Ann Coulter ridiculed by Joy-Ann Reid
Ann Coulter was part of the panel on Real Time with Bill Maher. She came on to peddle her new book “Adios America” which based on her own description seemed like an exercise in demeaning immigrants.
“The point at issue is,” Ann Coulter said. “Should America’s immigration policy be used to benefit the people already here or should it be benefiting Pakistani pushcart operators, illiterate in their own language, never mind ours. And come here, go on welfare, commit terrorism, engage in crime. Why wouldn’t you look across the world like a sports team does and try to get the creme dela creme unlike this audience? We don’t want these people. We want the creme dela creme.
Congressman Luis Gutierrez attempted to answer her question by warning her. “I would just say one thing,” Gutierrez said. “Worry about the fifty million Latinos in the United States of America that are here legally.” He reminded Ann Coulter that many of the people she continues to demean have relatives. “What I think that Ann Coulter is actually doing along with Donald Trump,” Luis Gutierrez said. “Is that they are just revving up, you know it is like a Latino registration machine. Because every time they say these things, I say this quite seriously. A million Latinos turn 18 every year in the United States of America. And Ann, they are all American citizens of the United States. And here is what happens. They become the basis of the new American political coalition, that is young people, that is Latino, that is immigrant, that is African American, that is Asian, it’s gay people, it’s people that care about the economy, and its people that care about the environment. Ann, look, you are never going to take the White House with this type of politics again.”
But the best commentary came from Joy Ann Reid. It was personal in nature which made it even more potent given her American success story. “I think one of the things we have to do in this country is stop lying,” Joy Ann Reid said. “We were earlier talking and touched on the issue of slavery. Ever since the forcible removal of millions of African Americans from chattel slavery, this country has been importing new slave labor. Because this country wants and runs and is fueled by cheap labor. Whether it was Puerto Ricans, whether it was people we drew from Mexico to come here and continue to do so because the people who are on your side, big agriculture, the big corporate interests who want people to come. Once we bring people here, people’s family members, people’s whose families are born here are American. My, both my parents are immigrants. So I take great exception to any type of negative characterization. I had one come from Africa. My mother came from the Caribbean. When they came here they came for the same reason everyone does, for opportunity, for education. And when they are contributing to society and they have a child here, like me. I am a first generation American. And I am fully American despite the fact that both my parents were born outside of this country.”
Ann Coulter was initially rattled but claimed that Reid’s response buttressed the argument her book was trying to make. Bill Maher then asked if that is the case why isn’t the book called ‘Thugs, corporate Republicans are decimating the middle-class.” Coulter could not give a satisfactory answer. The remainder of her narrative was to continue her insults on just about every demographic. Her appearance made her look like a mean spirited prejudice ideologue.