The caricature of an MSNBC conservative is a commentator with a right-leaning background who -- when appearing as a panel member on the liberal news network -- either agrees with the liberal guests or fails to rebut liberal analysis while offering little actual right-leaning analysis to the discussion. Washington Post columnist and regular MSNBC guest Jennifer Rubin may have gone beyond caricature on Monday's Hardball as she actually seemed to enjoy reporting that "social conservatives" are "dying off."
After host Chris Matthews introduced the show's regular "Tell Me Something I Don't Know" segment, he immediately went to the right-leaning Rubin who offered up the kind of news a liberal would love:
Well, social conservatives think they're in their heyday -- in fact, they're on the decline. They're closing in on the ranks of social conservatives. They're at 34 percent -- social liberals, rather, are at 34 percent. They are olding (sic) -- they are old, they are graying, they're slowly dying off, and they're going to lose a place at the table.
Rubin, who just days ago on CNN attacked the announced ban on transgenders in the military, had earlier on Hardball taken a shot at the policy again. Referring to President Donald Trump's tweet declaring the ban, Rubin complained:
He has no grasp of any level of detail, so he hears a word, he grasps on to that, he says, "I've got to please these people -- all right, we'll just get rid of the transgender people." There's no thought process -- there's no nuance -- there's no sort of care in what he is doing.
Her decision to pick on social conservatives is consistent with some of her previous comments criticizing conservatives on abortion and illegal immigration, as well as her complaints about Fox News coverage of illegal immigration.
Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the Monday, July 31, Hardball on MSNBC:
7:43 p.m. ET
CHRIS MATTHEWS: We have a complicated issue like surgery or hormone treatment for people who are reassigning themselves, and that's a tricky issue, and some people, you have to go case by case. He just comes in and says they shouldn't be here.
JENNIFER RUBIN, WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST: Right.
MATTHEWS: Well, who is this guy, to talk like that?
RUBIN: Exactly. He has no grasp of any level of detail, so he hears a word, he grasps on to that, he says, "I've got to please these people -- all right, we'll just get rid of the transgender people." There's no thought process -- there's no nuance -- there's no sort of care in what he is doing. And I think, you know, part of the issue here is, he's obviously failing.
(...)
7:46 p.m. ET
MATTHEWS: We're back with our Hardball roundtable. Jennifer, tell me something I don't know.
RUBIN: Well, social conservatives think they're in their heyday -- in fact, they're on the decline. They're closing in on the ranks of social conservatives. They're at 34 percent -- social liberals, rather, are at 34 percent. They are olding (sic) -- they are old, they are graying, they're slowly dying off, and they're going to lose a place at the table.
MATTHEWS: The social conservatives are?
RUBIN: Yeah.
