Liberal elites have openly endorsed every form of tyranny, so why would they bother concealing their smug hatred?
For the second time in less than a month, former MSNBC host Chris Matthews appeared on the network’s “Morning Joe” program to express contempt for rural Americans who support former President Donald Trump.
In a rant that mixed condescension, authoritarianism and irony, Matthews put his spiteful and bloodthirsty elitism on display.
The former host encouraged liberal voters to turn out in force for this year’s presidential election.
But that message — innocuous in itself — should fool no one. What mattered was Matthews’ reasoning and broader argument.
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“And it’s going to be very close in a place like Pennsylvania, and you’re gonna have rural people out there voting their craziness about the cult,” Matthews said in reference to those who support the GOP front-runner.
VIDEO – Chris Matthews: People Need to Get Out There to Match Rural Voters ‘Voting Their Craziness About the Cults’ @hardball_chris @morningmika https://t.co/YTsx3k2o1s
— Grabien (@GrabienMedia) January 10, 2024
Trump supporters have heard such condescending remarks for more than eight years. By now, no doubt many have learned to simply shake their heads and move on with their lives.
Is rural Americans’ way of life under attack?
Consider, however, the full context and how seamlessly Matthews blended his elitism with authoritarianism.
“The court system will put the bad guys in jail, the ones who were lied to by the president, former president, in jail. They’re doing all that, right? They’re going to plead guilty, they’re going to go away,” he said only moments before his “craziness about the cult” comment.
Thus, Matthews regards the political prisoners from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion as “the bad guys.”
Then, the former MSNBC host lent tacit endorsement to the persecution of Trump, including attempts to remove him from ballots.
“I think voters have got to take their hand in this election and don’t wait for the government to do it,” Matthews said.
Did readers think they would live to see the day when pundits — without shame or irony — encouraged people to vote rather than wait for the regime to disqualify or imprison its political opponent?
The former “Hardball” host also compared Trump to a “Soviet dictator” and said he “looked like an idiot” in arguing for presidential immunity.
Matthews, of course, represents a class of people who operate as cheerleaders for the police state.
But the former host has gone further in his bloodthirsty madness than even the FBI or Department of Justice.
Last month, in another appearance on “Morning Joe,” Matthews compared dealing with rural people to “fighting terrorism.”
“We think we just put the Army in or Israel just puts the IDF in, and they’re going to solve the problem,” Matthews said at the time.
“It never solves the problem because you enrage people. And we did it with Afghanistan, and we did it with Iraq. We enraged the enemy to the point where they’re more fiery than ever, and they hate us more than ever. Armies don’t make peace,” he added.
Given the context, who can mistake Matthews’ meaning? Rural Americans constitute a “problem.” They are “the enemy.”
And you cannot simply send in the Army.
The fact that he would raise such a prospect spoke volumes. It told us that Matthews regards rural Trump voters the same way he regards al-Qaida or Hamas.
Returning to Wednesday’s show, the former MSNBC host did treat viewers to one moment of unconscious irony.
“The Bill of Rights was put there by Jefferson and Madison because people said the Constitution and democracy is not enough. We have to write in here our Bill of Rights,” Matthews said.
Suffice it to say that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison did not see themselves as defenders of what modern elites call “democracy.”
More to the point, however, Matthews seemed oblivious to his own foolishness when he cited Jefferson in particular as part of a rant that denigrated rural Americans.
“Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue,” Jefferson wrote in “Notes on the State of Virginia” (1784).
By contrast, he said, the “mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body.”
Rest easy, therefore, rural Americans.
Matthews regards you as problematic enemies and “bad guys.” But Jefferson described you as a virtuous “chosen people of God.”
Whose opinion will you take to heart? The condescending, authoritarian elitist? Or the author of the Declaration of Independence and father of American liberty?
