Just days ahead of the midterm elections, some journalists and cable news personalities are explicitly calling on their audiences to vote for Democrats to take control of Congress to put a check on President Trump.
MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski cast the election in apocalyptic terms Thursday morning.
“If you want a slight check on this man, and his unrelenting race to the finish here to make sure he can continue destroying this country, you might want to vote all ‘D,’ even if it’s not your party, this time around,” she said Thursday. “It might be worth it.”
Washington Post columnist Max Boot, a former Republican who opposes Trump, wrote Wednesday: “If you’re as sick and tired as I am of being sick and tired about what’s going on, vote against all Republicans. Every single one. That’s the only message they will understand.”
After the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left 11 people dead and several more injured, Post columnist Eugene Robinson criticized Republicans who said “both sides” should temper down their political rhetoric and laid the blame squarely on the GOP.
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(3 of 3) Here’s the last little clip from @morningmika – Claiming @realDonaldTrump is destroying the country – #desperate pic.twitter.com/k32AkEGRMy
— Mike Opelka (@stuntbrain) November 1, 2018
“Don’t tell me that ‘both sides’ need to do better,” wrote Robinson. “Republicans who remain silent deserve to be swept out of office.”
The GOP controls both the Senate and the House, and while most polls show higher voter enthusiasm among Democrats, the gap narrowed after the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. President Trump has also ramped up his own campaign appearances in competitive Senate seats around the country, and as some of the polls have tightened, some in the media have more aggressively told their readers and viewers to vote for Democrats.
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, a self-identified conservative who opposes Trump, said Saturday that Republican voters like him should vote for Democrats to at least take the House.
“If you are a conservative who is moderately happy with some of Trump’s policy steps, fearful of liberalism in full power, but also fearful of Trump untrammeled and triumphant, the sensible thing to root for — and vote for — is the outcome that appears most likely at the moment,” he said. “A Republican majority in the Senate and a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives.”
After the administration last month said that it was attempting to settle on a government definition of sex that wouldn’t acknowledge when a person transitions between genders, CNN analyst John Avlon said, “Bigotry, lies and fear based appeals deserve to be called out” and he told viewers to vote “so people’s lives can’t be used as a political football by future administrations.”
And liberal Times columnist Charles Blow wrote last week, “Stay focused on the future. It belongs to an America that looks absolutely nothing like Trump’s America. Vote!”
