On Wednesday's Hardball on MSNBC, during a panel discussion of President Donald Trump complaining about there being a double standard in ABC punishing Roseanne Barr, with liberals like Keith Olbermann and Jemele Hill being tolerated after incendiary tweets, New York Times contributor Michael Eric Dyson slammed Trump as a "bigot-in-chief" who has made America into a "psychic commode into which he dumps all of his nasty beliefs."
And comedian Sinbad added to the hyperbole by claiming that Trump told the Ku Klux Klan, "Take the hood off -- you can just run around with your sheet on."
After host Chris Matthews began by arguing that Trump was suggesting a message that he is siding with Barr over her firing, Dyson -- who used to be an MSNBC contributor -- began his rant:
Well, we got a bigot-in-chief, and we got a racist in residence -- that's what it is. He has unleashed some of the most horrendous viewpoints, bigotries, and racism in this country. He's legitimated them, he's validated them, he's said, "Look, it's okay, come out the closet..."
He soon added:
This is the base cesspool bigotry of American society. This is the underbelly of our worst instincts amplified by a man who continues to tweet bigotry day in and day out. He has turned this nation into a psychic commode into which he dumps all of his nasty beliefs.
Later, Dyson argued that some Trump voters are paranoid that "black people" and "brown people" have "taken over," and that there is a "horror show to whiteness." Here's Dyson:
As you said, 20 percent at least of American voters who voted for this man believe what he believes -- think that black people have taken over, brown people are in our midst, the racist lawyer saying, "You people speaking Spanish," so you got border problems, we got boundary problems, we got problems with people who are trans, and so all the "others" are ganging up on us. It's like a horror show to whiteness.
After Matthews recalled that black Americans had been in the U.S. longer than most white Americans, Dyson claimed that the South "won the battle of memory" as he declared:
The South lost the war, but they won the battle of memory, and so they are now really telling America that "Hey, things are bad, things are worse, black people are taking over, and we know that we've been doing all the -- how did we get called lazy and we did all the labor?
A bit later, Sinbad likened Trump supporters to Ku Klux Klan members as he commented:
It worked for him because a lot of illogical people and a lot of racists came out in America (to vote). He said what a lot of people had to hide. Remember, it used to be you had to put the hood on your head. Now, he told the Klan, "Take the hood off -- you can just run around with your sheet on."
For her part, PBS correspondent Yamiche Alcindor brought up the often cited Central Park Five case and repeated the discredited myth that Trump lobbied for them to be executed when he actually argued in favor of the death penalty just for adults, but also pushed for longer prison sentences for juveniles. Here's what Alcindor said:
President Trump has obviously had a problem with race, right? I don't have to tick off all the things that he has done, but Charlottesville is just the start of it. When you talk to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton -- people who have known him for decades. There's the Central Park Five and the fact that he's never apologized for saying that they should get the death penalty."
