In 2020, an unhinged Joe Scarborough suffers daily meltdowns about the presidential election. On Wednesday, he suggested you are un-American if you vote for Donald Trump. He suggested this election is an existential threat to the United States as we know it.
Yet four years ago this week, on October 20, 2016, Scarborough dismissed those who attacked Trump for his response on accepting the outcome of the election: “My target this morning for my mockery are the very people that are writing articles today on their blogs that are saying ‘this is a threat to democracy, the electoral process in America is sacrosanct and if we ever doubt this are we no better than Putin.’ Those are the people I'm mocking.”
He added:
Democrats have been whining for 16 years, they are still writing articles about how Bush stole the elections in 2000 and 2004. So this ‘than thou’ attitude about this is the first time anyone has suggested that the election is not a sacrosanct process, it's a joke. You guys bathe in that hypocrisy if you want to, I'd just like to hear how the debate went. Go ahead, bathe.”
This is what Scarborough insisted on Wednesday, saying that if one votes for the Republican, “you can’t explain that away to history.”
So, all of these people saying, ‘Oh, you know what, I just don’t vote for Democrats,’ ‘Oh, you know what, I’m just voting for him because of regulations,’ ‘Oh, you know, he doesn’t—‘ Donald Trump, in the last two weeks of the campaign, is raging at his attorney general for not arresting his political opponent.
If you’re voting for Donald Trump, that’s who you’re voting for. And if you’re voting for that man who, two weeks from Election Day, is calling for the arrest of his opponent, then you have absolutely no idea what America is about. Let me say it again: you have no idea what this country’s about if you’re supporting a man who, two weeks out, is calling for the arrest of his—you can’t—you can’t explain that away. You can’t explain that away to history. You can’t explain that away to your children or grandchildren. You just can’t. And you can’t plead ignorance because you know better.
National Review highlighted the transition of Scarborough, from avid Trump fan to rabid attack dog. Maybe 2020 Joe should have a conversation with 2016 Joe?
For more examples from our FLASHBACK series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.
