A pair of MSNBC panelists derided “white rural voters” as ignorant, conspiracy-driven rubes who present a “threat to democracy.”
Journalist Paul Waldman and University of Maryland professor Thomas Schaller went on MSNBC Monday to promote their new book, “White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy” with “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski.
“We lay out the four-fold interconnected threat that white rural voters pose to the country,” said Schaller. “They’re the most racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-gay geodemographic group in the country.”
“Second, they’re the most conspiracist group,” Schaller continued. “QAnon support and subscribers, election denialism, Covid denialism and scientific skepticism, Obama birtherism.”
“Third, anti-democratic sentiments,” Schaller added. “They don’t believe in an independent press, free speech. They’re most likely to say the president should be able to act unilaterally without any checks from Congress or the courts or the bureaucracy. They’re also the most strongly white nationalist and white Christian nationalist.”
Schaller kept going. “Fourth,” he said, “they are most likely to excuse or justify violence as an acceptable alternative to peaceful public discourse.”
“You mentioned a lot of negative factors about this demographic,” Brzezinski responded.
The segment vilifying rural white voters recalls an infamous panel on CNN in 2020 that featured commentators mocking supporters of President Donald Trump. The discussion between then-New York Times columnist and CNN contributor Wajahat Ali with the Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson began with Wilson characterizing Trump voters as ignorant on Don Lemon’s since-cancelled program.
“Trump couldn’t find Ukraine on a map if you had the letter ‘U’ and a picture of an actual physical crane next to it,” Wilson said. “He knows that this is an administration defined by ignorance of the world, and so that’s partly him playing to their base and playing to their audience — the credulous boomer rube demo that backs Donald Trump.”
Wilson and Ali then continued with fake accents.
“Donald Trump’s the smart one, and y’all — y’all elitists are dumb,” Wilson said.
“You elitists with your geography and your maps and your spelling!” Ali added.
The CNN segment was at the center of an ad created by the Republican National Committee (RNC) that compared the clip to Hillary Clinton’s remarks in 2016 calling Trump supporters”deplorable.”
“They think you’re a joke,” the RNC ad is titled. It features Democrats and media personalities dismissing the concerns of American voters.
