Things are getting really testy over at Morning Joe. Mika this morning read a passage from Erick Erickson's "damning" post about Trump and racism. Then they called out Mitch McConnell for his response that "the party of Lincoln wants to win" and that the "voters have spoken."
Former John McCain campaign staffers Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt clutch their pearls that McConnell would blame the voters for Donald Trump. Wallace says:
Mitch McConnell sat here and gave very unsatisfying answers....
Our voters identified the right problem, right? The establishment is vastly out of touch with the base of the party on the question of economic security, ...our base does not want to go to war in the middle east to solve problems...but our base has not become fundamentally racist.
Become? BECOME? Was she even AWAKE during the McCain campaign she helped to run?
McCain voters are Trump voters are. the. Republican. Base. These are the "fundamentally racist" voters you have been able to count on and yet pretend did not exist since at least 1964.
And now your crazy racist base has escaped from your basement and picked one of their own to run your party. How many times has a Republican primary voter spoken right into one of your microphones and said, "Trump is saying what I am thinking"? This. Is. Your. Party, Nicole Wallace:
Driftglass points out that the Erickson post is a perfect example of conservative media disconnect. It's some other Republican Party that voted for Trump in the primaries, and they didn't vote for him because he's racist, that's a new thing they didn't know about..
Erick Erickson Asks Reality for a Divorce
Specifically, of those ouchless, no-fault divorce in which neither side takes any blame or is liable for any broken furniture or years
In documents filed with the court, the party of the first part (Mr. Erickson) says he is willing to stipulate that while he was out subbing for Rush Limbaugh on the radio, somehow, millions of bigots snuck into his Decent and Respectable Republican Party ten minutes ago and elected an openly racist Ahole as their nominee for president --
I am a talk radio host. I am a political commentator. I am a writer. I was once a lawyer and once an elected official. I have always voted Republican. I have tried my best at times to justify those things I thought I could justify or ignore those things that should be ignored in the spirit of helping my team and my side. But I have met the proverbial bridge too far with Donald Trump and I am ashamed and horrified at friends of mine and party leaders who will look the other way to justify Donald Trump.
And damn the GOP for its unwillingness to speak up on this. The leaders of the party, confronted by Todd Akin, abandoned ship for his stupid statements on rape and abortion. But the Party of Lincoln intends to circle the wagons around a racist. Damn them for that.
-- provided Reality is willing to stipulate that all previous charges of racism leveled against his Decent and Respectable Republican Party were products of the baseless, partisan chicanery of the Liberal Media Conspiracy:
...The American political press whipped people into a frenzy over Ferguson and Baltimore and Trayvon Martin. We saw press outlets altering or distorting 911 audio to make it sound like words were said that were not said. We had the national press play up aspects of Ferguson to shape opinion while ignoring other aspects. We saw the same with Baltimore.
The press loves to create racists from whole cloth...Mr. Erickson would also like to add that the Liberal Media Conspiracy which made up all those mean, untrue stories about racism within his Decent and Respectable Republican Party is also, for some inexplicable reason, now to blame for not calling out the clear and present racism of Donald Trump which -- Mr. Erickson would like to repeat -- appeared out of nowhere and with no warning within his otherwise Decent and Respectable Republican Party just ten minutes ago... read more.
And this is why everyone who is not Beltway acid tripping on an imaginary "not fundamentally racist Republican party" knows it's NOT the party of Lincoln. It's the party of Jefferson Davis. And like the Confederacy for which it stands, it is overdue for death by about a hundred and fifty years.
