Not only were the liberal media assailing President Trump with accusations he was responsible for the attempted bombings of Democrats last week and Saturday's Tree of Life synagogue shooting, but they were also now apparently spreading out to smear others in the conservative movement. Particularly, those in the conservative media and, as stated without evidence by an MSNBC analyst, even the site you're currently reading.
According to the rage-fueled tirade of MSNBC faux Republican strategist Steve Schmidt during Monday’s edition of All In, presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway, the President, “Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh, and Breitbart, and NewsBusters, and Judicial Watch, and all the rest of them, have blood on their hands for the incitements that they have made that have triggered and radicalized these crazy people.” How grotesque and vile.
Schmidt began this part of his long-winded rant by suggesting those he would later name were a part of the “crazies” William F. Buckley had kicked out of the conservative movement:
What we are seeing is the co-option of the conservative project, the Republican Party in a cult of personality which is fundamentally unconservative led by Donald Trump, that is authoritarian in nature, that is antithetical to the orthodoxies of the Republican Party and the conservative movement as they have existed over the last 40 years. But it is something more. It is the incitement.
The rabid MSNBC commentator was also incensed that Trump would dare slam CNN and the rest of the liberal media while they were trying to tie the bomber and mass murderer to the President. “What he is saying to the next sick person on the end of the transmission is, ‘if you take an action, it's because they deserve it,’” he asserted.
He parroted the same twisted smear GQ magazine Julia Ioffe spewed on CNN (as did Jim Sciutto last week), which was that Trump was radicalizing people like ISIS has done. “What we are seeing, just as we saw young, displaced, evil or sick or just plain losers be radicalized by ISIS, we are seeing the same thing in the United States right now,” he declared. “These two losers, these two sick people, these two evil people, three evil people, being radicalized by this right-wing propaganda industry, and that's exactly what it is.”
“40 percent of the country has opted into an alternate reality,” he spat after criticizing conservative media’s coverage of the migrant caravan. Schmidt then argued that “[w]e have to wake up in this country and understand the danger that this presents to all of us. We can't put our heads in the sand.”
According to Schmidt, the caravan's closeness to the election is “a giant lie” despite the fact even the liberal media had covered its movements and embedded reporters with them. “This is Trump's Reichstag fire,” he proclaimed effectively continuing the liberal media’s belittlement of the atrocities committed by the Nazis (actual Nazis).
This was just another one of Schmidt’s fact-free, rage-fueled pontifications against the right that he has become known for.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s All In
October 29, 2018
8:06 p.m. EasternCHRIS HAYES: There is something distinct going on on the American right. How do you communicate that to people who exist on the American right?
STEVE SCHMIDT: William F. Buckley's great contribution to America and to American conservatism was to kick the crazies out of the conservative movement. Probably a longer discussion than we have time for tonight, but unfortunately, looking back, that the word liberal became an epithet. Because liberalism, small “L” liberalism, conservatism is a root branch of it and the Democratic Parties and the Republican Parties, both liberal parties, compete in the arena of ideas --
HAYES: Of an open democratic society --
SCHMIDT: To move the country forward. What we are seeing is the co-option of the conservative project, the Republican Party in a cult of personality which is fundamentally unconservative led by Donald Trump, that is authoritarian in nature, that is antithetical to the orthodoxies of the Republican Party and the conservative movement as they have existed over the last 40 years. But it is something more. It is the incitement.
Imagine, after a bomb was sent to CNN, the President of the United States goes and says, the press, the free press, is the enemies of the people and then he says, the anger in the country is caused by the press who reports critically of him. What he is saying to the next sick person on the end of the transmission is, “if you take an action, it's because they deserve it.”
What we are seeing, just as we saw young, displaced, evil or sick or just plain losers be radicalized by ISIS, we are seeing the same thing in the United States right now. These two losers, these two sick people, these two evil people, three evil people, being radicalized by this right-wing propaganda industry, and that's exactly what it is. This whole caravan in the last week of the election, is a giant lie. This is Trump's Reichstag fire.
HAYES: Right.
SCHMIDT: It is a lie, and that the United States military, the most powerful armed force in the world would be deployed at a brigade-size unit level to the southern border to stop this caravan, which is a thousand miles away and made up of women and children, the insinuation that it's filled with terrorist and Middle Easterners. 40 percent of the country has opted into an alternate reality.
We have to wake up in this country and understand the danger that this presents to all of us. We can't put our heads in the sand. Kellyanne Conway despicably today goes on national television; she said this shooter’s motives was because there’s an anti-religious sentiment. No, ma'am. The propaganda industry that she commands with the vile President that she serves, abetted by Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh, and Breitbart, and NewsBusters, and Judicial Watch, and all the rest of them, have blood on their hands for the incitements that they have made that have triggered and radicalized these crazy people.
It is deliberate in intent. He scapegoats minority populations. He alleges conspiracies. He creates a sense of shared and virtuous victim hood, positions himself as the avenger, and there is no cost too high, so long as it benefits his narcissism, so long as it benefits him politically.
(…)
