This week’s Liberal Media Scream features biographer and former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham urging MSNBC viewers to get out and vote in November to “end this reign of terror” of President Trump.
Comparing the president to former President Richard Nixon and former Alabama Democratic Gov. George Wallace, he said, “If you want to end this reign of terror … you’ve got to vote. And the idea that somehow or another because you think — one thinks that Trump is an idiot or he’s, you know, he’s a racist, whatever you might think … it’s not going to matter if what happened in 2016 happens again.”
He is concerned that the 2020 election is similar to 1968 when Nixon and Wallace won 55% of the vote. “If you go back and look at what Wallace and Nixon were saying, it’s what Trump is saying,” he claimed.
Meacham on Sunday’s Weekends with Alex Witt on MSNBC:
“And the figure we need to think about, and the country will have him on its mind for about 24 hours or so, is not Richard Nixon, but George Wallace, who was the governor of Alabama, who was the last person, I believe, to lie in state at the Alabama capitol where Congressman Lewis is now headed on Highway 80. And Wallace said in 1961 that he was going to be the governor who defended ‘segregation today, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.’ In 1964, he ran for president — he did very well outside the American South. People who think this is entirely a Southern problem are wrong. He did well in Indiana. He did well in Wisconsin.
“And on election day 1968, more than 55% of the country, think about that for a second, more than 55% of the country voted for either Richard Nixon or George Wallace. And if you go back and look at what Wallace and Nixon were saying, it’s what Trump is saying. It’s that your neighborhoods are in danger, chaos is in the streets, and ‘I’ — dare I say it, as Trump would say it — ‘I alone can fix it.’ This is a perennial American meme, and it’s something that is going to require immense vigilance on the part of the Democratic Party and people who do not want this election to turn out the way 1968 did. …
“All I’m saying is — and I think Congressman Lewis would echo it in that wonderful voice where he always spoke with a kind of biblical shout. He was a little guy, but his voice was so strong. If you want to end this reign of terror, this reign of terror, in terms of COVID, you’ve got to vote. And the idea that somehow or another because you think, one thinks that Trump is an idiot or he’s, you know, he’s a racist, whatever you might think, one might think — it’s not going to matter if what happened in 2016 happens again.”
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Another effort to vilify President Trump as a mortal threat to the nation’s well-being. Not satisfied to just characterize his years in the White House as a ‘reign of terror,’ Meacham decided to delegitimize Trump further by painting him as the heir to racist Democrat George Wallace. So the only moral course for the nation, Meacham presumes, is to defeat Trump.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
