Reacting to Donald Trump’s nomination acceptance speech to conclude the Republican National Convention (RNC), Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson and MSNBC’s AM Joy host Joy Reid ruled late Thursday that Trump channeled a “conservative talk radio” culture in pledging “to white America” that he would “protect” them from illegal immigrants and secularists.
Taking Robinson first, he reminded viewers that he would be watching for “how this speech sounded to people who were watching from their living rooms and/or their bedrooms and you know, it was an angry speech for angry people.”
He further elaborated that Trump “painted this very grim dystopian picture of America” simply so he could “present himself as the solution” to “illegal immigrants as being responsible for crime and roaming free.”
“You know, and frankly, this was a message, at least to my ears, to white America — be afraid. I will protect you,” he concluded.
After a fun nod to NBC News Trump correspondent Katy Tur’s life-changing journey from being an NBC News foreign correspondent to covering Trump, Reid darkened the mood by blaming who else but talk radio for the negative feelings about the state of America:
[T]he speech was either kind of music to your ears and sort of spoke to the really kinda of dour, sort of dystopian, sort of angry place that a lot of Americans are in. There is a subset of Americans who it's not new. For 30 years, that's part of what conservative talk radio has done. It's sort of nurtured this sense of grievance, grievance against the culture, grievance against the left, grievance against liberalism that is now grievance against the Obama America[.]
She added that “the speech as read in text was extremely dark” and a dystopian world (that she obviously doesn’t perceive to be happening) in which “immigrants are scary and where religion is under attack, and that is what Donald Trump's speech spoke to.”
Whatever one may have in terms of pluses and minuses about Trump’s speech, the idea that Trump set out to only discuss protecting “white America” when he explicitly stated that he would protect LGBTQ Americans from dangers like radical Islamic terrorism shows how disconnected the media are from reality.
The relevant portions of the transcript from the 11:00 p.m. Eastern hour of MSNBC’s Republican National Convention coverage on July 21 can be found below.
MSNBC: Republican National Convention
July 21, 2016
11:48 p.m. Eastern
EUGENE ROBINSON: Well, I go back to what I said way earlier in the evening, which is the really important thing, is how this speech sounded to people who were watching from their living rooms and/or their bedrooms and you know, it was an angry speech for angry people. He painted this very grim dystopian picture of America, an America racked with crime and violence even though crime rates are actually way down. Crime is half of what it was in the '90s, but he paints this picture in order to present himself as the solution. “I am your voice,” he says and in identifying the problems, he talks about crime in the inner cities, where again, it's down and he talks about African-Americans and killings of police officers. He talks about illegal immigrants as being responsible for crime and —
WILLIAMS: Roaming free.
ROBINSON: Roaming free, right, as people do, right? They roam. You know, and frankly, this was a message, at least to my ears, to white America — be afraid. I will protect you.
(....)
11:56 p.m. Eastern
JOY REID: It's interesting, listening to Eugene, Chris and Steve describe the same speech, I think you kind of get what I'm about to say, which is that depending on which America you're sort of focused on, the speech was either kind of music to your ears and sort of spoke to the really kinda of dour, sort of dystopian, sort of angry place that a lot of Americans are in. There is a subset of Americans who it's not new. For 30 years, that's part of what conservative talk radio has done. It's sort of nurtured this sense of grievance, grievance against the culture, grievance against the left, grievance against liberalism that is now grievance against the Obama America and so, the two Americas are very different places. I thought the speech as read in text was extremely dark. It was a future that is a country that is full of crime and violence, a country where immigrants are scary and where religion is under attack, and that is what Donald Trump's speech spoke to.
