During a recent segment, MSNBC host Ari Melber pointed out what we’ve all known for some time now — the US Republican party has steadily devolved to the point that they’re openly embracing individuals “who know very little or nothing” about pretty much anything. And, while the party as a whole is certainly at fault for letting it happen in the first place, Melber didn’t miss the opportunity to point out that much of the blame for this severe decline boils down to the likes of Sarah Palin and Donald Trump.
In his theory, the MSNBC host pointed to several examples of this GOP decay, including conspiracy theorists within the party, Rep. Madison Cawthorn and his recent antics where he “exposed” the alleged drugs and orgies going down behind closed doors among Capitol Hill Republicans, and Palin’s recent announcement that she is going to run for Alaska’s open House seat. Melber said of Palin, that she was “one of the early Republicans in this type of mold.”
“She and Trump led the party away from facts,” he stated, “away from policy, towards just fixating on content, entertainment, lies,” before going on to add that the Trump/Palin wing of the Republican party is heavily reminiscent of the anti-immigrant Know Nothing Party seen in the mid-19th century.
“Palin and Trump struggled to even publicly prove that they read things and that turned out to be a selling point for many of their fans,” Melber said, before backing up his point with video proof.
The MSNBC host first played an infamous 2008 clip of Palin, who was the Republican VP nominee at the time, struggling to name any of the newspapers she claimed to read all the time. He followed that up with a lesser-known but positively brutal 1987 clip of Donald Trump, the man who would go on to serve a full US presidential term, on CNN’s Crossfire with Pat Buchanan and Tom Braden — where the now ex-president, then real estate “mogul” living on his daddy’s dime, heavily struggled to name his favorite book. At least, one that wasn’t his own Art of the Deal.
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The conversation in the 1987 clip went like this:
BUCHANAN: Who are your favorite authors?
TRUMP: Well, I have a number of favorite authors. I think Tom Wolfe is excellent.
BUCHANAN: Did you read Vanity of the Bonfires? [sic]
TRUMP: I did not.
BRADEN: What book are you reading now?
BUCHANAN: Bonfire of the Vanities. Excuse me.
TRUMP: I’m reading my own book again because I think it’s so fantastic, Tom.
BUCHANAN: What’s the best book you’ve read beside Art of the Deal?
TRUMP: I really liked Tom Wolfe’s last book.
BUCHANAN: Which book?
TRUMP: His current book. His, his, just his current book that’s just out.
BUCHANAN: Bonfire of the Vanities.
TRUMP: Yes.
“That was the book he just said he hadn’t read,” Melber noted after playing the humiliating clip. “Those are the type of political role models that Madison Cawthorn grew up with.”
Watch the MSNBC clip here:
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/David Shankbone
