Trump apologist given too much latitude
Van Jones schooled Trump apologist Jeffrey Lord but gave him too much latitude to mislead Americans as he morphed Right ideology leftward. Jones would have done well to be much less deferential to Lord. Lord effectively uses a technique to seed fallacies in between Jones statements that many times go unanswered effectively. As such those seedlings grow like weeds in the psyche of many.
Here is the text.
Jeffrey Lord: Let’s talk about what [Trump] said about the Klan. Here’s a guy who disavowed this many, many, many times. You hear this statement from Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan today. I like Paul Ryan. We both worked for Jack Kemp. Jack Kemp would be appalled at this. I hate to say this about the Republican establishment but their view of civil rights is to tip the black waiter five bucks at the country club. This is atrocious. This is atrocious. This is why Donald Trump has the ability — because he’s not going to patronize people.
Van Jones: Well hold on a second. First of all, there’s a lot of things you said that I could take you on about. But I want to be very, very clear. The things that Donald Trump has done and not just in this race are horribly offensive. You can go back with this guy for a long time — I want to talk. I want to talk. Because this is important.
Jeffrey Lord: I didn’t say anything yet.
Van Jones: You breathed. You can go back to the central jogger case where he came out and had innocent black kids winding up in prison.
Jeffrey Lord: No, innocent kids.
Van Jones: Hold on a sec — Innocent black kids. Listen, hold on a second. We have a big problem at this point now. Because I agree with you about a lot. I think we have taken him not seriously, we have not respected his voters, but there is a dark underside here and S.E. is right. He is whipping up and tapping into and pushing buttons that are very, very frightening to me and frightening to a lot of people. Number one, when he is playing funny with the Klan, that is not cool.
Jeffrey Lord: He didn’t play funny with the Klan.
Van Jones: Hold on a second. I know this man when he gets passionate about terrorism. I know how he talks about terrorism. The Klan is a terrorist organization that has killed —
Jeffrey Lord: A leftist terrorist organization.
Van Jones: You can put whatever label you want, that’s your game to play.
Jeffrey Lord: No, it’s important to history.
Van Jones: We’re not going to play that game.
Jeffrey Lord: We’re going to understand history.
Van Jones: No, you need to take a serious look at the fact that this man has been playing fast and loose and footsie — when you talk about terrorism, he gets passionate. He says no, this is wrong. But when you talk about the Klan, oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. That’s wrong. And then you came on the air and you said, well this is just like when Reverend Wright was speaking. Reverend Wright never lynched anybody, Reverend Wright never killed anybody.
Jeffrey Lord: Reverend Wright is an anti-Semite.
Van Jones: Reverend Wright never put anybody on a post. And you guys play these word games and it’s wrong to do in America.
(h/t MMFA)
