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There was a panel on MTP Daily that could have gone off the rails misinforming Americans about the criminal justice system, race relations, and more. Anita Dunn, Obama’s Former Communications Director put the men on the panel in check which eventually led to Chuck Todd making a sensible and empathetic statement.
Chuck Todd provided some poll numbers showing the dismal state of race relations in the country. He said the poll numbers are the worse for race relations in the history of the poll.
Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles’ Alfonso Aguilar made an interesting comment. He attempted to create a false equivalence between the Right and the Left’s responsibility for the malaise.
“I don’t think, clearly, that Donald Trump did a good job in easing the tension after the Charlottesville event,” Aguilar said. “But I don’t think President Obama did either. When President Obama kept saying, and Hillary Clinton, that our criminal system; that there is systematic discrimination in our criminal system, I don’t think that helped ease the tension.”
Chuck Todd’s segue to Anita Dunn was puzzling. He first disagreed with Former Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement that America has not had a real conversation on race. Chuck seemed to believe because race is mention many times in the media that the country has. He then suggested a dialogue between Eric Holder and Jeff Sessions. That statement promotes a false equivalence. Jeff Sessions is a racist who is proud to be a white nationalist based on his comments while Eric Holder is about policies. One cannot discuss policy differences with one who believes in white supremacy.
Obama advisor Schools on Criminal Justice
Obama adviser schools Chuck Todd and panel on criminal justice failure (VIDEO) pic.twitter.com/nXnTZeZJmz
— Egberto Willies, Politics Done Right host
(@EgbertoWillies) September 22, 2017
Anita Dunn rebutted Todd saying she agreed with Eric Holder. She then schooled Alfonso Aguilar who thinks that calling out the criminal justice system as systematically racist is divisive. Dunn told him it that was the wrong topic to choose if he was trying to blame the Obama administration for creating racial animus. After all, she gave the example of how the criminal justice system treats crack cocaine differently than powdered cocaine. The drug used most by minorities get much more severe penalties. She also pointed out that the effort to fix these systemic problems are now bipartisan.
Later in the segment, Chuck Todd said a rather prescient statement. It shows that sometimes he can think a little deeper and outside the corporate media box.
“The fact is, I think there are plenty of people that do not understand what it is like to be pulled over for the color of your skin,” Todd said. “We don’t really have that conversation.”
Anita Dunn changed the character of the conversation from one that attempted to create a false equivalence on the issue to one that went much deeper. That is the reason we need people like Anita Dunn on these panels that are more often than not too shallow.
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