In the slim chance that you need an example to understand why MSNBC's ratings have continued to swirl down the toilet in the aftermath of President-elect Donald Trump's decisive win over Vice President Kamala Harris -- made even worse by "Morning Joe" co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski's pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to play nice with "fascist" Trump -- Friday's episode of "The ReidOut" with host Joy Reid has you covered.
Ignoring the fact that Donald Trump not only did better with all demographics -- he also won in states that Barack Obama won in both 2008 and 2012 -- Reid and her guest, author Christina Greer, came to the idiotic conclusion that racism against former President Barack Obama was in part to blame for Trump win.
Reid, notoriously racist, kicked off the festivities by railing against working-class, non-college voters.
This is an incredible trick that the Republican—and that the right in general has played of getting working-class non-college voters, particularly to really side wholesale with the Republican Party, which is literally against fair wages, against overtime, and in favor of everything that billionaires want and voila. How have they been able to do that?
Greer took the ball and ran with it.
Well, Joy, I have quoted, you know, LBJ [President Lyndon Johnson] on the show several times, but to paraphrase his famous quote, if you give the poorest of the white man someone to look down on, you can pick his pockets all day long, and if you, you know, convince him long enough, he’ll open his pockets for you, and this is what Donald Trump and the Republican Party has consistently done for decades now.
Other than correctly paraphrasing Democrat President Johnson's comments, zero else that Greer said in the above quote can be verified by facts. Besides, facts are the last thing the left allows to get in the way of their narratives. The author continued, suggesting voters who supported Trump were too dumb to realize they voted against their own best interests:
I mean, you are going to labor—union workers and saying, ‘I don't support unions, I support scabs, I don't like paying overtime. I'm going to bust up the framework of the American economy’ and people are still voting for him, so they’re voting against their interests consistently because they’re not looking at Donald Trump and his best friend billionaire standing right next to him.
Hold the bus.
Tens of millions of Americans voted for Trump -- regardless of education level -- because they increasingly struggled to make ends meet during the disastrous four years of the Biden-Harris administration. They struggled everywhere from the gas pump to the grocery store to going out for family dinners and buying clothes. Again, facts are meaningless to the left.
Then Came the Race Card
Greer predictably trotted out the race card and laid it squarely at Trump's feet (emphasis, mine).
He's essentially saying you don't have ... because immigrants took it, because Barack Obama and all his fancy educated black friends took it. These are the things he has said consistently, and they listen whilst ignoring the reality, their economic reality. They say it’s all about economic anxiety, but you and I both know African Americans understand, especially African American women, understand the brunt of economic anxiety because we're paid 60 cents on the dollar compared to everyone else.
Hang on.
While Greer was right about the wage gap between black and white workers, the rest of the story tells the rest of the story. The author appeared to suggest, or at least lead viewers to believe, that black workers earn 60 percent of white workers' income in the same or similar jobs.
In reality, the primary reason the gap exists includes factors that directly shape the wages paid to black and white workers, such as educational attainment ... which shifts black earnings relative to white earnings. Research has also established the large effect that a college degree has on earnings.
And the MSNBC clown car drives on.
Comcast Makes the Decision to Leave Behind Its Sinking Ship MSNBC, Rats and All
While the clown car continues to sputter down the road, the question is, when will it run out of gas?