On Morning Joe today, Chris Matthews exposed the ugly face of class warfare politics at its most primal.
Matthews claimed that Paul Ryan wants to "give" money to rich people but "doesn't like" people who depend on government, and indeed, as a conservative, wants to "screw" them. As NewsBuster Brad Wilmouth earlier noted, this isn't the first time Matthews has resorted to this vulgar metaphor. View the video after the jump.
Note: Matthews chides Scarborough for "jumping on" the way he phrased his "Ryan doesn't like" poor people line. But Matthews himself then goes on to double-down on the notion with his assertion that conservatives like Ryan want to "screw" poor people.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: You know what Ryan believes in? Getting rid of the cap-gains tax, period! So he's a rad—he's not just a middle-of-the-road guy who wants to make the tough decisions—he's a guy who wants to help out the winners in society, and make it a little rough for people that are riding along, depending on the government. He doesn't like those people. Especially. No, no. I think he's Ayn Rand --
JOE SCARBOROUGH: You think that Paul Ryan doesn't like people that are struggling?
MATTHEWS: Let's slow down, for jumping on the way I said it. I don't think he's sitting there worried about—I don't think he's Tip O'Neill, worried about the people on Pell Grants. I don't think he's worried about the working poor. I think he's looking for the winners. And that's who he wants to incentivize. And by the way, that's one of the weird things I notice about the conservative movement is. They believe that the way to get rich people to work harder is to give them more money. The way to get the poor people to work harder is to screw them a little bit.
No, Chris. Conservatives like Ryan don't want to "give" job-creators more money. They want to let them keep more of their own money, in the belief that they will use it much more productively than politicians like the ones you glorify. But in the liberal logic, letting someone keep his own money is the same as giving money to someone who didn't earn it. After all, in the far-left world that Matthews, Obama & Co. inhabit, there really is no such thing as private property. Everything belongs to the State, to be distributed in accordance with its enlightened whim.
