MSNBC’s Joy Reid rails often against President Trump for his hyperbole and outright falsehoods.
But the moment the lies and wild-eyed conspiracymongering come from a Democratic official, the MSNBC host tends to goes mum.
Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California, for example, alleged Wednesday evening on Reid’s program that the president may have deployed federal police officers to Portland, Oregon, as part of a “trial run” for what he will do “if he’s not elected.”
Reid, of course, just sat there, dumbly nodding along as the Trump resistance’s favorite octogenarian lawmaker went on a tirade about federal agents, the military, the president, the 2020 election, and a possible November coup.
“The people of this country had better be worried about what we’re seeing in Portland,” said Waters. “We have these paramilitary police officers or whomever they are — they’re federal officers or agents of some kind that’s been organized by the president of the United States.”
The congresswoman added, “He did not contact the local mayors. He did not contact the governors. … Who are these people? Why did they have these kinds of uniforms on where they cannot be identified? … We don’t have anything that identifies them. They have unmarked cars. They’ve been pulling people off the street and throwing them into these cars.”
Waters continued, claiming that what is happening now in Portland, federal officers defending federal property, is just like what happens in despotic countries ruled by dictators.
“I want to tell you, Joy,” said the California lawmaker: “This is what you see in countries where you have dictators. In third-world countries with dictators who have paramilitary that they can call up anytime they want. As a matter of fact, it has been suggested that this is a trial run of the president of the United States who may be organizing to not accept what happens when we have the election if he’s not elected.”
“It has been suggested”? Well, it has now.
Waters added, “Is he going to pull out his military? Is he going to engage us? He has already alluded to, ‘There may be a civil war,’ if he’s not reelected. This is dangerous.”
Reid, who is herself a great lover of conspiracy theories, including one involving homophobic time-traveling cyber bandits, said not a word to challenge or question the congresswoman’s baseless fearmongering. The MSNBC host just sat there in silence, enrapt as Waters, the champion of failed impeachment campaigns and Russian “collusion,” weaved a fantastic tale of disputed elections and political coups. In other words, Reid’s reaction was exactly the sort of thing that one has come to expect of Trump’s most ardent opponents, many of whom tend not to care at all about lies or misinformation unless the person spreading them is not on their team.
If the executives at MSNBC had any capacity for shame, they would feel it right now.
But they don’t, so they won’t.
