Citizens of the United Kingdom voting in favor of departure from the European Union was an unmitigated disaster of epic scale, Rachel Maddow hyperventilated right after the vote in late June.
By late August, Maddow was looking back at the referendum as a road bump you've probably already forgotten and not quite the "global crisis" she initially claimed.
Maddow's amusing flip-flop became evident on her MSNBC show Thursday when she mocked GOP nominee Donald Trump's appearance at a rally in Mississippi with Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party and a major proponent in favor of Brexit. Maddow was especially amused with Trump's disparagement of Hillary Clinton as "America's Angela Merkel" --
MADDOW: That is how we ended up last night with Donald Trump standing in front of a basically mystified, all-white audience crowd in Mississippi ...
A comparable observation never to be heard on MSNBC -- "Hillary Clinton standing in front of an essentially befuddled, all-black crowd in Detroit" ...
MADDOW: ... introducing this British guy! Introducing Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party!
Imagine that! Trump rubbing elbows with his political counterpart from our nation's closest ally!
MADDOW: ... to go preach in Mississippi about how politically inspirational it was when, uh, Britain voted for Brexit (chuckles), as if anybody in that room had any idea what he was talking about, let alone how they should feel about it.
At this point Maddow segued to Trump's introduction of Farage, which drew healthy applause, followed by Farage's remarks, and Maddow again disparaging the audience as clueless about that which she warned two months ago was cataclysmic -
MADDOW: This is a British guy preaching the gospel of what happened on June 23rd with the Brexit vote to a bunch of people in Mississippi who are not quite sure if when he says Brussels that's supposed to be a good thing or is that a bad thing, are we against Brussels? Are we supposed to cheer? Are we supposed to boo? Is this, this is a Brexit, this is an exit, with a biscuit ...? I mean, it's like ... (waves arms in mock exasperation).
I'm not saying this went over any worse in Mississippi than it would go over anywhere else in this country. I mean, just before any generic Republican audience anywhere in this country, this kind of thing is like getting up and preaching quadratic equations. There's probably an advanced mathematician somewhere in the room who's going to have the hair rise up on the back of their (sic) neck when you get to the punchline. But for most people, they're just waiting for cues on what to say and what to think and this means nothing to them and is it over?
Note the absence of any basis whatsoever for Maddow's take on the alleged ignorance of the audience at the rally -- not even the obligatory post-rally interviews of attendees with the most idiotic responses cherry-picked to confirm the bias of her previously-established narrative. Instead, we're left with Maddow's transparent insinuations that the Trump supporters are dullards based on the state where they live, deep in the South after all, and their unfortunate skin hue.
Maddow wasn't nearly so dismissive of the Brexit vote itself as some obscure, insignificant controversy abroad after it actually happened. Instead, her language at the time was apocalyptic. In retrospect, it comes across as laughable --
MADDOW: People in the UK woke up this morning to a brave, new, weird, crazy, surreal world -- and then Donald Trump flew in. He arrived at one of his golf courses in Scotland in a big helicopter that said Trump on the tail. There was a procession behind some bagpipers. While that was underway the British press did try to yell out and ask Mr. Trump some questions but nobody could hear anything over the bagpipes! (chuckles). Can't hear ya, what?! This is a feature, not a bug, with bagpipes.
Then after that there was, honestly, just one of the strangest press conferences I've ever seen. At this point, at this moment when Donald Trump steps up to that podium, global stocks are selling off faster than anything since the collapse at the start of the Great Recession. The British pound is falling off a cliff. The prime minister had just resigned within the past hour! And Donald Trump, Republican presidential nominee, he stepped up to the microphone while this was all happening, and it's not even like he stepped up to a microphone here while this was happening, he was there, in the UK, geographically where this was all happening, the center of a global crisis unfolding at that moment, and what he talked about when he stepped up to those microphones was (pause), you know, the new suites that we have put into the lighthouse, they are magnificent. Have you seen them?
In other words, Trump rejected the sky-is-falling Brexit narrative spun at the time by propagandists like Maddow. Two months later, Maddow has unequivocally rejected her own overwrought initial take on Brexit and now sees it much the way Trump did at the time, when he refused to accept the media's prophecy of doom. Don't hold your breath waiting for Maddow to point out who was more level-headed, seeing how this is an enduring feature with her and not a bug.
