we at a tipping point here where the right’s overreaching?”
Responding to Todd’s fantasy that protecting children from being sexually indoctrinated is somehow “overreaching” and that the overwhelming majority of parents in the United States are somehow for lessons on sexuality in Kindergarten, former Republican Florida Congressman Carlos Curbelo set him straight: “right now Republicans are winning the culture wars in this country. That's just the way it is.”
Curbelo continued schooling Todd:
You look at defund the police, you look at defund ICE. Now in Florida, you have this parental empowerment bill, the opponents call it the don't say gay bill. Republicans have basically baited Democrats in Florida into taking the position that students in K-3 students who are learning to color and read and write should be taught about sexuality, about gender identity.So I think Democrats have consistently been at least perceived to be on the wrong side of these issues, and Republicans are going to keep going to the well everytime and for Ron DeSantis, if he runs in 24’, he's going to run on these issues.
Todd then interpreted that as conservatives baiting leftists, instead of the basic fact that his side is losing the argument claiming: “Carlos makes a good point about how the right is so good at baiting the left.”
Having no sense of irony at all, Todd said with a straight face that Republicans are the ones who want to know what children’s gender is, and demanded that they get out of children’s bedrooms hilariously claiming “this is government telling–saying they want to look in your -- they want to know what your kid's gender is. Get out of my kid's bedroom.”
Todd must’ve forgotten for a moment that DeSantis is the one who wants to let kids be kids and not force them to learn about gender identity at a young age.
Later on in the segment, correspondent Josh Lederman wailed that “Democrats allow their messaging to almost be defined by the other side” and bemoaned the fact that Republicans have successfully controlled the narrative and remarked that, “if you were to ask the average parent of a first-grader, do you want your kid to be taught about sex in first grade? Most parents would probably say ew, probably not.”
Lederman continued whining: “If you asked, is it okay for your kid to be read a book about Peter the Penguin who has two Penguin dads, you’re not going to have the same kind of response. But Democrats have kind of ceded the argument on this on so many of these cultural issues.”
Curbelo to Lederman’s meltdown by remarking “this is why Democrats are losing working-class voters, Latino voters because they seem so disconnected.”
This out-of-touch segment from Meet the Press was made possible by Allstate. Their information is linked.
To read the transcript of this segment click expand:
NBC’s Meet the Press
4/10/2022
11:23:29 a.m. EasternCHUCK TODD: Welcome back. As we said, the culture wars appear to be heating up. And Carlos, our home state of Florida has been sort of ground zero for some of this action with the Governor DeSantis almost using the legislature as his primary vehicle for 2024, but now there's a lot of copycat stuff going on in legislatures. Let me put up the headlines here in what critics have called this don't say gay bill, about when you can talk about gay parents and things like this in schools, Alabama, Texas, Ohio. One hallmark of the culture wars in this country is the party that overreaches is who gets punished. Are we at a tipping point here where the right’s overreaching?
CARLOS CURBELO: Well, Chuck, right now Republicans are winning the culture wars in this country. That's just the way it is. You look at defund the police, you look at defund ICE. Now in Florida, you have this parental empowerment bill, the opponents call it the don't say gay bill. Republicans have basically baited Democrats in Florida into taking the position that students in K-3 students who are learning to color and read and write should be taught about sexuality, about gender identity. So I think Democrats have consistently been at least perceived to be on the wrong side of these issues, and Republicans are going to keep going to the well everytime and for Ron DeSantis, if he runs in 24’, he's going to run on these issues.
TODD: Kimberly, Carlos makes a good point about how the right is so good at baiting the left to defend a specific.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR: Yep.
TODD: And by the way this bill has about 50-50 support. It's not decisive in either direction.
STOHR: Also the polling is all over the place. It's very difficult to poll in this kind of way.
TODD: How do you ask the question?
STOHR: But that’s right, Republicans saw, they see the win in the Gubernatorial race in Virginia and they say that this is how they can just take this playbook over and over and over again, and Democrats haven’t found any way to message it. And the first thing with DeSantis facing off with Disney right? Is if the Republicans are railing against cancel culture, if a government penalizes someone over what they say, that's anti-first amendment. The Democrats are actually legally on the winning side of this, yet you haven't heard that message at all.
TODD: Anna, It's been astonishing to me that the Democrats haven't grabbed onto a libertarian attack on this. Because this is big government telling people what to do. This is government telling–saying they want to look in your -- they want to know what your kid's gender is. Get out of my kid's bedroom.
ANNA PALMER: But that's time and again what we're seeing Republicans do right now whether what’s happening with abortion and all these other cases. I think Democrats are on their heels particularly when it came to schools and COVID and mask requirements and they have not figured out how to message around this. It seems to me yeah, there are easy slogans you could push back on but they have not found an animating slogan to kind of push back and get the public sentiment behind them.
JOSH LEDERMAN: And time and again, we've seen that Democrats allow their messaging to almost be defined by the other side in a way that is so hard for them to then get out of. I mean the problems with the polling on this mirror the problems that Democrats have in messaging on it. If you were to ask the average parent of a first grader, do you want your kid to be taught about sex in first grade? Most parents would probably say “ew, probably not.” But if you asked, is it okay for your kid to be read a book about Peter the Penguin who has two Penguin dads, you’re not going to have the same kind of response. But Democrats have kind of ceded the argument on this on so many of these cultural issues.
CURBELO: And this is why Democrats are losing working class voters, latino voters, because they seem so disconnected. A lot of the messaging comes from the Progressive base of the Democratic Party and that messaging does not connect with working class voters, with Latino voters, so those numbers are going to continue to erode as long as Democrats are perceived to be on this side of those issues.
