On Thursday’s The ReidOut, MSNBC host Joy Reid reminded viewers that not only was she a racist, she had anything but joy in her heart as she claimed that not only did white Republicans want to end American democracy, but they wanted to dehydrate, physically “torture,” and “starve” African-Americans to prevent them from voting, change their votes to GOP if they do, and bring South African apartheid to the U.S.
The most incendiary claims came in the second of two segments about the For the People Act and Georgia’s newly-minted election integrity law when Reid was speaking with Black Voters Matter’s Latosha Brown.
Reid insisted she had to “be clear for everybody who's watching this,” but she was anything but as she unwound her conspiracy theory that Republicans and white people want to “torture” Black people from voting “by having fewer machines, beat-up machines at places where...black folks live, suburbs where black people live, make it impossible or torture for you to vote in line and they’re going to make it impossible for you to vote by mail.”
After promising they’ll find a way to specifically block them from voting, she claimed that if a Black person does vote, their vote will be changed from Democrat to Republican so that “the South Africa strategy” of “minority rule” can be brought to America:
They're going to lock off every way that you can vote. And then, even if you survive all of those restrictions and you finally get your vote in, then they're going to say, ways out, “we’re just not going to count what you did because we don't like who you voted for so we're going to give it to the other guy.” This is the end of democracy in America. This is the beginning of the South — the South Africa strategy. This is minority rule. This is saying we will rule over the objections of the majority of the American people. This is the most serious thing that we've seen happen since the January 6 siege. It's another kind of siege. It is absolutely bizarre and it is — I will say it's un-American. It's probably, kind of, in a way. It’s old school American. It's Jim Crow America.
In the build-up, Brown claimed Georgia Republicans “are absolutely out of control,” “have lost their minds,” and are bringing about “the resurgence of those that think they're going to bring Jim Crow back” by requiring voters to prove that they’re the ones casting their own ballots, condense early voting, and bar the bribing voters with food and drinks.
That last point disgusted Reid, claiming Governor Brian Kemp (R) and the GOP “want people to be hungry and thirsty and be so abused physically that they get out of line.”
Brown replied that was indeed the case and the work of both an “anti-democratic” and “racist” party and an illegitimate governor in Kemp, “because he cheated and suppressed the vote in 2018, but just as we came out in greater force in 2020, we're going to do that again and we’re going to remember this at the polls because it's not over yet.”
The A-block on voting was similarly devoid of sanity. Reid led off by saying that the “Jim Crow” filibuster stood in the way of the For the People Act, asserting that it was something “used expertly by Mitch McConnell to kill Democratic legislation since the Obama/Biden years.” Naturally, she never mentioned how Senate Democrats supported and used it to thwart the GOP.
Also having a totally normal one, MSNBC contributor and fellow racist Jason Johnson called Georgia’s law “destructive to a functional democracy,” “non-productive,” “offensive,” “pointless,” and “racist” and passed by “racist” people.
Former Obama official and MSNBC contributor David Plouffe saw that and went full Leeroy Jenkins, arguing that if the For the People Act didn’t become law, it’ll be “a death sentence for democracy” with state Republicans “making it harder to register, getting rid of drop boxes, early votes” and “tak[e] power away from election officials.”
What Plouffe and his friends left out was the fact that the For the People Act would do just that on a national scale in kneecapping local and state elections officials, but they don’t want you to know that.
“If the Senate does not pass the For the People act, we should turn the lights off on the democracy. I mean this seriously. This is the end. This is the beginning of the end...But what we — the Senate has to act or we are going down the tubes quickly in this country,” he added.
After longtime Democratic Party flack Adrienne Elrod said it has to pass “because our democracy is at stake,” Reid returned to her personal vendetta against Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), accusing him of being a “Dixiecrat” and relishing “the old Jim Crow days” by wanting to keep the filibuster “like a binkie and saying he'll never let it go no matter what.”
And before they went to break, Reid and Johnson continued to denigrate West Virginia as a worthless state for having elected Manchin and could be rendered even less relevant if Washington D.C. is made a state (click “expand”):
PLOUFFE: I think the permission structure should be there now for these reluctant Democratic senators.
REID: Or to make D.C. a state and make Joe Manchin not — less relevant.
(....)
REID: [H]ow do you get to 51 votes in the Democratic side of the Senate with people like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema in place?
JOHNSON: So, Joy, last night I was talking to some of my contacts in Georgia and they’ve all said this is going to take federal legislation. There's no amount of lawsuits — there’s nothing that Vanita Gupta — there’s nothing that the DOJ could do that would be enough because Trump has stacked the Court so much. So this is going to come down to House bill 1, it’s going to come down to House bill 4. And I have said all along, think about this. It's like, you know, it’s like the five heart beats. Nobody is coming here for you, Otis. Nobody cared about Joe Manchin three years ago. This is the most popular he's ever been in his entire career. It's the most popular he’ll ever be. He will milk this until they change it to the John Lewis/Joe Manchin bill. But when that happens, when everybody is prostate in front of him and begging him, he will allow some change to the filibuster. He'll get all the attention. He’ll rallied around like a hero and then be absolutely irrelevant. And that's what he also realizes. The moment that he allows any change in the filibuster, his power is weakened, but I think the significance of this bill, the fact that it could affect even him at one point because if this same sort of policy were to be moved through in West Virginia, maybe comes and challenges him, I think he will eventually change his mind. Not because it's the right thing to do, not because he cares about democracy but because it will satisfy his ego, which is ultimately a driving force, unfortunately, for all too many members of Congress.
Reid’s fact-free, racist, and violent screed against people who look and vote differently than she does was made possible thanks to the supportive of endorsing advertisers such as Ancestry, Applebee’s, Humira, and Sandals. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s The ReidOut on March 25, click here.
