As the Democratic caucus in Iowa descended into chaos and mockery, Chris Matthews turned up just before midnight on Monday to trash the “three car funeral” and suggest it might be a preview of a coming Democratic disaster for the party. He also warned of a “historic loss for the country” if Democrats couldn’t get their act together.
Matthews fumed, “The guy in the White House is chuckling all night here, showing the Democrats can't even get a three car funeral organized or whatever you want to call it. I would say to the people of Iowa, ‘Will the last person leaving Des Moines, please turn out the lights?’ This has not been a success.”
Matthews said that the inability to display results questions the “viability of the Democratic Party” itself:
All night long we've used the word viability and I think we have to ask ourselves about the viability of the Iowa caucuses as an institution to start off this decision this country has to make to find someone to challenge Trump. But also the viability of the Democratic Party. I really think it's got a problem. Going forward — I saw the Bernie surge there. That's about a third of the party, but it's not the party. And if the party gets into a civil war situation sometime this spring going into the summer, we've got a real disaster because if Trump isn't challenged, that's an historic loss for the country, if he's not facing a serious challenger, and I wonder about that happening.
A partial transcript is below:
MSNBC
12:03
2/3/202011:58
CHRIS MATTHEWS: The guy in the White House is chuckling all night here, showing the Democrats can't even get a three car funeral organized or whatever you want to call it. I would say to the people of Iowa, “Will the last person leaving Des Moines, please turn out the lights?” This has not been a success.
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Wow. I fear daylight will obviate --
MATTHEWS: It argues the case. It argues the case we gotta go back to, as Lawrence said go back to voting in machines and the more consistent the machinery in this country, the better. I really think the federal government has got no constitutional right to run elections, but we've got to find some statutory way of making our elections countable in realtime.
MATTHEWS: All night long we've used the word viability and I think we have to ask ourselves about the viability of the Iowa caucuses as an institution to start off this decision this country has to make to find someone to challenge Trump. But also the viability of the Democratic Party. I really think it's got a problem. Going forward — I saw the Bernie surge there. That's about a third of the party, but it's not the party. And if the party gets into a civil war situation sometime this spring going into the summer, we've got a real disaster because if Trump isn't challenged, that's an historic loss for the country, if he's not facing a serious challenger, and I wonder about that happening.
