Prior to Donald Trump’s rally Monday night in Dallas, Texas, Chris Matthews and the panelists on MSNBC’s Hardball mocked Republican women and voters from “southwestern Virginia” of Scots-Irish heritage who’ve “got an attitude” and previously supported Democrats like Jim Webb.
Exhibiting why Democrats have been disappearing from offices in areas along the Appalachians, Matthews wrote them off as white people “like Pat Buchanan” of “Scots-Irish down in southwestern Virginia...where they’re kind of – the people that went to the mountains when they immigrated to the United States, they went right to the rural areas and they've got an attitude.”
EMILY List’s Stephanie Schriock set the stage by going after women who support Republicans as merely “white, married women” who are “always going to be” backing the GOP:
You know, but there’s always going to be a percentage of women who are, and they tend to be, as you're probably seeing, I’m going to guess in this audience, they are going to be often white, married women where we saw, you know, Romney did well with white married women, but the gender gap was huge for Barack Obama.
Also on the panel, Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post egged Matthews on by joking that certain demographics in lower Virginia (i.e. not the D.C. suburbs) are “where Jim Webb was going to get his support from actually.”
Chomping at the bit, Matthews expanded on his earlier point and actually made the argument presented above about voters in rural and mountainous areas abandoning Democrats:
He’s like Pat Buchanan. He's a Scot-Irish and there is part of that white community that – this missed – they didn’t get to go to good colleges or college. They feel like the Democrats have been focused on the elites and the minorities and they’ve been missed somehow.
The banter resumed moments later with the Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman observing that these voters have consistently shown a “personal edge and the personal antagonism” toward the President due to him being African-American and “a northern, big city, Ivy League lawyer” in addition a vague description of “everything else that they can’t stand.”
Chalking up the government dissatisfaction to being predominantly a Republican trait, Fineman resurrected Matthews’ point about Appalachian voters who had previously voted for Democrats like Webb:
I think when you see numbers, where respect for Congress as an institution in the country is at nine percent? That's not just Jim Webb's folks down in southwest Virginia. That's everybody in the country. People look at the Congress, they see it can’t do it’s basic functions. They look at the political parties and they see the parties beholden only to their biggest, most donors, in their most extreme points et cetera, et cetera.
The relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews on September 14 can be found below.
MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews
September 14, 2015
7:06 p.m. Eastern
EMILY LIST’s STEPHANIE SCHRIOCK: You know, but there’s always going to be a percentage of women who are, and they tend to be, as you're probably seeing, I’m going to guess in this audience, they are going to be often white, married women where we saw, you know, Romney did well with white married women, but the gender gap was huge for Barack Obama.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: You read that piece on in your paper the other day about the Scots-Irish down in southwestern Virginia. They’re white where they’re kind of – the people that went to the mountains when they immigrated to the United States, they went right to the rural areas and they've got an attitude.
THE WASHINGTON POST’s EUGENE ROBINSON: That was where Jim Webb was going to get his support from actually. His ripped from the Scots-Irish, but – yeah, exactly
MATTHEWS: He’s like Pat Buchanan. He's a Scot-Irish and there is part of that white community that – this missed – they didn’t get to go to good colleges or college. They feel like the Democrats have been focused on the elites and the minorities and they’ve been missed somehow.
ROBINSON: I think what we are seeing with Trump transcends gender in that I think it's men and women completely fed up with traditional politics and traditional politicians. It’s obvious – more than half the Republican Party now is rejecting any candidate who’s ever held political office which is just an amazing – in poll after poll after poll, we don’t want anybody whose been a politician.
(....)
HUFFINGTON POST’s HOWARD FINEMAN: Well, there’s that personal edge and the personal antagonism that President Obama, not just because of race, but because he’s a northern big city –
MATTHEWS: Ivy League.
FINEMAN: – Ivy League lawyer. I mean, leave this race out of it, he’s everything else that they can’t stand.
ROBINSON: Oh what the hell, put race in it.
FINEMAN: Okay, alright, but I’m saying northern, street –
ROBINSON: No, exactly.
FINEMAN: – big city, Ivy League, civil rights lawyer and constitutional law professor and all that. So, there’s all that, but I think it's more than the Republicans now. I think when you see numbers, where respect for Congress as an institution in the country is at nine percent? That's not just Jim Webb's folks down in southwest Virginia. That's everybody in the country. People look at the Congress, they see it can’t do it’s basic functions. They look at the political parties and they see the parties beholden only to their biggest, most donors, in their most extreme points et cetera, et cetera.
