The "de-Republican-ization" of Donald Trump continues on Morning Joe.
Because for Joe Scarborough, Donald Trump cannot be a Republican or even be the candidate of his Republican Party, even though the largest number of Republican primary voters ever voted in favor of his candidacy.
Since their most recent break-up, Scarborough has tried and failed to paint Trump as "a Democrat! a Democrat! a Democrat!"
And now Joe wants to separate "Amnesty Don" from the rest of the Republican Party because his "softening on immigration" is causing his poll numbers to drop.
As I've mentioned before, this attempt to pretend that Trump isn't "with" the Republican Party is the biggest and most pervasive lie coming from the GOP Enabling media.
But this morning, Joe got a bit of pushback.
Eddie Glaude, Jr, the Chairman of the African American Studies Department at Princeton, as well as Howard Dean, both said that the hardcore Trump supporter, a Republican primary voter, is just as "sociopathic" as Trump himself. Here's the transcript, emphasis added:
MIKA BREZINSKI: We have a political strategist using the word psychopath. No, I'm - let's just take this seriously at this point. You know, I think at other stages of other campaigns a network might be snarky and like get a psychiatrist out. I actually, no, I don't want to -- it's true. it's true. I actually think it's time to hear from somebody in the mental health community, to look at this person who has been on television for months, and to give us a sense of what we have going on here. And, I'm sorry, let's stop pretending we're dealing with someone who we can completely understand. And when you see someone who you think has problems, you know it. and there's not anybody at this table who doesn't think he has some sort of problem. Let's ask the questions. Let's do this at this point. Let's set up someone and ask questions. I think perhaps that may be necessary. Does anyone think that's completely outlandish and only because I have some sort of weird, snarky slant to it.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Now we have, first of all, okay, first of all, a psychiatrist cannot come on and diagnose somebody.
MIKA: Talk about the character traits we see repetitively here.
JOE: I think he meant sociopath. there is a difference. not a psychopath. Be very careful as describing him as --
MIKA: I don't want to describe him as anything.
EDDIE GLAUDE, JR (Chair, African American Studies Department at Princeton): When we do that we suggest that he is this singular figure, right? That something's wrong with him. When we do that, it makes it easier for us to kind of account for him. In fact, when we see all of these folks who are supporting Trump, we hear all of this stuff all around the country, and we can't say that there's just something mentally wrong with him as an easy way to dismiss him. I've been asked hundreds of times. I want to understand more fundamentally. What's going on in the country that would lead us to have him as an option in the first place?
MIKA: That's a story which we covered over the past I would say month.
Oh, no you haven't, Mika. You've covered TRUMP as crazy and TRUMP as unhinged and TRUMP as oh wait he's a Democrat! But you don't dare turn the cameras around and tell all of us what we already know, that there is a significant chunk of the Republican voting bloc that loves Trump. That think Trump is "saying what I am thinking."
I get it. It's absolutely necessary to the future of the Republican Party as a viable general election force that Trump not be a normal Republican candidate, that he be an aberration. The aberration, however, is that the Republican primary voter is no longer interested in playing nice while their candidate "pivots" to a general election. They rejected the 15 candidates they knew would "pivot" on them and betray their bigotry to appeal to a moderate general election population.
Joe has to change the subject, and lookee here, he changes it to himself, and the voters HE knows who are too smart to stay with Donald.
JOE: Rick Tyler, I have known a lot of people supportive of Donald Trump, actually moving away. There was an intensity level from a lot of people I know in North-west Florida and my home area, a lot of people I have known, in all the speeches I've given, that were strongly for Trump, are just moving away. And I started seeing it in the polls. Rick and then Howard.
RICK TYLER: Well, that's right. As soon as you gain the nomination, there seemed to be a quick consolidating of the Republican base, which was quite surprising. The repetitive unforced errors time and time again and last week on immigration which was the equivalent of Rodney Dangerfield in "Back to School" - The Triple Lindy dive - it was just unbelievable how he went out. There was a softening and then a hardening and then you have all the surrogates, including Kellyanne saying, no, no, absolutely no change. You can see a dramatic change in his position on immigration.
JOE: There is a change. Howard?
HOWARD DEAN: I actually think this is actually a fairly common phenomenon. Trump is losing. people know he's losing. He's unattractive to some of the people that you were talking about in north Florida. When you lose, people are watching you lose, they start to move away. Not the hardcore. There are hardcore who would be, as Eddy was talking, really interesting to analyze. But the people who want to vote, folks who are just angry, some Republican and working class of them are going to peel off and say, 'Nah, do I really want to vote for...'
The person I see doing the "Triple Lindy" is Scarborough. Jumping off three diving boards just to avoid having to call Trump what he is: the enthusiastically chosen candidate of his own party's White Supremacist, anti-immigrant, ignorant base.
