MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough decried on Monday the rhetoric from last week's CPAC speakers, particular comparing Democrats to dictators. However, Scarborough seemed to forget his own show's guilt in frequently employing the same incendiary language.
Scarborough started by, not unreasonably, bringing up MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell saying that Trump was chosen by God to be President and crowd applause at the mention of John McCain's ghost. Scarborough then moved onto Sebastian Gorka, although not mentioning him by name, for saying Democrats, just like Joseph Stalin, want to ban hamburgers.
The comparison of Democrats to Stalin showed "stupidity," according to Scarborough, because, "We all know Stalin went after the kulaks, he had forced famine, over 30 million Russians killed," to reduce Stalin's legacy to hamburgers, "because some freshman lawmaker put something in a talking point sheet is again just the complete trivialization of politics, the tribalization of politics, and it's caught on." Scarborough went on to claim, "This is a personality cult."
Claims of CPAC foolishness might have some legitimacy, but Scarborough and Morning Joe are as much to blame for the trivialization of politics as any CPAC speaker. Morning Joe has claimed Trump to be Hitler, claimed the country was one midterm election away from turning into, "Turkey, Hungary, Poland, [or] Russia," authoritarians who refuse to leave office after losing an election and start civil wars as a result, Mao, and Stalin himself.
Political cults and claiming God appoints your favorite politicians are never good things, but it would have been nice if the media had not contributed to the problem of politician worship by comparing President Obama to Jesus or saying that becoming President was a step down for one-term senator. History did not begin at CPAC 2019 and the media should consider how they have contributed to problems they now claim threaten the very fabric of the country.
Here is the relevant transcript from March 4's Morning Joe:
MSNBC's Morning Joe
March 4, 2019
7:19 AM ET
JOE SCARBOROUGH: You look at CPAC over this past weekend, people saying that Jesus personally selected Donald Trump to be President of the United States, you see a standing ovation when people denigrate the memory of an American war hero, a Republican, something like that has just never happened before in the history of this Republic that I know of, that an American war hero who did all that John McCain did for this country, the announcement of his death, the reminder of his death would bring people standing to their feet. And then the complete stupidity of others talking about how the Democrats are coming for your hamburgers, just like Stalin came for hamburgers. Of course we all know Stalin went after the kulaks, he had forced famine, over 30 million Russians killed, just the stupidity to have it reduced to a hamburger because some freshman lawmaker put something in a talking point sheet is again just the complete trivialization of politics, the tribalization of politics, and it’s caught on. This is a personality cult. Historians will remember this, they can get mad at me if I want, I don't really care, read the history books. They will be talking about Donald Trump creating a personal cult in American politics.
