The media's joy over the blue wave on Tuesday was palpable. CNN's Kasie Hunt said "it took years for us to get there." MS NOW's Rachel Maddow called it a "freaking one-finger salute" to Trump's alleged authoritarianism. George Stephanopoulos asked James Talarico how he would now "pursue a politics of love."
It's really annoying when candidates like Talarico or Barack Obama accuse the Republicans of seeking to "divide us," even as they suggest the Republicans are evildoers who only care about billionaires. Campaigns are won by dividing people.
Senior Research Analyst Bill D'Agostino and our evening news/Sunday show analyst Jorge Bonilla discussed all the post-election coverage. Some of the reaction was typical, like pompous Lawrence O’Donnell saying Trump’s "reign of terror" was over.
Maddow announced authoritarianism had ended: “One of the things that happens in Democratic backsliding, and when authoritarians take over Democratic countries, is that they tell you that the vote doesn’t matter. I mean, that’s the whole thing behind claiming voter fraud and claiming that the elections are rigged. It’s to tell people, don’t bother voting….this is a freaking one-finger salute to that idea from the American people tonight.”
The networks surprised us a little by admitting that Republican Byron Donalds made history by becoming the first black governor of Florida. But on MS NOW, Symone Sanders had to say "as you say in my community, all kinfolk ain’t skinfolk." (Actually, she had her folk words backwards.) She felt compelled to express that if you don’t reverse everything Ron DeSantis did, you ain’t black.
By contrast, Bill noted the effusive election-night chatter about Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff, that there will be a pilgrimage to Atlanta to draft this apparent white Obama into the presidential race.
On CNN, commentator Van Jones compared the blue wave to “Christmas and a birthday and the Easter Bunny and Halloween.” It was “a repudiation of Trumpism,” and then came the mass-suicide analogy: “And, by the way, if you join a cult, at some point the cult leader takes you to Jonestown and tries to get you to drink the Kool-Aid. This is Jonestown for the Republican Party. They drank the Kool-Aid, and they have candidates that are dropping like flies across the country.”
Enjoy the podcast below. The audio is here.
