You just knew there'd fireworks on at least one of the Sunday shows this morning on the first weekend after Donald Trump's earth-shaking upset in winning the presidency. That there was, and it was a thing to behold.
It began after longtime GOP conservative Mary Matalin questioned whether Democrat activist/CNN commentator Van Jones had walked back his election night claim that Trump's victory was propelled by a "whitelash" of angry white working class voters motivated by racial animus.
Here's what Jones initially said on This Week that sounded like he was amending his earlier claim --
JONES: The thing about this Trump phenomenon is that there's a lot of good stuff in it -- the anti-elitism, the concern for working-class jobs, but it's just marbled with all this toxic stuff -- the misogyny, all the outright bigotry -- and so now people are left trying to pull this apart. If you just say, look at all the good stuff and you don't acknowledge the toxic stuff, you're wrong. If you only look at the toxic stuff and you don't recognize there's going to be some good stuff here for infrastructure, whatever, you're wrong. And so people now have to do a big reset. But this is a big wakeup call to the entire establishment including the Democrats and not just because of the failure.
Matalin pressed Jones on this several minutes later --
MATALIN: Can I have an honest moment here, people? Van has, to my mind, retracted your whitelash (comments) with what you just said, no, that we have to not focus totally on the toxic stuff and if you don't you're wrong.
JONES (shaking head): No, no, you raise ...
MATALIN (pointing toward The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel): You, that's not the path for progressives. (Alluding to vanden Heuvel's earlier remarks). We've all agreed at the outset of this show that the path, which is (Democrat House member Keith) Ellison's message, you say, is to go back to the Rust Belt ...
VANDEN HEUVEL: Absolutely ...
MATALIN: ... and the rednecks -- you're not going to get there with climate change and Putin and all the rest of it.
VANDEN HEUVEL: There are people in South Carolina who run hotels who understand their self-interest. They will be overrun by rivers and water if they don't deal, deal with climate crisis. (Matalin comically puts both hands on her face and stares into the camera, as if to say, can you believe what you just heard). (Citing lack of time, This Week host George Stephanopoulos gives Jones the last word).
JONES: Listen, what I said and I stand by it, I said that race was a part, and there was a part, that alt-right part, that was part of the whitelash and if you listen to the whole quote, you would agree (gesturing toward Matalin) with what I said. So I don't take that back ...
MATALIN: I did listen and again, you said, what do I tell the kids? What I would tell your kids -- I'm a black man in America who went to Yale, who's written books, who served a president and now has a TV job.
JONES: And I'm a ninth-generation American, ma'am, and I'm the first one in my family born with all my rights, I'm a ninth-generation American. And so we have not escaped, because I went to Yale, all of the problems in this country.
MATALIN: And you should not be a racial polemicist, you should be a racial reconciler.
JONES: You should be ashamed of yourself to say that to me to my face. I have spent more time ...
MATALIN: Should I say it behind your back -- would that be better?
JONES: Hold on a second (request of a person on the losing end of an argument). I've spent more time than you have (pointing accusingly at Matalin) trying to be a racial reconciler in this country ...
MATALIN: Really? (Can't believe what she's hearing yet again). How do you know that? Do you know anything about me?
Such as the fact I'm married to the most partisan Democrat imaginable? Or that I left the Republican Party over Trump?
JONES: Well, apparently you don't know anything about me and I am shocked ...
MATALIN: Yes I do know, your daddy, your grandparents were teachers, your grandfather was a bishop.
JONES: George, this is the problem we have right now. It is in fact the case that there was a populist revolt in this country, both Sanders and Trump. But one of them was marbled through with this alt-right stuff ...
While the other was heavily marbled with the loot-from-the-rich mentality of Marxist doctrine ...
JONES: If someone like myself, who's married to a white woman, who has spent my entire life building bridges can't point out the alt-right whitelash reaction without being accused (again points at Matalin) of being a racial polemicist, we're going to have a big problem in this country.
Translation: those bridges could burn.
VANDEN HEUVEL (to Matalin): Have you no sense of decency ....
Vanden Heuvel evoking Army lawyer Joseph Welch's condemnation of GOP Senator Joseph McCarthy for daring point out that the FDR and Truman administrations were riddled with Soviet spies. She's waited her whole life to say it!
VANDEN HEUVEL: ... to say that of a man who's been a healer throughout a tortured, horrific brutal campaign, he has spoken sanity to power. And to those who would defame ...
MATALIN (with heavy sarcasm): OK, my deepest apologies. You don't know anything about me (directed at Jones). You don't know anything about my healing and I would say there are ways to get to reconciliation different from calling on, focusing on the toxic elements as you did on election night.
JONES: You have to talk about both. You have to talk about both ...
STEPHANOPOULOS (cutting to a commercial break): And you guys can talk about it outside.
Ever notice how liberals are forever harping on the need for more "dialogue" on race -- unless it actually happens, as was the case on This Week. Then they turn indignant, and in a hurry.
"You should be ashamed of yourself to say that to my face," Jones said in condemning Matalin. What he's really saying is -- You should be ashamed for not remembering that only liberals can talk about race.
