Appearing as a guest on Friday's Hardball, MSNBC's Joy Reid claimed that Donald Trump's voters wanted him to "get all the brown people" off ObamaCare instead of themselves.
And then, following up on her AM Joy show the next morning, she hosted New York magazine columnist Frank Rich to discuss his latest article, "No Sympathy for the Hillbilly," in which he argued that Democrats are misguided in thinking that spending more time being sympathetic to Trump voters will lead them to future electoral success as they should work to boost their base turnout instead.
On Friday evening, during a discussion of the Republican failure to pass a replacement of Obamacare, Reid excitedly began rambling:
What I think is stunning, Chris, about today is that the Republican party learned absolutely nothing from the election of Donald Trump, including Donald Trump. Donald Trump won in the Rust Belt in those states saying he was going to repeal and replace Obamacare because we thought at the time that he understood that his voters hated the "Obama" but they liked the "care."
Continuing her mockery of Trump voters, she added:
They didn't see him as a guy who was going to come and cancel their Medicaid. They thought he was Daddy Warbucks. They thought that he was just going to cancel undocumented people's Medicaid that they don't get. They just assumed that he was going to get all the brown people to stop, quote, "taking what's theirs," but that they were going to keep their stuff.
The next morning, before a commercial break at 11:32 a.m. ET, Reid plugged the upcoming segment: "And coming up, New York magazine's Frank Rich has no sympathy for the hillbilly? What? He joins me next."
A few minutes later, she introduced the segment by recalling one of the takes on the Democratic presidential loss:
After the election, the Democratic party self-diagnosis produced a number of conclusions to explain what went wrong. The one you probably hear the most often focuses on Democrats' lack of empathy and appeal to the white working class voters who propelled Donald Trump to victory in unlikely Rust Belt states like Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania. And Democratic leaders have been trying to answer the question of how to turn those Republican voters back into Democrats.
The MSNBC then turned attention to Rich's article as she continued:
But this week, in a New York magazine article titled "No Sympathy for the Hillbilly," Frank Rich urges Democrats to hold the empathy and hold on to the anger, and he asks of Democratic aspirations to convert Trump's base:
Quoting the article, she added:
Is it a worthwhile political tactic that will actually help reverse Republican rule? Or is it another counterproductive detour into liberal guilt, self-flagellation, and other political correctness of the sort that helped blind Democrats to the gravity of the Trump threat in the first place?
In his appearance, the liberal columnist argued that blue collar white voters who supported Trump should not be targeted by Democrats because they are unlikely to change their minds:
If they're not going to be reached by the Democratic party because they're just dug in with Breitbart and Fox News and Trump White House propaganda, you can't reach them. And let's face it -- a lot of these voters voted for a President and a party who is going to take away their health care, take away also addiction coverage which had been added under the Affordable Care Act in states where the epidemic of drugs is out of control.
Below are transcripts or relevant portions of the Friday, March 24 Hardball and the Saturday, March 25, AM Joy:
Hardball
March 24
7:06 p.m. ET
JOY REID: What I think is stunning, Chris, about today is that the Republican party learned absolutely nothing from the election of Donald Trump, including Donald Trump. Donald Trump won in the Rust Belt in those states saying he was going to repeal and replace Obamacare because we thought at the time that he understood that his voters hated the "Obama" but they liked the "care."They didn't see him as a guy who was going to come and cancel their Medicaid. They thought he was Daddy Warbucks. They thought that he was just going to cancel undocumented people's Medicaid that they don't get. They just assumed that he was going to get all the brown people to stop, quote, "taking what's theirs," but that they were going to keep their stuff.
They never thought he was running to be Paul Ryan. Donald Trump decided to make common cause and marry the establishment that he just got through beating. He decides to get into bed with Ryan, who's got this generational lifelong dream of ending the social safety net. Donald Trump didn't run on that, he ran on "I alone can fix it."
CHRIS MATTHEWS: I think you're right.
(...)
AM Joy
March 25
11:32 a.m. ET
REID (before commercial break): And coming up, New York magazine's Frank Rich has no sympathy for the hillbilly? What? He joins me next.
(...)
11:35 a.m. ET
REID: After the election, the Democratic party self-diagnosis produced a number of conclusions to explain what went wrong. The one you probably hear the most often focuses on Democrats' lack of empathy and appeal to the white working class voters who propelled Donald Trump to victory in unlikely Rust Belt states like Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania. And Democratic leaders have been trying to answer the question of how to turn those Republican voters back into Democrats.But this week, in a New York magazine article titled "No Sympathy for the Hillbilly," Frank Rich urges Democrats to hold the empathy and hold on to the anger, and he asks of Democratic aspirations to convert Trump's base:
Is it a worthwhile political tactic that will actually help reverse Republican rule? Or is it another counterproductive detour into liberal guilt, self-flagellation, and other political correctness of the sort that helped blind Democrats to the gravity of the Trump threat in the first place?
(...)
REID: So the people benefiting from things like Obamacare are in these red states. So do Democrats have a case to make that those should be Democratic voters?
FRANK RICH,NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Well, they should be, but if they're not going to be reached by the Democratic party because they're just dug in with Breitbart and Fox News and Trump White House propaganda, you can't reach them. And let's face it -- a lot of these voters voted for a President and a party who is going to take away their health care, take away also addiction coverage which had been added under the Affordable Care Act in states where the epidemic of drugs is out of control.
REID: Yeah. And absolutely there is actually a guy who that very point was made who was on CNN. This is a guy who was traveling all over the country following Donald Trump playing his guitar. He played 45 different rallies. And now he himself has come to the conclusion that he was duped. Let's play a little clip of that.
CNN REPORTER: Do you play this guitar anymore?
KRAIG MOSS, FORMER TRUMP SUPPORTER: Nope.
CNN REPORTER: Why not?
MOSS; I'm not on the Trump train anymore, and I've lost my heart to play the Trump song
CNN REPORTER: Moss, who believes his son might still be alive if he'd had health insurance, can't believe Trump supports the Republican health care plan.
REID; So that's Kraig Moss. Are you saying that Democrats should have no sympathy for that man and not try to go get him?
RICH: Absolutely have sympathy if, like this guy, he's open to hearing reason and open to hearing what the actual facts are. But there are a lot of dug-in voters who would have voted Republican ticket no matter who was on it, love Trump, they don't want to hear it. They don't even want to believe that the Affordable Care Act is Obamacare which they hate, even when they're being covered by it.
REID: Or that Medicare is a government program.
RICH: Yeah, they want government to take its hands off Medicare.
(...)
