Television’s favorite news couple, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, continued to push the mainstream media narrative that Trump is responsible for the nation’s toxic political climate on Monday's Morning Joe. Reading from a New York Times piece by Frank Bruni, Brzezinski quoted, “Lately Trump and his children have been playing the victims of all of this, but save your tears. He has been an enormous part of the problem.” She was all too happy to agree with the sentiment, stating, “I think the difference now is that the President is a part of it. He did not step up and rise to the occasion when he became president...I think it’s fueling the fire.”
Scarborough appeared to, at first, push back against his fiance’s claims by responding that, “I will say after the shooting, he was very restrained. I think most people were glad he spoke the way he did.” However, he quickly followed up by noting that,“If he and his children, who complain about the bitterness in politics while ignoring all the things he did over the past several years, want there to be sort of an easing of tensions, it starts at the top.”
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: From Frank Bruni's piece in the New York Times entitled "I'm Okay. You Are Pure Evil." And he says in part this. "Over the past decade in particular the internet and social media have changed the game. They speed people to like-minded warriors and give them the impression of broader company or sturdier validation than really exist. Our language is growing coarser. Our images too and even if they're only rarely a conduit to violence, they're always a pathway from high-minded engagement.
Lately Trump and his children have been playing the victims of all of this, but save your tears. He has been an enormous part of the problem. From before his candidacy to the present, for more and more Americans, the other side isn't merely misguided in the extremely it's evil in the absolute and virtue is measured by the starkness with which that evil is labeled or reviled. There are emotional satisfactions to this. There is also a terrible price."
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Mika, it's something we've been talking about for ten years now. Social media, cable news, talk radio. You go on-line, it reinforces all of your preexisting prejudices. By the end of the day the other side is not wrong. They're evil.
BRZEZINSKI: No, and I think the difference now is that the President is a part of it and he did not step up and rise to the occasion when he became president and put down this sort of silly part of his personality. In fact, it's become even more exaggerated and I think it's fueling the fire.
SCARBOROUGH: I will say after the shooting he was very restrained. I think most people were glad he spoke the way he did. He needs to carry that forward. I know it's -- it goes against type -- but if he and his children who complain about the bitterness in politics while ignoring all the things he did over the past several years want there to be sort of an easing of tensions, it starts at the top and he is going to have to contribute like he did after the shooting.
BRZEZINSKI: It does and it's beyond hypocritical for them to complain about this when he is the bigger purveyor of lies on the internet and of attacking people, of bullying people, it's really disturbing and it makes me wonder if they think they’re in a different set of rules than others that feeds into the concern about the presidency.
If by a different set of rules you are referring to the double standards imposed by the media and the left on Republicans and conservatives than, yes, Ms. Brzezinski you may, in fact, be on to something.
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