FILE – In this Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2011 file photo, Chris Matthews, host of “Hardball” on MSNBC, is pictured at the NBC Universal summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif. A spokesman for MSNBC on Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017 confirmed a report that a staffer at the news channel nearly two decades ago had been paid and left her job after she complained she was sexually harassed by “Hardball” host Chris Matthews. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
Yesterday, Chris Matthews used his commentary segment on Morning Joe to go medieval on the Democrat party, shocking all three of the viewers in the process.
The quotes are via Washington Free Beacon:
“There’s too many elitists. There is so much elitism in the Democrat party, it’s outrageous,” Matthews said.
…Matthews said a true Democrat thinks he’s no better than anybody else and when the party remembers that, they will regain support among working class people.
“A true democrat, lower case ‘d,’ thinks they’re no better than anybody else. That’s what a Democrat is,” Matthews said. “And the party regains that when white, black, hispanic people, everybody, starts to think of themselves as one of them instead of being better than them. [Then] they’ll get back to the party of the people, and they’re not there yet.”
…
Matthews says Democrats can’t just focus on economic issues and that they have to do more to win back voters.
“It’s not just economics. I don’t buy the whole marxist argument, it’s about economics, it’s not all about economics,” Matthews said. “It’s about sensing your leaders give a damn about you personally.”
This elitist attitude of Democrats has caused Matthews to root against them.
“I’m rooting against them even though I may agree with their policies,” Matthews said. “I think there’s a party attitude of elitism and I think they got to get over it. And it’s too much talk into fund-raisers, because the people they talk to on these kind of shows are really the people they want their money from, and they’re the elite.”
I think Matthews has a point. But I think his critique can be just as easily made of the conservative movement (of which I no longer really consider myself part). At least the GOP establishment can fake empathy but the dripping condescension that I’ve found on the part of conservatives towards average, working class/down on their luck Americans is nothing short of stunning. And while the Democrats may be stuck on Marxism, the same applies the conservatives who worship an economic system that, at its core, is pretty damned Hobbesian.
We may make fun of the internecine fights the Democrats carry out on behalf of this or that victim group but we are no better. I’d wager that many conservatives have spent more time and energy since November 2016 attacking and demeaning Republicans who have reconciled with the fact that Donald Trump is president than they have spent on battling Democrats–this latter number would be about 0% of their time by my count.
Yeah, Matthews is right. But conservatives really have no reason to gloat. Just as Matthews thinks Democrats will stay out of power so long as they continue their current behavior, so too will conservatives remain a minority within the GOP.
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