The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal joined MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes on Friday for a profoundly unenlightening conversation about all of the Supreme Court’s recent news and nontroversies. In Mystal’s mind, “the through line” between Justice Samuel Alito’s flags and Clarence Thomas’s “coup story” is that they don’t support voting rights for black people.
Hayes kicked things off by stating, “I want to start on what we got from the Court today and the fact it was an Alito-authored decision. It was an Alito-authored decision from the Trump majority, 6-3 majority, liberals in dissent, holding up a Republican gerrymander.”
Mystal wasted no time in getting to the hysteria, “Yeah, the through line between the Alito flag story, the Clarence Thomas coup story, and their wives, and what we saw today from the Supreme Court in this gerrymandering decision, the through line is that they don't want black people's votes to count equally.”
Hayes interrupted to ask, “Do you think that is true of Clarence Thomas?”
Implying that Thomas married a white woman out of some sense of self-loathing, Mystal affirmed that he does, “I know that's true from Clarence Thomas, alright. Their idea and Clarence Thomas today wrote straight up, that he does not think the 14th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of that amendment can be used to protect the voting rights of black people. I mean, he's ain’t married to Ginni Thomas for nothing, alright, that's what the man thinks, he wrote it today.”
That is not what Thomas wrote and no matter how many times MSNBC claims it is, it will not become true.
Getting back to his original point, Mystal continued, “The through line, understand this, Chris, when these people like Alito and Thomas support the insurrection, right, what are they really saying? They’re saying that Trump won-- lost the election, but won the white vote which is true, he did, he won the white vote by a lot, white people should probably do something about that, but he won the white vote by a lot and what Alito and Thomas are saying is that white vote that Trump won is—that’s the only votes that matter.”
He added, “That we should do what the white voters want and when they write these decisions like they are doing in the gerrymandering case, what they are saying is that black voters can be diluted, can have their voting rights taken away, simply because black voters happen to vote Democrat.”
Thomas and Alito believe that voting rights apply to all people, they just reject the notion that voting rights are synonymous with Mystal’s preferred candidate always winning, which is ironic as he accuses them of delegitimizing elections.
Here is a transcript for the May 24 show:
MSNBC All In With Chris Hayes
5/24/2024
8:13 PM ET
CHRIS HAYES: I want to start on what we got from the Court today and the fact it was an Alito-authored decision. It was an Alito-authored decision from the Trump majority, 6-3 majority, liberals in dissent, holding up a Republican gerrymander.
ELIE MYSTAL: Yeah, the through line between the Alito flag story, the Clarence Thomas coup story, and their wives, and what we saw today from the Supreme Court in this gerrymandering decision, the through line is that they don't want black people's votes to count equally.
HAYES: Do you think that is true of Clarence Thomas?
MYSTAL: I know that's true from Clarence Thomas, alright. Their idea and Clarence Thomas today wrote straight up, that he does not think the 14th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of that amendment can be used to protect the voting rights of black people.
HAYES: Yes.
MYSTAL: I mean, he's ain’t married to Ginni Thomas for nothing, alright, that's what the man thinks, he wrote it today. The through line, understand this, Chris, when these people like Alito and Thomas support the insurrection, right, what are they really saying? They’re saying that Trump won-- lost the election, but won the white vote which is true, he did, he won the white vote by a lot, white people should probably do something about that, but he won the white vote by a lot and what Alito and Thomas are saying is that white vote that Trump won is—that’s the only votes that matter.
That we should do what the white voters want and when they write these decisions like they are doing in the gerrymandering case, what they are saying is that black voters can be diluted, can have their voting rights taken away, simply because black voters happen to vote Democrat.
