OPINION:
Joy Reid, MSNBC’s hostess with the mostest on all things race-baiting — who, for example, recently expressed reserved and “delicate” hope for Rep. Steve Scalise’s gun wound recovery because of his record “on race” — blamed voter racism and anger, fueled by talk show powerhouse Rush Limbaugh, for the rise of President Donald Trump.
As if conservatives are cattle and can’t think for themselves.
This is leftist elitism, on steroids.
Reid, in the context of discussing Sen. Jeff Flake’s RINOey new book, “Conscience of a Conservative,” which basically takes pot shots at Trump, told her TV host Chuck Todd that “right-wing talk radio over the last 20 something years” has spawned the anger that’s spawned the “vulgarity” that’s spawned, ultimately, the Trump White House.
And of particular fault?
Limbaugh, she said.
Reid said, Mediaite reported: “Donald Trump recognized better than they did, better than Jeff Flake did, better than John McCain did, that he could simply identify with the text of what people were saying on talk radio or listening to when they heard Rush Limbaugh, the anger and rage they felt all the time, the sense of political correctness, meaning, ’I can’t say these things because I can’t keep my job and be in polite society.’ Trump said, ’Yes, you can, or I can say them for you.’ “
And that was Trump’s key to success — Limbaugh’s listeners, she said. Limbaugh’s sheeple-like listeners, she meant.
“So all Trump did was take a lot of the subtext and anger that was already there,” Reid said. “He didn’t invent this. Trump is just making it open and obvious, and Republican elites can’t stand it.”
Not that Reid would really know, of course. It’s hard to believe she actually listens to Limbaugh — or to any of the other leading radio talk show hosts for the free-thinking and conservative crowd. You think Michael Savage is on her daily list of to-do listens?
Or Sean Hannity — Mark Levin?
Reid’s simply drawing her opinion based solely on what the left loves to think about the ideological right — that conservatives are one education degree shy of becoming liberal.
She takes it a step farther, though, and groups Republicans as racists.
“Donald Trump understands that the base of [his] party is fine with big government,” Reid told Todd. “They [just] don’t like that certain people are getting it.”
Certain people — like minorities?
What a crock. Reid’s blind-as-a-bat assessment of what drives conservatives is an offense to the struggling heartland Americans who have indeed been angry — but at the elitist classes in politics and media who think progressivism, atheism and government control ought to be the future of America.
It’s these voices Trump tapped into — and happenstance, they are oftentimes the very same voices that turn into conservative talk radio.
Reid’s remarks, representative of the whole Democratic Party’s way of thinking, may reveal the left’s awareness of voter anger. But they sure do miss the mark on explaining why.
Note to Reid and her ilk: It’s not a black thing, a race-tied thing. It’s not a Limbaugh thing, or Savage thing, or talk radio thing at all. It’s a government encroachment thing. Conservatives, whether they be Limbaugh listeners or not, are sick and tired of being told by the elites of America that traditional values and limited government principles are archaic ideas and that Washington, D.C. — and only Washington, D.C. — has the answer, is the provider, and should be the new national god.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.