On Thursday evening, the curtains closed after the final act of the Republican National Convention. On Friday, the Morning Joe crew spent significant time dissecting the highly anticipated speech by GOP nominee Donald Trump, who channeled the modern day fears of Americans. Willie Geist hyperbolized the speech as one where Trump painted “a picture of an almost dystopian, Mad Max America.” Similarly, Mike Barnicle asserted “you can’t cover the country in a blanket of fear.”
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Mike Barnicle, you’ve been talking about how people are scared for years. They’re scared because their 401k is disappearing, they’re scared because they can’t get their kids in school, they’re scared because they’re not doing as well as their parents did. And you’ve been talking about this week how he’s delivered a message for an America that’s not that scared. I don’t think we’re scared because economically we’re okay. But you know a lot of people in middle America are scared. Doesn’t that message play to them?
MIKE BARNICLE: …The fear thing think, is tough to handle. It's tough to read. There is a lot of anxiety in the country. People feel they have lost a lot. They have lost 401k's here in Cleveland they were decimated in 2008 and 2009. The foreclosure crisis, there’s no doubt about that. But you want to feel a little hope for your children. That's where the fear thing comes into play and I can’t read it. You can't cover the country in a blanket of fear. We all woke up today and came here. A lot of people in the country wake up today and they’ll go to work. Do they go to work filled with fear? I don't think so.
While the “fear thing” may be tough to handle and tough to read, it is a tough reality that resonates with many Americans. Though Scarborough equated “fear” to economic uncertainty, the fears people feel in this country stem far beyond that. Willie Geist also took a turn mocking the “dystopian” overtones of the speech.
WILLIE GEIST: Donald Trump painted a picture of an almost dystopian, Mad Max America last night where there’s shoot outs in our streets, where there is terrorism arriving in our stores, where the bridges and roads are crumbling, where the schools have all gone to hell.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: I think a lot of people feel that way and certainly the conversations we have had on this show over the past two years have been talking about the decline of America, the decline of our infrastructure.
A lot of people do feel that way. They fear for their safety, for their financial security, for their children’s futures and for the direction of their country. In fact, as co-host Joe Scarborough pointed out, seven out of ten Americans, or 69%, believe we are on the wrong track. It would behoove MSNBC and their comrades in the mainstream media to take the very real fears that permeate our country more seriously.
View Full Transcript Here:
07-22-16 MSNBC Morning Joe
08:04:22 AM – 08:07:48 AMJOE SCARBOROUGH: Mike Barnicle, you’ve been talking about how people are scared for years. They’re scared because their 401k is disappearing, they’re scared because they can’t get their kids in school, they’re scared because they’re not doing as well as their parents did. And you’ve been talking about this week how he’s delivered a message for an America that’s not that scared. I don’t think we’re scared because economically we’re okay. But you know a lot of people in middle America are scared. Doesn’t that message play to them?
MIKE BARNICLE: Well, he played to type last night. And there are really no surprises in what he said nor were there any surprises really in how he said it. That's how he has won thus far. Clearly that's his plan to win in the fall. The fear thing think, is tough to handle. It's tough to read. There is a lot of anxiety in the country. People feel they have lost a lot. They have lost 401k's here in Cleveland they were decimated in 2008 and 2009. The foreclosure crisis, there’s no doubt about that. But you want to feel a little hope for your children. That's where the fear thing comes into play and I can’t read it. You can't cover the country in a blanket of fear. We all woke up today and came here. A lot of people in the country wake up today and they’ll go to work. Do they go to work filled with fear? I don't think so.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: I will tell you this, Mike, you look at the polls. And Ari Fleischer, we just showed a tweet of Ari Fleischer. Willie, seven out of ten Americans think we are on the wrong track.
WILLIE GEIST: Donald Trump painted a picture of an almost dystopian Mad Max America last night where there’s shoot outs in our streets, where there is terrorism arriving in our stores, where the bridges and roads are crumbling, where the schools have all gone to hell. I'm not sure everyone in the country recognized that America exactly but I also don't think anyone should be surprised by Donald Trump's speech last night, these are the things he’s been saying now for almost a year and a half out on the campaign trail. Anyone who thought he was going to give a Reagan city on a hill kind of speech, that would have been more surprising to me than what we saw last night.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: I think a lot of people feel that way and certainly the conversations we have had on this show over the past two years have been talking about the decline of America, the decline of our infrastructure. So you know I think he was going there on a number of levels.
SCARBOROUGH: And you talk about where the truly disadvantaged lived—live. That is their reality every day.
BRZEZINSKI: And there's a real lack of optimism.
MICHAEL STEELE: I think that's the important piece right there. For me in reading the speech it reads dystopian and dark. And I had to look that word up by the way.
SCARBOROUGH: It’s a really good word.
HALPERIN: Googled it.
STEELE: But the way he delivered it was almost as if he took that darkness and attached feeling to it. There was emotion to it. And I think that’s why what you’re saying Mark, there’s going to be this connection out there, yeah people are going to get up and many will go to work, but people know people who aren’t going to go to work. Or they went to work with a full time job and now it's a part-time job. This speech in many respects tried to get the emotion that's out there, that 69% who feel that this is not in the right place—they feel this is not in the right, on the right track.
BRZEZINSKI: Let's take a look. Donald Trump pledged to reposition America’s standing in the world, fighting for what he dubbed “the forgotten men and women of our country.”
