MSNBC: History Rewritten While U Wait

Before you watch the Morning Joe crew drag modern American political history into a soccer stadium and shoot it in the head yet again, it might be helpful for newer readers to get a good, clear idea of the sheer scale of the lies that Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and their cast of scoundrels and sycophants spin for their audience every single day.

To do that, I need you to take a good look at this editorial from The New York Times and note the date.

September of 1990.

28 years ago.

The Politics of Slash and Burn

Published: September 20, 1990

'Sick.'' ''Traitors.'' ''Bizarre.'' ''Self-serving.'' ''Shallow.'' ''Corrupt.'' ''Pathetic.'' ''Shame.'' The group that urged political candidates to use these epithets has since regretted suggesting the word ''traitors,'' in response to inquiries from the press. But the others were allowed to stand; they appear in a glossary that a conservative Republican group recently mailed to Republican state legislative candidates.

The group is Gopac, the G.O.P. Political Action Committee. Its general chairman is Representative Newt Gingrich. With the pamphlet, ''Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,'' comes a letter from Mr. Gingrich himself. Its message to candidates: Step up invective. Use words like these to describe opponents. These words work.

Mr. Gingrich's injunction represents the worst of American political discourse...

And, as history has shown, this carefully-calculated Republican strategy of doubling and re-doubling down on Nixon's Southern Strategy of pandering to white rage, racism and paranoia with each election cycle paid off especially handsomely in four years later, when the GOP eagerly turned the keys to the Party of Lincoln over to scum like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh.

Again, note the date.

From The New York Times 24 years ago.

24 years ago.

Republicans Get a Pep Talk From Rush Limbaugh

BALTIMORE, Dec. 10— To all the advice for the new Republicans coming to Congress, add this from Rush Limbaugh: A hostile press corps lurks inside the Beltway.

"You will never ever be their friends," the talk-show host warned most of the 73 Republican freshmen at a dinner here tonight. "They don't want to be your friends. Some female reporter will come up to one of you and start batting her eyes and ask you to go to lunch. And you'll think, 'Wow! I'm only a freshman. Cokie Roberts wants to take me to lunch. I've really made it!' " The audience laughed.

"Seriously," he added. "Don't fall for this. This is not the time to get moderate. This is not the time to start trying to be liked."

The freshman class, which included not a single "femi-Nazi," one of Mr. Limbaugh's favorite epithets for supporters of women's rights, whooped and applauded, proving itself one big fan club of the man it believes was primarily responsible for the Republican avalanche in November.

Mr. Limbaugh was made an honorary member of the class as its members tonight finished a three-day orientation here sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and Empower America, two conservative Washington research organizations.

Barbara Cubin, an incoming freshman from Wyoming, told Mr. Limbaugh that because 74 percent of the nation's newspapers had endorsed Democrats, "talk radio, with you in the lead, is what turned the tide." On behalf of the women in the class, she gave him a plaque that said, "Rush Was Right." He also received a pin like the ones the freshmen wore, saying, "Majority Maker."

"Rush is as responsible for what happened here as much as anyone," said Vin Weber, a former Representative from Minnesota, now of Empower America. Citing a poll taken after the election by Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, Mr. Weber said that people who listened to 10 hours or more a week of talk radio voted Republican by a 3-to-1 margin. "Those are the people who elected the new Congress," he said...

Now, cut to a quarter of century of later where the long, dark road of madness, sedition, lies and ruin down which the Party of Limbaugh and Gingrich and Atwater and Rove and DeLay and Cheney and McConnell and Ryan and Fox News and Hate Radio have been giddily plunging has led, at last, to  President Stupid.

And what do we find?

We find the Morning Joe rogue's gallery looking straight into the camera and pretending that this all started five minutes ago, that it's something called "Trumpism" and not Republicanism, and that it all happened completely without warning.

MIKE BARNICLE:  Jeremy, that point that Joe just raised, it seems to many observers that Trumpism in its purest form as it evolves seems to be dealing less with ideology than personal destruction of the opponent. is that accurate? 

We find the Morning Joe crew cashing those sweet, sweet Comcast paychecks pretending that, however monstrous the GOP becomes, the real danger is that we Libtards might starting punching back against the fascist, democracy-slaying killbot that the Republican Party has become. 

JEREMY PETERS:  That's exactly right. that's what has so many people in both parties worried because they see this catching on in the Democratic party as well. there are some prominent Democrats who have argued that the only way to beat Trump and the Republicans in 2018 and 2020 is to get down to his level.  This whole notion of "when they go low, we go high" just doesn't apply in politics anymore,  a lot of people have come to believe. I don't know that this is an enduring shift in politics. I think Joe is exactly right. at the end of the day, people need something more to grasp onto than just anger and insults. so I don't know. I just don't know.

In other words, this is the Beltway, sir.  When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

"See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues." -- Nick Fury

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