Wonder why so many lefty journalists have an outsized hero-complex? It’s because they believe they are all that stands in the way of the GOP’s “big, ugly hate machine” full of “demons” that are a worse “threat to democracy” than Osama bin Laden ever was.
No kidding.
All those insane assertions and more were made by crazed cable hosts and pundits in the last month by the likes of MSNBC contributors John Heilemann, Kurt Bardella and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. But when it came to actually spewing hate, it was a CNN freelancer that tweeted: “The world today needs Hitler.”
The following are the most insane outbursts by liberal journalists from the month of May:
GOP’s “Big, Ugly Hate Machine”
“What is the Republican party? It’s now its basest part of its base, and the basest part of its base is animated by hate. And it’s very hard to make a distinction between one kind of hate and another kind of hate. If you’re Kevin McCarthy, you start denouncing hate, where are you going to stop? Because once you start to denounce this kind of hate, and you take a stand, you now — you’re now surrounded by all kinds of hate, and the only thing that runs the GOP is hate. It’s now a big giant hate machine….That’s all it is — a big, ugly hate machine.”
— MSNBC national affairs analyst John Heilemann on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, May 24.
Apparently CNN Doesn’t Vet Freelancers for Anti-Semitism
“The world today needs Hitler.”
— May 16 tweet by CNN freelance contributor Adeel Raja, who was later fired. Raja wrote 54 articles for CNN.
GOP Worse Than Osama
“I’ve been thinking to myself this whole time, you know, Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, the people who wanted to do harm to our nation and to our way of life and democracy, they got nothing on what this Republican Party is doing.”
— MSNBC political contributor and former Lincoln Project aide Kurt Bardella on MSNBC’s The ReidOut, May 5.
GOP Must “Drive Out Its Demons and Come to Terms With the Modern World”
“There is a great and honorable space in America for a party of limited and efficient government that values traditionalism and believes that social change should take place slowly and organically. But that’s different from a band of ideological warriors with apocalyptic visions that fear the end of days, see opponents as traitors and devils, and believes that all methods are sanctioned in its battle to save civilization and itself. In short, the Republican Party needs to have a political exorcism, drive out its demons and come to terms with the modern world.”
— Host Fareed Zakaria on CNN Special Report: A Radical Rebellion, The Transformation of the GOP, May 16.
“I’m Not Partisan” But Dems Must Save America From Insane, Obsolete GOP
“I’m not a partisan person….But right now our Democracy is in danger and that’s because of one party, and that’s the Republican party…The Democrats are….the party of morality. I don’t think the Republican party is….What they are operating on now is white grievance, white fear. Trump capitalized on that. The country is changing, and they are afraid of it....The only party now that is operating in reality is the Democratic Party. The Republican Party is obsolete. The Republican Party is not dealing and living in reality. So you cannot negotiate with a party that doesn’t operate on logic.”
— Host Don Lemon on CNN New Day, May 21.
“Republicans versus Democracy,” Gains in Midterms = “Disaster for the Country”
“If the House Republicans — given what they have come to embrace — win the House, the last two years of the Biden administration, they’re going to be crazy. These people when Trump was in power, they at least had some incentive not to blow the whole government up. If Trump is not in power, their incentive is going to be to completely derail Biden. And if that happens, I mean, we just have no time to lose. And that would be a disaster for the country.”
— New York Times columnist Tom Friedman on CNN Cuomo Prime Time, May 13.
“I think the media needs to understand that the most important dividing line in American politics right now isn’t between Democrats and Republicans. It’s between Republicans versus democracy.”
— Mother Jones reporter Ari Berman on CNN’s Reliable Sources, May 16.
“Jim Crow” Ted Cruz Is a Betrayal to His Race for Opposing Voting Bill
“Ted Cruz says a lot of stupid things. He does a lot of stupid things. But I personally, as a person of color, as a Black person, am beyond offended that he would dare use the word ‘Jim Crow’ when his party is literally a Jim Crow Party….Cruz could give a damn about Jim Crow. He’s never raised one concern ever in his entire life that I’ve ever heard about Jim Crow or racism or discrimination....What is Jim Crow is the filibuster….It was used specifically to stop any legislation that would allow black people to vote….Do you think that your fellow Democratic colleagues understand that if they don’t pass this bill [HR1], we may never get another free and fair election again? Does Joe Manchin….do Democrats understand that?...What you see here on your screen is what what Republicans fear in the voting booth and they’re going to do everything they can to make sure it doesn’t happen, including, you know, Stephen from Django Unchained aka Ted Cruz….who’s working to stop fellow people of color from voting, which is amazing.”
— Host Joy Reid on MSNBC’s The ReidOut, May 11.
Fox News = “Propaganda Arm of the Most Extreme Wing” of GOP
“Fox is essentially a propaganda arm. And it’s not even a propaganda arm of the Republican party. That’s not the way to think about it. It is a propaganda arm of the most extreme wing of the Republican party. It is, you know, the television version of Twitter for the Republican party — the most extreme, the most passionate, the most energized. But, again, the most important thing here is that these people believe that it is more important to fight than to be right. It is more important to hate the enemy than love the truth. That’s the part where it has gotten unhinged.”
— CNN host Fareed Zakaria on CNN Newsroom, May 14.
CNN Would Rather Blame Conservatives Than Chinese Communists
“Because the more this is about China being sneaky, the less it is about our leadership failing under Trump. So, the by-product of that is fueling hate toward innocent people of Asian descent. You know that that’s a reason why we’ve had an uptick in the assaults.”
— Host Chris Cuomo on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time, May 25.
“Danger!” GOP “Merging Into a White Interests Party”
“It feels like we are at a much more dangerous point now because you’re seeing it [The Republican Party] merging into a white interests party, and saying that if they don’t get their way, they’re willing to literally commit violence to overturn an election because they don’t believe people of color even should be, apparently, have access to voting booths, right? So, I wonder how much danger you feel we’re in because there is still a chance, they control a lot of legislatures. They’re going to control redistricting. They can still get power back. I wonder how much danger you feel that places the rest of us in.”
— Host Joy Reid to left-wing pundit Angela Rye on MSNBC’s The ReidOut, May 5.
“Burn It Down”
“This is clearly not a system that can be reformed, and I just — what can we do to stop this? Because it feels like it’s just time to, to burn it down, you know?...How do we organize ourselves out of this quagmire? They’re attacking our voting rights. They’re attacking our lives and livelihoods. They’re killing us if they’re not over-criminalizing us and putting us in jail. As a longtime organizer what is it that we do? Because I have to say, as a people, for my people, I am up for the most radical of things to make sure that we live.”
— Host Tiffany Cross on MSNBC’s The Cross Connection, May 22.
CBS’s Campaign Contributions to Stacey Abrams Presidential Run
Correspondent Erin Moriarty: “Stacey Abrams has always dreamed big and accomplished much, but there’s also another side to the political activist from Georgia….Coming up on Sunday Morning, a conversation with a woman of many talents and identities….This book, While Justice Sleeps, bears her real name: Stacey Abrams. Yes, that Stacey Abrams….Your main character is always a woman of color who’s smart and gutsy and cool under pressure. In short, Stacey Abrams?...Were you angry after the election [loss to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp]?
Abrams: “Oh, yes.”...
Moriarity: “And then, you might say, Abrams got even. She started Fair Fight, a voter registration group that is widely credited with helping President Joe Biden win the state of Georgia in the 2020 election….Ensuring that right to vote may some day help Abrams achieve her greatest dream: Running for president.”
— CBS Sunday Morning, May 9.
“Stacey Abrams is one of the country’s best known voting rights advocates and she’s also a prolific author….There are about 11 states right now in the country that have passed restrictions on voting that could have a big impact on 2022 and beyond. What concerns you the most about what you’re seeing right now?...So there is the issue of how it affects trust in our elections, the act of democracy itself. And yet the practical, political implication. What does this mean, do you think for 2022 for Democrats’ chances?”
— Co-host Tony Dokoupil to Stacey Abrams on CBS This Morning, May 11.
“Hard to Believe,” Because It Wasn’t True
“Now like many, you struggled with child care as a working mom, and even got fired for being pregnant which is just hard to believe. How did those experiences shape you and your beliefs?”
— Co-host Sara Haines to Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren on ABC’s The View, May 4. Warren’s claim was first debunked back in 2019 by the Washington Free Beacon.
Time for Beef Control!
“There are people who don’t want government to govern, to make decisions that are beneficial for all of us, like reducing the number of guns in the United States would be a good thing. Reducing the amount of meat that we eat in the United States would be a good thing.”
— Former New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman on NPR’s All Things Considered, May 8.
