In a bizarre moment on Thursday's Hardball in which host Chris Matthews noted how many suburban conservative are "embarrassed" by party nomination frontrunner Donald Trump, the MSNBC host subtly attacked these voters as "white flight" Republicans who perhaps exhibit a "tinge" of racism but are embarrassed by the blatant, overt racism they see in Donald Trump's campaign pitch.
These remarks came in a segment about conservatives reportedly banding together to discuss a strategy to thwart Trump's securing the GOP nomination for the presidency this July.
Here's the relevant transcript:
MSNBC
Hardball
March 17, 2016; 7:32 p.m. EasternCHRIS MATTHEWS: I think there truly are, Shane [Goldmacher of Politico], I think they truly are. They don't like the word moderate Republican. Let's call them mainstream conservative Republicans.
But they do have a sensitivity about, they don't want to be known as racist, they don't, even if they have a little bit of a tinge, they don't want to have it public. They are embarrassed by it. They may live in the suburbs. They may be part of white flight. But they damn well read the newspapers and don't want to be one of the bad guys.
And Trump talks in ways that sounds very bad to people.
Of course, Matthews himself lives in a tony lily-white suburb of D.C. just over the line from Northwest Washington called Chevy Chase Village. [See related story from 2012 here.]
The 2010 Census recorded the town to be 95.9 percent white and only 0.6 percent black. The 2014 American Community Survey, conducted by the Census estimated a zero percent black population. In fairness, that's an estimate, not, like the Census, an actual enumeration.
