One of the good things about Joy-Ann Reid is that she does not leave false information to dangle on any panel she participates on frequently. She squarely explains the reality of why Trump is president. While I have more hope than she does to bring people together, she is correct with her analysis.
Joy-Ann Reid does it again
The MSNBC host attempted to put much of the blame of Trump’s election on Democrats and others. Reid pointed out an inconvenient truth. One of the largest demographics supporting Trump was white women.
That reality should make one ask a fundamental question given that Donald Trump’s misogyny by election day was well known and much of it was against white women. Why would those most aggrieved by the Donald Trumps of the world, give him a pass especially when a qualified woman with no fewer morals than him was running.
Reid’s analysis in the excerpted video is prescient.
“Is the problem not, you know, Donald Trump necessarily but the extreme distaste and lack of trust that the American public has for Washington and for Congress,” Katy Tur suggested. “And for in effect the Democratic Party right now?”
Joy-Ann Reid was ready with a response. After all, she has been fielding this question on many other panels where many suggested that the Democratic Party should drop identity politics in an attempt to attract more, white voters.
“Well not all and I think one of your guests sort of cleverly tried to pawn Donald Trump off on Democrats,” Reid said a bit perturbed. “But I think we need to remember that Donald Trump won eight percent of Democrats which was about the same that a Republican typically does. He didn’t suddenly win over overwhelming numbers of Democrats. He won independents and Republicans, and it was anchored by white voters and anchored unfortunately by white women.”
Katy Tur immediately interjected.
“Well, how do the Democrats find a way to reach those white women and independents that they will need in order to win in 2020,” Tur asked.
Joy-Ann Reid while sitting in the seat, not as a host but as an analyst did the thing Democrats need to learn how to do. Do not answer the question without building the context. Moreover, direct the narrative.
“Well, here’s the thing,” Reid said. “I think that we’ve come to a point in society where there is a certain amount, there are a certain amount of people who want to see the other party, or see them as a tribe that needs to be defeated rather than as one tribe, the Americans sort of tribe. You definitely have this partisan tribalism that’s taking place where people don’t care what you do as long as it’s to the other. Democrats are going to have a hard time reaching anyone who’s on that side because essentially these two parties are at war. If you look at all of the polling, these two parties, they don’t agree on anything. They don’t respect each other. They don’t like each other. They don’t live near each other. They don’t want to live near each other. People would be more upset if their child married someone from the other party than in some cases someone from another race. We’ve become so balkanized in the country that people only see the president of their party as their president. ”
Tur attempts to get Reid to give a definitive answer.
“How do you fix that,” Tur asked.
“Donald Trump compounds it to be honest with you because he’s someone who even his own partisans can’t affirmatively say they would want their children to emulate. And by the way, children are already emulating him. We already see a degradation of decency in our schools where kids are using Trump’s name to beat up on immigrants, to harass girls. You know my children have talked about it anecdotally seeing this happen. So we’re seeing the erosion of people’s personal sort of morality in favor of Trump allowing him to get away with things they’d never tolerate in their workplace or in their home.”
And then she gets to some sort of an answer. It is the only answer she could have given.
“I don’t know how Democrats can change that,” Joy-Ann Reid said. “I’m not sure that a party can change it. I think Americans need to take a lot more responsibility for the morality of their vote and the morality embedded in it. Your other guest talked about getting back to what people voted for. I’m not sure even Trump voters voted to lose their Medicaid or voted to lose their health care or voted to have Planned Parenthood disappear.”
“Well they certainly didn’t do that because he said he wasn’t going to touch Medicaid,” Tur interjected.
“Exactly,” Reid replied. “And I think you had a lot of people who for whatever reason decided to set aside all the things we’ve known about Donald Trump for thirty plus years, and that’s something that they need to reckon with. I don’t think a party can make them change.”
A party cannot make them change. However, giving them the opportunity to deprogram what they were taught about Progressives, Democrats, Blacks, Latinos, etc., can mitigate some of it. Democrats cannot drop identity politics because identity in America still has different political consequences. The Democratic Party stitches the mosaic to ensure that these consequences are resolved equitably. White voters are not excluded from identity politics especially since their interests and realities are as diverse as America proper. It is the fallacy of melanin as a unifying factor that the plutocracy depends on to screw us all. It is a slow process for the necessary change to occur, but to survive as a nation, it must be done.