MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace said Tuesday on her show “Deadline” that Republicans like former President Donald Trump and gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder lacked “masculinity” for claiming election fraud.
Reporter Jacob Soboroff said, “Governor Newsom saying that the Republicans are trying to dismantle democracy and that he will accept the results of the election win or lose, full stop, a very different message than we heard from Larry Elder yesterday.”
He added, “This is straight out of the Donald Trump playbook. You heard the governor refer to that as well. Is there a Republican icon in California that’s done this? I don’t believe so. Clearly, there is one in national American politics, the former president of the United States.”
Wallace said, “You’re right. I worked for Dan Lungren, who was behind who never questioned the election results. I came up in politics in California working for Republicans who faced long odds, and not a single one of them ever debased the state’s voters. They never debased democracy itself. They were not sore losers. They were real men.”
She added, “I wonder, Jason Johnson if you can speak to the lack of masculinity in these male Republican candidates who can’t take a punch politically. They can’t win on the merits. They’re too weak and unpopular, so they cry foul, they cry rigged. It goes counter to all the over bogus machismo coming out of the sickest, most toxic elements of the political right.”
Johnson said, “Masculinity continues to be defined down, up, right and left depending on what works for Republicans. Like when they’re attacking women, they’re being masculine, but when they’re trying to control women, they’re being masculine. When they lose, they say they have been cheated, and they cry, but when they win, they still say they’re victims. I don’t know what they’re trying to do.”
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