Some Americans are not happy with MSNBC The 11th Hour host Stephanie Ruhle led her to ask presidential historian Douglas Brinkley just how “sick and divided” America is. Ruhle, who was adamant about irony and lamenting the divisions in America, suggested that the Civil War had never been over.
After playing a clip of Sen. Chris Murphy, Ruhle proclaimed, “Something rotting in the American core. A huge part of the problem comes from the polarization we see in our country today, and it’s not just gun safety. Americans are divided on abortion, education, masks, vaccines, everything associated with the pandemic. You can read more about As Time magazine once put it, our nation is still divided, along the battle lines of the Civil War.”
You have to be very chutzpah in order to complain about division, while simultaneously citing an article that states the Republican Party is the same as the Confederacy. Still, after introducing her new guests, she turned to Brinkley and asked, “Doug, it is tough to hear a U.S. senator talk about the rotting core in America. How sick and divided are we as a country, when you look, historically speaking?”
Brinkley agreed with the larger point, but shied away from the Civil War talk, “We’re extremely sick and divided. It isn’t a Civil War situation. We were divided in the 1960s and late 70s.”
The way to unify the country is to do what Brinkley wants, “We pulled back together a little bit, to the point that after Newtown massacre in December of 2012, there was some hope after Sandy Hook Elementary School that there might be some gun legislation. Some Republicans were in the mix, it almost got down but not quite.”
Brinkley also held out hope that Murphy will be successful, “But we, as you know, it’s deeply divided now. The world is still divided. The hope of, is somebody like Senator Chris Murphy, who this week has been very articulate about gun control and getting rid of assault weapons, of one kind or another, he’s been staying on the case for a decade. The hope is that Newtown and Uvalde are like bookends, ten years of all these mass killings and that this will be a moment we’ll do something.”
However, Brinkley lamented “so many other, you know, divisive trigger points” that even if Murphy gets his way “this isn’t going to be game-changing enough.”
Getting back to guns, Brinkley declared, “We’ve got to get 73% of the American public demanding after Uvalde, that we do something with getting rid of assault weapons that carry large magazines, and having better school security. Putting more money into mental illness, but alas, in a midterm election year like this, it doesn’t seem likely.”
MSNBC knows it must be difficult knowing there are people out there that don’t agree with them on abortion, or how to define assault weapons. But that doesn’t make them Confederates. It does not mean the country is sick.
This segment was sponsored and produced by Charles Schwab.
The transcript of the May 27, 2009 show is available here:
MSNBC The 11th Hour With Stephanie Ruhle
5/27/2022
11.36 pm ET
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Something rotting in the American core. A huge part of the problem comes from the polarization we see in our country today, and it’s not just gun safety. Americans are divided on abortion, education, masks, vaccines, everything associated with the pandemic. You can read more about As Time magazine once put it, our nation is still divided, along the battle lines of the Civil War.
What can be done to fix this? Let’s welcome presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. He’s also a history professor at Rice University, and MSNBC political analyst Britney Packnett Cunningham, she was a member of president Obama’s 21st century policing task force. Doug, it is tough to hear a U.S. senator talk about the rotting core in America. How sick and divided are we as a country, when you look, historically speaking?
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY: We’re extremely sick and divided. The situation isn’t one of Civil War. We were divided in the 1960s and late 70s. We pulled back together a little bit, to the point that after Newtown massacre in December of 2012, there was some hope after Sandy Hook Elementary School that there might be some gun legislation. Some Republicans were in the mix, it almost got down but not quite.
But we, as you know, it’s deeply divided now. It’s impossible to mend. The hope of, is somebody like Senator Chris Murphy, who this week has been very articulate about gun control and getting rid of assault weapons, of one kind or another, he’s been staying on the case for a decade.
The hope is that Newtown and Uvalde are like bookends, ten years of all these mass killings and that this will be a moment we’ll do something. But alas, as you point out, Stephanie, so many other, you know, divisive trigger points in American political and social life that one is worried that this isn’t going to be game-changing enough.
We’ve got to get 73% of the American public demanding after Uvalde, that we do something with getting rid of assault weapons that carry large magazines, and having better school security. Putting more money into mental illness, but alas, in a midterm election year like this, it doesn’t seem likely.
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