Donald Trump has been President for almost two and a half years. If there is one thing that Democrats and their allies in the media still cannot seem to wrap their heads around, it is why he won in the first place. Liberals in the media have just an utter resentment for Americans in the middle of the country who led President Trump’s winning coalition.
On Tuesday’s Morning Joe, NBC national-affairs analyst John Heilemann put his contempt on full display by suggesting that Donald Trump was able to win the Republican Primary in 2016 by building a campaign on the back of racial resentment. He suggested that racism was Trump’s “calling card” into Republican politics:
Well, I don't have a grand unified field theory of the Trump psyche to the extent that it’s comprehensible, but I will say when Trump decided to become a political figure, the first thing he did was he ran a racist campaign to delegitimize the first African-American President. That was his calling card in Republican politics. He got convinced that the Donald Trump who was a pragmatic deal maker who gave money to Democrats, that was not going to get him a ticket in the Republican nomination fight. The way to get a ticket in was to ride in on the coat tails of people who wanted him to be run on racial resentment primarily, and that's how he got into the political fray.
Missing from the conversation was any acknowledgment of Democrats continuing to push away voters in the middle of the country, many of whom are former Democrats feeling left behind by the party’s leap to the left. Their hatred for anyone who thinks outside of the progressive orthodoxy is astounding and only being fueled by biased media coverage that reinforces the leftward shift.
The full transcript is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Morning Joe
06/19/2019
7:05 A.M.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: John, when he went to Washington, he knew Nancy Pelosi, liked her, Nancy liked him. Chuck Schumer, I mean, he contributed to Democrats. He gave a lot of money to the DNC through the years. Contributed, I think, to Hillary Clinton. He was a big Bill Clinton fan. This is a guy who was perfectly positioned to strike sweeping deals because, again, they wouldn't run out and admit it, but I mean even Hillary Clinton at the beginning of her campaign, why did you go to Donald Trump's wedding? She goes because Donald Trump is fun. He's entertaining. Everything is a game with him. I went because he's a lot of fun, and if you talk to other Democrats off the record that knew him in New York City, they would say off the air he was a likable guy. He could have struck these deals, and again, the enduring mystery is why does he choose the 37% when he could get 50%. I've been asking that question from January the 20th, 2017. I ask it again. I brought up, he could have had an immigration deal, gotten over $20 billion for his wall, supported a dreamers fix that 75% of Americans supported and boom, his poll numbers would have gone up. He chose not to, listened to Stephen Miller, stayed down.
JOHN HEILEMANN: Well, I don't have a grand unified field theory of the Trump psyche to the extent that it’s comprehensible, but I will say when Trump decided to become a political figure, the first thing he did was he ran a racist campaign to delegitimize the first African-American President. That was his calling card in Republican politics. He got convinced that the Donald Trump who was a pragmatic deal maker who gave money to Democrats, that was not going to get him a ticket in the Republican nomination fight. The way to get a ticket in was to ride in on the coat tails of people who wanted him to be run on racial resentment primarily, and that's how he got into the political fray. He got traction by attacking Barack Obama. I think by the time he got to the White House, he, again, we talked about this a little bit earlier today, he looked at what happened in 2016, and said everyone told me I couldn't win. This is how I won. This is how I drew my inside streak. These people, my base, they are the ones who allowed me to do the impossible, and win this, in his mind, historic victory, and he has been doing nothing but feeding that base, reinforcing those supporters, and those supporters are the ones who he first got by running on a racist immigration plan, on racist immigration appeals. All of those things, that's what he believes allowed him to overcome the odds and win, so he goes back to it over and over again because that is the thing he's trying to replicate again and again: 2016.
