On Wednesday's Morning Joe, MSNBC again demonstrated that it's the place that welcomes left-wing guests who have a history of using incendiary race rhetoric as "anti-racism" scholar Ibram X. Kendi appeared as a guest to discuss his recent column hitting the Democratic party from the far left.
Just a few months ago, the allegedly "anti-racist" Kendi voiced opposition to interracial adoption as he derided then-Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett as a "white colonizer" via Twitter for daring to adopt and care for children who are black.
At 8:37 a.m. Eastern, MSNBC showed viewers clips of Democrats Joe Biden and Barack Obama complaining that the far left's "defund the police" slogan had hurt Democrats in competitive districts, and then co-host Mika Brzezinski referred to a recent article by Kendi that appeared in The Atlantic as she set up the segment:
So did the term "defund the police" hurt down-ballot Democrats in the 2020 election? If you ask party leaders like Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the answer is yes. But a new piece in The Atlantic argues that that analysis is far too simplistic. The piece entitled, "Stop Scapegoating Progressives," says Democrats need elected officials to do what Trump never did: accept responsibility.
As the show had all liberal guests -- MSNBC contributors Errin Haines, Eddie Glaude Jr., and Claire McCaskill along with Kendi -- to discuss the topic, Brzezinski began by asking Kendi what he meant in the piece about Democrats needing to "take responsibility" for not meeting expectations in the election.
After complaining about Democrats who blamed the "defunding the police" slogan for some of their down-ballot losses, Kendi suggested that going left actually helped Democrats:
We, obviously, know that there's no evidence that substantiates widespread voter fraud, but what hasn't been shown, we haven't -- Democrats haven't substantiated that progressive policies alienated more voters than they mobilized, nor have they demonstrated via evidence that, indeed, people in swing states who were going to vote Republican, who may have voted Republican anyway.
He added:
In other words, you had many people who were probably going to vote Republican anyway. And we don't know that, indeed, defunding the police was the reason they split their ballots and ended up voting Republican. And all I'm asking for is evidence to substantiate this. Elected officials saying their constituents told them that is not evidence. And in a time in which the Republican party is built on misinformation, lying to the American people, it's critically important for Democrats to speak from the evidence.
Fill-in co-host Willie Geist labeled the liberal Biden as a "moderate" and misleadingly stated that the Democratic candidate received a record number of votes -- even though it was nothing close to a record in terms of percentage of the vote:
In fact, there was a record number of votes cast for the Democratic nominee for President. 81 million votes to Joe Biden. I guess the argument is he was moderate. Now, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, other candidates who dropped out of the race quickly fell in line behind him, effectively saying, "Look, the objective here is to get Donald Trump out of office. Once we do that, then we can talk about our progressive goals here.
So what do you think it looks like now to be a progressive with Joe Biden, a man who is moderate and who doesn't check all the boxes that a lot of progressives would like him to check, what does the progressive movement look like now with Joe Biden as President?
No one bothered to mention that previously when Democratic Presidents have been elected to their first terms, there were typically dozens of relatively moderate Democrats who were able to win in congressional districts and states that typically voted significantly for Republicans at the presidential level.
The segment appears to be Kendi's first live interview on MSNBC since his incendiary comments from September, although he did appear briefly in a pre-recorded report for the CBS Weekend News in November.
This episode of MSNBC's Morning Joe was sponsored in part by Liberty Mutual. Their contact information is linked.
Transcript follows;
MSNBC
Morning Joe
December 16, 2020
8:37 a.m. Eastern
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: So did the term "defund the police" hurt down-ballot Democrats in the 2020 election? If you ask party leaders like Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the answer is yes. But a new piece in The Atlantic argues that that analysis is far too simplistic. The piece entitled, "Stop Scapegoating Progressives," says Democrats need elected officials to do what Trump never did: accept responsibility.
Its author, Ibram X. Kendi, joins us now. And he's founding director of American University's anti-racist research and policy center and author of the best-selling book "How to Be an Anti-Racist." Also joining us for this conversation, editor at large for the non-profit newsroom The 19th and an MSNBC contributor, Errin Haines; Princeton's Eddie Glaude Jr.; and former Senator Claire McCaskill are back with us as well. So, Ibram, I guess I'd like you to further take us through your contention that responsibility needs to be taken. What do you mean by that?
IBRAM X. KENDI; Well, first, I mean, after the election, we had Republicans claiming that Donald Trump lost, but down-ballot Republicans won because of widespread voter fraud. We simultaneously had Democrats arguing that Biden won, but down-ballot Democrats lost because of progressive policies like defunding the police. We, obviously, know that there's no evidence that substantiates widespread voter fraud, but what hasn't been shown, we haven't -- Democrats haven't substantiated that progressive policies alienated more voters than they mobilized, nor have they demonstrated via evidence that, indeed, people in swing states who were going to vote Republican, who may have voted Republican anyway.
In other words, you had many people who were probably going to vote Republican anyway. And we don't know that, indeed, defunding the police was the reason they split their ballots and ended up voting Republican. And all I'm asking for is evidence to substantiate this. Elected officials saying their constituents told them that is not evidence. And in a time in which the Republican party is built on misinformation, lying to the American people, it's critically important for Democrats to speak from the evidence.
WILLIE GEIST: Ibram, it's Willie. It's good to see you this morning. In fact, there was a record number of votes cast for the Democratic nominee for President. 81 million votes to Joe Biden. I guess the argument is he was moderate. Now, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, other candidates who dropped out of the race quickly fell in line behind him, effectively saying, "Look, the objective here is to get Donald Trump out of office. Once we do that, then we can talk about our progressive goals here. So what do you think it looks like now to be a progressive with Joe Biden, a man who is moderate and who doesn't check all the boxes that a lot of progressives would like him to check, what does the progressive movement look like now with Joe Biden as President?
KENDI: I think the progressive movement is continuing to, of course, support higher minimum wages for people, human health care as a human right, and existential recognizing climate change as an existential threat and responding accordingly. Even recognizing bigotry as an existential threat to human life and responding accordingly. Even pushing for immediate equality and pushing policies that can eliminate police violence, that can eliminate voter suppression, that can even eliminate poverty and the raging wealth gap. And, you know, I think it's really asserting the same types of policies no matter who was President, progressives are going to push for the same types of policies.
(...)
