Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” host Joe Scarborough hypothesized that the way back to roll back the Trump presidency wasn’t by calling his supporters “racist,” or yelling at him in public. Instead, he argued analysis as to why the 40-something percent that was backing him were doing so.
Scarborough acknowledged he didn’t understand why they were backing him but urged Trump’s opponents to take a different approach.
“It’s increasing authoritarianism, but the focus, for me is not the Trump administration,” Scarborough said. “The focus are the 40 — probably 42 percent now — 42 percent to 45 percent of Americans who support Donald Trump, and the question is how do they move away from a candidate, from a politician who is using race constantly, who is lying every day, who is subverting the law every day, who works every day to undermine the power of the federal judiciary? I don’t think we do that by kicking them out of our restaurants or in buying something in a fun little engagement I had this weekend — we don’t do it by saying, ‘If you are supporting Donald Trump, you are a racist.'”
“At the end of the day, my concern is with that 45 percent, why are they supporting this man?” he added. “I don’t understand it, but I know this: For the rule of law to be protected, for constitutional norms to be protected, for America’s role in the world or the protected, for our allies to be protected, for Americans standing across the globe to be protected, for free markets to be protected, for our free way of life to be protected, they need to be moved away in my opinion from supporting a man who is — who is so has been so abhorrent to the president’s been. I don’t think call them racist and I don’t think kicking them out will move them. At the end of the day, politics is about making friends. It’s about converting people to your cause. How do you do that? It’s not running around screaming on college campuses and in movie theaters and in restaurants that, ‘You are a racist. Get out of here.'”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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