Much of the establishment, in reaction to Bernie Sanders’ ascent, is behaving like an out-of-touch aristocracy
This is a wake-up moment for the American power establishment.
Many in this elite are behaving like aristocrats in a dying regime — including in media.
It’s time for many to step up, rethink, and understand the dawn of what may be a new era in America.pic.twitter.com/tr2jpTD7YY
— Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) February 23, 2020
Bernie Sanders’s overwhelming victory in the Nevada caucus is sending shock waves through the American political system, perhaps nowhere more than on MSNBC. The hosts and guests of the cable news network made no effort to hide their dismay at Sanders’s victory. Even Brian Fallon, national press secretary for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and not someone very favorably inclined to Sanders, was taken aback. “MSNBC sure has a lot of commentators who hate Sanders,” he tweeted.
Chris Matthews, the fast-talking host of Hardball, compared the event to France’s surrender to Nazi Germany in 1940. “I was reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940,” Matthews said on Saturday. “And the general, Reynaud, calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over.’ And Churchill says, ‘How can that be? You’ve got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over?’ He said, ‘It’s over.’” Matthews added the same was true of Sanders because, “It’s too late to stop him… it’s over.”
This might easily be dismissed as simple hyperbole if it weren’t for the fact that Matthews often talks about Sanders in intemperate terms that evoke political violence. Earlier this month, Matthews went on a strange free-association rant about what socialism means to him, saying, “I believe if Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War there would have been executions in Central Park, and I might have been one of the ones getting executed. And certain other people would be there cheering, okay?” The TV host then connected his fears with Sanders, saying “I don’t know who Bernie supports over these years. I don’t know what he means by socialist.” The implication was clearly that Sanders’s version of socialism might include a death sentence for Matthews.
Matthews is in a league of his own in terms of unleashing verbal fantasia, but other MSNBC regulars shared his anxiety about Sanders. Former Clinton adviser James Carville suggested that Sanders had received help from a foreign power. “Why would Vladimir Putin be helping Bernie Sanders?” Carville asked. “Because he wants Donald Trump to win.” Nicole Wallace suggested that Sanders’s campaign had practiced “dark arts” to secure victory. [Continue reading…]