On MSNBC’s The ReidOut, Joy Reid and fellow host, Lawrence O’Donnell quickly sought to prove to each other and everyone watching that neither of them have any clue about how our nation’s government works. Separation of powers and division of powers are foreign concepts to both of them.
Proof of this came early in the show when Reid kvetched how many of President Joe Biden’s left-wing programs have been held up in the U.S. Senate. “None of those things are law and none are likely to become law despite Democrats narrowly controlling both branches of the federal legislature and the White House,” Reid wailed. “Because one or two Senators can literally shut down every one of those things over the will of hundreds of representatives in the house which has passed most of the things.”
The unhinged host then whined that “without 60 Senators' approval, 327 million Americans cannot have nice things.”
What she doesn’t understand, or simply refuses to understand is Biden’s agenda isn’t being held up by “one or two Senators” the legislation is being blocked by fifty Republican Senators and two Democrat Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) & Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ).
Once Reid was done with her incoherent ranting, she brought in Lawrence O’Donnell to join the discussion about how America has become “ungovernable.”
“We certainly are not governing as a country” O’Donnell agreed. Proving he is just as ignorant about America’s system of government as Reid, he remarked: “so on something like abortion, the notion that in some states you have certain rights and in other states, you don't have the same rights, is the kind of thing that literally defines different countries.”
After that bizarre commentary, he shared his shock that each of America’s fifty states also has its own tax laws:
You know, and it's not just that. It’s this other thing that’s been with us forever that no one even notices as uniquely peculiar to the United States of America. How much your tax burden is, depends on where you live. It depends on the state government that you live under and there are states that have no income tax, there are states that have much higher sales taxes, states with higher property taxes, other taxes. That's another thing that defines elsewhere in the world the separate countries.
He then goes on to express his shock that “we have these 50 different governments within the federal government,” which according to him “make[s] this place behave as more than one country.”
Joy Reid and Lawrence O’Donnell’s shockingly ignorant commentary is the best case for mandatory civics classes in every public school in the United States. It's clear they have no respect for our system of government as founded and totally reject the idea that America is made up of various smaller governing regions known as states.
Joy Reid & Lawrence O’Donnell’s uneducated commentary was made possible by Sleep Number. Their information is linked.
To read the relevant transcript click “expand”:
MSNBC’s The ReidOut
4/28/2022
7:00:30 p.m. EasternJOY REID: Good evening, everyone. We begin The ReidOut with a question that has been just bugging me increasingly over the last few years even more so after that coup attempt last January. And it is this. Has America become ungovernable? Now just hold on. Just let me tease this out a little bit. President Joe Biden won the 2020 election with more than 81 million votes, 7 million more than Donald Trump got. A clear majority on an agenda that includes things that are demonstrably popular with Americans. Like protecting your right to vote. 62 percent of voters support making it illegal to prevent someone from registering to vote. Police reform. Particularly after the George Floyd murder more than 2/3 of Americans say our criminal justice system needs either a complete overhaul or major changes.
(...)
Yet none of those things are law and none are likely to become law despite Democrats narrowly controlling both branches of the federal legislature and the White House. Why? Because one or two Senators can literally shut down every one of those things over the will of hundreds of representatives in the house which has passed most of the things I just mentioned and without 60 Senators' approval, 327 million Americans cannot have nice things. Oh, and one of our two viable political parties planned an actual insurrection and are probably gonna do it again. So I ask again, is America at this point in our history and with a system that was designed by European men who certainly never envisioned racial and gender equality, or the kind of diversity that we have today, or that anyone not like them would ever share power in this country. Are we ungovernable? Joining me now is my friend Lawrence O'Donnell host of the great The Last Word here on MSNBC. Talk me down if you can.
(...)
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: This is the biggest subject I've ever discussed on television. It is an enormous question, and for some periods of our history the country did seem reasonably governable and reasonably well-governed if you were white and if you had property, but then as this -- you know, as the Civil War approached, slavery was tearing the country apart. It seemed like no, this is a gigantic issue on which two different sections of the country have completely different views, to the point that a group of the states said, you know what, we don't think this can be a country.
REID: Right.
O’DONNELL: We're going to call ourselves the confederate states. So we saw that. That belief took hold very strongly that, no, it cannot be. You're asking this one place to absorb too much conflicting thought. And so you look at the United States now, and you say, well, we're not -- we certainly are not governing as a country.
REID: Right.
O’DONNELL: So the governable question is clearly one that begins with we're not governing.
REID: Yeah.
O’DONNELL: So on something like abortion, the notion that in some states you have certain rights and in other states, you don't have the same rights, is the kind of thing that literally defines different countries.
REID: Right. Right.
O’DONNELL: That's why there's a Luxembourg and a Belgium instead of let's put them together.
REID: Right.
O’DONNELL: You know, and it's not just that. It’s this other thing that’s been with us forever that no one even notices as uniquely peculiar to the United States of America. How much your tax burden is, depends on where you live.
REID: Right.
O’DONNELL: It depends on the state government that you live under and there are states that have no income tax, there are states that have much higher sales taxes, states with higher property taxes, other taxes. That's another thing that defines elsewhere in the world the separate countries.
REID: Right. Right.
O’DONNELL: And so we have these really peculiar things that have developed because we have these 50 different governments within the federal government that make this place behave as more than one country but then always we must live under this sort of faith and declaration that we are one country. And I say it is both a declaration and true in its law, but there's also a faith element to it.
REID: Yeah.
O’DONNELL: There's a thing that comes out when people say things like, oh, we're better than this. Well, maybe in your neighborhood you are or maybe in your state you are but, no – Who's the we that you’re talking about when you say that? That's the expression about faith, about who we, America is as a group of people. And so this has been -- we're now in a period where questioning the very governability of the 50 states is a very, very ripe question. And we go through decades where it doesn't feel like a reasonable question.
REID: Yeah.
