October 29, 2018

They came THISCLOSE to seeing the light on Morning Joe this morning, but they didn't quite make it. If only Joe Scarborough would acknowledge that every snide comment, every dishonest undermining segment, every nasty joke they made about Hillary Clinton helped bring us to this point where we have an authoritarian thug in the White House.

Scarborough talked about how much worse Fox News has gotten, even in the past five or ten years.

"I mean, there is -- you can't tell -- a lot of people can't tell, John Heilemann, there is a huge difference between what's going on at Fox News today and what was going on at Fox News five years ago. when you look at Lou Dobbs and some other people, it is completely off the rails," he said.

"Yet, you could say the same about Donald Trump's rallies and the people who are there. I'm shocked, really, I am. Americans after bombs were sent to all of these targets were chanting 'Lock her up' of Hillary and were chanting CNN sucks, when there are a lot of working class people at CNN, a lot of middle class people at CNN who never get close to being on air there, that could have been victims and were most definitely targets of those bombs.

"And yet the hatred continues uninterrupted and this guy -- I just -- I can't even call him president -- this demagogue, this nationalist, he refused to even try to temper his crowds. Refused to even call the former presidents and secretaries of states and CIA directors to offer condolences and assurances that he was going to do his job as president to protect all Americans."

"Joe, what he said was -- and they are, I believe, the two most kind of landmark signal repulsive words of last week, which were, 'I'll pass' -- when the president was asked on Friday after the bomber had been -- or the alleged bomber had been arrested, whether he was planning to call Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and the other people who had bombs sent to them, the president stood on White House grounds and said, 'I'll pass.' That's what he said about that," Heilemann said.

"That sends a signal that is as profound as anything that the president could say. The president is obviously a racist, obviously a demagogue, condones anti-semitism, stokes up nationalist hatred. you asked what's happened at Fox News.

"What's happened is the same thing that's happened to the Republican party. What's happened to it is, they were both corrupt, bankrupt institutions that were hollowed out and waiting to be taken over by Donald Trump. They have now been taken over by Donald Trump and they are in a much worse, much uglier place than they were five years ago, ten years ago. They were in pretty ugly much uglier place back then and it's because of this guy that you're pointing to on Friday, that was his reaction when he was asked if he was going to be the minimally presidential, minimally human thing to reach out to people who had bombs mailed to them, leaders of the opposition party, former presidents and public servants, whether he was going to call them, he said 'I'll pass.' Not only that, he is on twitter attacking Tom Steyer over the weekend after the bomb had been sent to Tom Steyer, after the bomber had been -- the alleged bomber, the suspected bomber had been apprehended, President Trump is on Twitter attacking Tom Steyer.

"I don't care what you think about Tom Steyer, it's ridiculous. It's not only that he didn't call him -- not ridiculous -- appalling, despicable, depraved. He goes out to a rally on Friday night and participates happily, smiling in a 'Lock her up' chant about Hillary Clinton, who just had a bomb sent to her in the mail. He got on Twitter the next day and was tweeting about Tom Steyer who just had a bomb sent to him in the mail. It's not a question of whether it's presidential behavior or not, it's not minimally human behavior in these circumstances and the effect that it has on his followers, on his devotees, on his base, is of course, corrosive."

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