Krugman discusses the evil and ugly!

FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2014

Matthews ridicules accents: In this morning’s column, Paul Krugman discusses the decision by several dozen states to reject the expansion of Medicaid.

When he quotes Jonathan Gruber, a strong word is used, then affirmed:

KRUGMAN (4/11/14): What’s amazing about this wave of rejection is that it appears to be motivated by pure spite. The federal government is prepared to pay for Medicaid expansion, so it would cost the states nothing, and would, in fact, provide an inflow of dollars. The health economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the principal architects of health reform—and normally a very mild-mannered guy—recently summed it up: The Medicaid-rejection states “are willing to sacrifice billions of dollars of injections into their economy in order to punish poor people. It really is just almost awesome in its evilness.” Indeed.

The failure to expand Medicaid is almost awesome in its evilness. Almost, but not quite!

We wouldn’t rush to say that ourselves, though people have always marched to war under such stirring banners. Soon thereafter, another strong word was used:

KRUGMAN (continuing directly): And while supposed Obamacare horror stories keep on turning out to be false, it’s already quite easy to find examples of people who died because their states refused to expand Medicaid. According to one recent study, the death toll from Medicaid rejection is likely to run between 7,000 and 17,000 Americans each year.

But nobody expects to see a lot of prominent Republicans declaring that rejecting Medicaid expansion is wrong, that caring for Americans in need is more important than scoring political points against the Obama administration. As I said, there’s an extraordinary ugliness of spirit abroad in today’s America, which health reform has brought out into the open.

We wouldn’t rush to say that either. Once you've decided that your fellow citizens are in the grip of extraordinary ugliness, where do you go from there?

We wouldn’t rush to voice that judgment. But Krugman did say it earlier:

“There’s a startling ugliness of spirit abroad in modern America—and health reform has brought that ugliness out into the open.”

Such statements have always felt good. When we see liberals and progressives making such statements, we’re struck by the laziness of our attempts at outreach to the wider world where all this ugliness dwells.

It’s easy to talk about ugly and evil—it’s easy, and it feels good. It also tends to make it hard to build broader coalitions.

Last night, we watched MSNBC, The One True Liberal Channel. As we watched, we saw Chris Matthews openly mocking southern accents, then saying dumb shit like this:

MATTHEWS (4/10/14): You know, some of this reminds me of an old Snuffy Smith comic, you know, a bunch of people out in the mountains somewhere in Tennessee, worried about the revenuers coming. Anybody who works for the government’s a bad guy, especially if he’s black.

I’m sorry, Louie Gohmert talks a certain way about this president. I’m not accusing Cruz of this, but Gohmert and Farenthold, this idea the president’s not really legitimate, that’s their first smear.

In Chris’ first smear, he mocks the way millions of people speak. He then says stuff about people up in the mountains.

To watch the whole segment, click here.

Does anyone really have to explain how amazingly dumb this is? On last night’s program, Joan Walsh, Chris’ trusted companion, discussed some rather ridiculous things Jim DeMint recently said.

For herself, she said some fairly silly things about the way Eric Holder was recently treated.

How did Chris react? In response to conduct and statements by a few officials he doesn’t respect, he openly mocked the regional speech of tens of millions of people—fellow citizens, voters.

Politics really isn’t about DeMint, Gohmert and Farenthold. Politics is about 150 million potential voters in fifty different states.

The fact that you don’t care for Gohmert isn’t a reason to mock those voters by the tens of millions, unless you’re a little bit ugly yourself.

Of course, that's what Rachel did, back when, when she had Ana Marie come on, night after night, to tell all those dick jokes about all those people who were too dumb to go to Stanford. Because we liberals are good and kind, it made us love her more.

Krugman’s column might make people think that we are the very smart, very good people. Smart people know better than that.

Manifestly, we aren’t very smart. This becomes clear when you see that Matthews is still on the air after all the harm he has done.

Nor are we especially good, not when you see the stupid shit we let people do in our names.

There is some very uninspiring leadership on the other side. Then again, there is some horrible leadership to whom we pander and fawn. We’re so dumb that we can’t see the way they’re ripping us off!

Snuffy Smith had it all over Chris when it came to basic smarts. Joan Walsh, his repurposed trusted companion, was there to support and affirm him.

The way Chris spoke back then: Chris doesn’t like the way Gohmert speaks about Obama.

Matthews used to call the first lady “Evita.” Here’s what he said about Gore on the Imus program, shortly after 9/11:

“He doesn’t look like one of us. He doesn’t seem very American, even.” No, we’re not making this up.

During Campaign 2000, he referred to Gore as “the bathtub ring” on at least forty occasions. When it looked like Gore was going to win, he apologized for the he way he had been saying that Gore “would lick the bathroom floor to become president.”

Today, Chris is upset with naughty speech. Translation: New paymaster!

Joan was there to cheer him on in every word he said. He even got mad at Joan last night.

That almost never happens.