MSNBC's The 11th Hour on Friday pushed conspiracy theories and “dark” scenarios. Rehabilitated liar Brian Williams invited network host and frequent guest Donny Deutsch to speculate on America’s foreboding future, should Trump continue in office. Deutsch warned, “People have to understand this is not a man who is playing with any boundaries on what a normal civilization and normal democracy has. I use the word sociopath and I know you’re not supposed to use psychological terms.”
MSNBC often attacks conservatives and Republicans as conspiratorial. Yet Deutsch spun his own theory about what will happen if the President loses in 2020: “Do not kid yourself. If he gets voted out of office, he will say it was fake. He will say the polls were rigged. He will tell his people to take to the streets.”
Of course, Williams prompted this whole rant by encouraging Deutsch to go there. He poked, “Donny, I don't want to end dark, but I'm going to have to.” Clearly hoping for a rant about “darkness,” the MSNBC host wondered:
... You are often one of the voices that reminds the table and reminds the viewers beyond, exactly how bad things are in your view and exactly how dark we've gotten. But like the frog boiling experiment, it hasn't felt like that. It would feel like that if we took a vacation on the moon and came back. So the question, how dark are things right now to you?
After the scenario about the “sociopath” Trump bringing the darkness, Williams didn’t question any of it. Instead, he responded from quoting from “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” Bruce Springsteen’s fourth album and song from 1978: “It’s no longer darkness on the edge of town. It’s come downtown and all around.”
One assumes Williams thought that was deep?
Deutsch loves the “sociopath” line. On August 24, 2017, he bashed, “Sociopath’s are incapable of experiencing guilt or shame for their actions. They’re manipulative... And it’s interesting so many of the traits of a sociopath that this man is displaying.”
On March 12, 2018, Deutsch parroted, “When we see children dying, we as humans, we as parents, feel a certain way. I honestly don’t think it translates to him, and that’s what makes him a sociopath.”
[Thanks to MRC intern Emma Fantuzzo for finding the exchange and transcribing it.]
A partial transcript of the segment is below. Click “expand” for more.
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
5/17/19
11:26 PM
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Donny, I don't want to end dark, but I'm going to have to. And, that is to say that when you’re on deadline White House with Nicole Wallace at four in the afternoon, you are often one of the voices that reminds the table and reminds the viewers beyond, exactly how bad things are in your view and exactly how dark we've gotten. But like the frog boiling experiment, it hasn't felt like that. It would feel like that if we took a vacation on the moon and came back. So the question, how dark are things right now to you?
DONNY DEUTSCH [Host, “Saturday Night Politics”]: Very, very dark. And I want to say this with no exaggeration. If you look throughout history and you become a student of history and the worst of what humans have done throughout history, Trump is using that play book in every way you possibly can. You start with creating an “other”. You get enough rich people to look the other way and that's how you get power. And what you do is obviously destroy the credibility of a press. You get a judicial system that is no longer independent. You start to blur separation of powers. And we should be very frightened. It is not just saying, “Oh, authoritarian tendencies.” I believe this man is capable of horrific deeds. I'm not saying specifically what that is, but let your imagination go.Do not kid yourself. If he gets voted out of office, he will say it was fake. He will say the polls were rigged. He will tell his people to take to the streets. People have to understand this is not a man who is playing with any boundaries on what a normal civilization and normal democracy has. I use the word sociopath and I know you’re not supposed to use psychological terms. But — and Michael Cohen who stood by his side for ten years, the last thing he said when he spoke to Congress was ‘He will not go softly’. So, the Democrats better get this one right.
WILLIAMS: It’s no longer darkness on the edge of town. It’s come downtown and all around.
