Todd Tantrum: Biden Hosts Democracy Summit as GOP Destroys Democracy!

On MSNBC’s MTP Every day Thursday afternoon, host Chuck Todd wailed that whereas President Biden was internet hosting a digital international summit on democracy, Republicans had been making an attempt to “subvert” democracy in the USA. He additionally lamented how Democrats haven’t but federalized and rigged all elections of their favor to fight the supposed “disaster.”

“President Biden tries to steer a world effort to revive democracy. Can the U.S. Be a beacon for democracy overseas except he first confronts the efforts to undermine it proper right here at residence?,” Todd fretted on the prime of the 1:00 p.m. ET hour present. Moments later, he lectured:

 

 

We’ve stated it earlier than and we’re gonna say it once more, the most important story in American politics is and can proceed to be this homegrown effort to undermine U.S. democracy, largely fueled by the previous president and his loyalists who’ve hijacked and radicalized part of the Republican Occasion. There’s a cause the U.S. is now thought of a backsliding democracy.

Todd then steered that “gerrymandering” and “partisan makes an attempt” to go electoral reform laws that he claimed would “prohibit voting entry” had been akin to the violent January sixth riot on the U.S. Capitol.  

After enjoying a clip of Biden addressing the democracy summit, Todd warned:

However the uncomfortable actuality dealing with the President is that there’s one celebration that appears keen to drag out all of the stops on the subject of the problem of the U.S. democracy, and it isn’t his. As Bart Gellman so aptly put it in The Atlantic: “Our two-party system has just one celebration left that’s keen to lose an election. The opposite is keen to win at the price of breaking issues {that a} democracy can not dwell with out.”

The anchor then turned his ire on the Democrats: “In the meantime, the President and Democrats in Congress have but to make a full-throated push, even inside their very own celebration, to go laws aimed toward defending elections nationally as a possible counterweight to the precise’s efforts to subvert them regionally.”

Todd argued that “if President Biden desires democracy to thrive overseas…he’s obtained a disaster to take care of first proper right here at residence.”

The hyperbolic fearmongering solely elevated as he introduced on his panel of visitors. Turning to NBC Information White Home correspondent Shannon Pettypiece, Todd nervous: “…does the White Home acknowledge the concept right here of how onerous it’s for on one hand the USA to play main democracy on this planet and then again, we’re not an image proper now of a rustic that we might need others to emulate?”

After bashing America, Todd bemoaned to The New Yorker’s Masha Gessen that Biden didn’t use the summit to repeat wildly absurd rhetoric in regards to the nation being as divided because it was through the Civil Struggle:  

TODD: Masha, I wish to play for you a quote from President Biden from July of this yr, as a result of it has an urgency to it that we didn’t hear right this moment. Take a hear.

JOE BIDEN: I’ve stated it earlier than, we’re dealing with essentially the most important take a look at of our democracy for the reason that Civil Struggle. That’s not hyperbole. For the reason that Civil Struggle. The confederates again then by no means breached the Capitol, as insurrectionists did on January the sixth. I’m not saying this to alarm you. I’m saying this as a result of you have to be alarmed.

TODD: Masha, I don’t know whether or not that sense of urgency must be concerned with this summit that’s being led by the USA, nevertheless it does strike me as type of a tone that’s – that doesn’t –  you recognize, what he stated in July to me matched the urgency of the second. What he’s saying right this moment doesn’t.

Gessen replied: “I couldn’t agree extra, Chuck. I feel that’s – that ‘urgency’ is the important thing phrase….And the urgency that we should be listening to is, “Look, there’s a disaster.” There’s – the USA, over the course of the final ten months, is definitely a lesson in how democracies stumble and are available to the sting.” She questioned: “How are we going to reinvent the system?”

Later within the dialogue, Todd returned to Gessen as he instantly claimed concern over the media sounding “alarmist” on the problem:  

Masha, assist me out with a dilemma that I feel a variety of us within the media have proper now, which is I do suppose that many people will look again in 5 years and say, “Boy, there was just one challenge we should always have been protecting the complete time.” And but, on the similar time, how do you do it with out coming throughout as alarmist and having folks tune out? I really feel prefer it’s an actual problem all of us face within the reality-based information media.

After spending a number of minutes scaring viewers with over-the-top pronouncements about “backsliding” democracy within the U.S., Todd nonetheless laughably refers to himself as a member of the “reality-based information media.”

Todd’s hysteria predicting the top of democracy was delivered to viewers by Downy and E-Commerce. You’ll be able to struggle again by letting these advertisers know what you consider them sponsoring such content material.

Here’s a transcript of excerpts from the December 9 dialogue:

1:00 PM ET

CHUCK TODD: If it’s Thursday, President Biden tries to steer a world effort to revive democracy. Can the U.S. Be a beacon for democracy overseas except he first confronts the efforts to undermine it proper right here at residence?

(…)        

TODD: We’ve stated it earlier than and we’re gonna say it once more, the most important story in American politics is and can proceed to be this homegrown effort to undermine U.S. democracy, largely fueled by the previous president and his loyalists who’ve hijacked and radicalized part of the Republican Occasion. There’s a cause the U.S. is now thought of a backsliding democracy. The January sixth riot, the massive lie, gerrymandering, efforts to limit voting entry, partisan makes an attempt to regulate who votes and the way these votes are counted, simply to call a number of, that’s the elephant within the room as President Biden kicked off a two-day international digital summit this morning on renewing democracy at residence and overseas. In his opening remarks, he referred to as on the world’s democracies to confront the sustained and alarming challenges dealing with them. And he additionally pointed to the sustained and alarming challenges dealing with the USA.

(…)

TODD: However the uncomfortable actuality dealing with the President is that there’s one celebration that appears keen to drag out all of the stops on the subject of the problem of the U.S. democracy, and it isn’t his. As Bart Gellman so aptly put it in The Atlantic: “Our two-party system has just one celebration left that’s keen to lose an election. The opposite is keen to win at the price of breaking issues {that a} democracy can not dwell with out.”

Of us, the lies that incited the January sixth riot have so metastasized on the precise that they’re now embraced by Republican election officers they usually have grow to be litmus assessments for potential Republican candidates, significantly should you’re on the lookout for Donald Trump’s endorsement.

In the meantime, the President and Democrats in Congress have but to make a full-throated push, even inside their very own celebration, to go laws aimed toward defending elections nationally as a possible counterweight to the precise’s efforts to subvert them regionally. They botched this numerous methods. You’ll be able to undergo, you possibly can speak about HR-1 and all of this, was there a greater and smarter method for them to push these and create extra of an urgency for this challenge? Backside line, if President Biden desires democracy to thrive overseas, he’s gotta deal – he’s obtained a disaster to take care of first proper right here at residence.

(…)

TODD: Shannon [Pettypiece], let me begin with you. And I wish to begin slightly bit with, does the White Home acknowledge the concept right here of how onerous it’s for on one hand the USA to play main democracy on this planet and then again, we’re not an image proper now of a rustic that we might need others to emulate?

(…)

TODD: Masha, I wish to play for you a quote from President Biden from July of this yr, as a result of it has an urgency to it that we didn’t hear right this moment. Take a hear.

JOE BIDEN: I’ve stated it earlier than, we’re dealing with essentially the most important take a look at of our democracy for the reason that Civil Struggle. That’s not hyperbole. For the reason that Civil Struggle. The confederates again then by no means breached the Capitol, as insurrectionists did on January the sixth. I’m not saying this to alarm you. I’m saying this as a result of you have to be alarmed.

TODD: Masha, I don’t know whether or not that sense of urgency must be concerned with this summit that’s being led by the USA, nevertheless it does strike me as type of a tone that’s – that doesn’t –  you recognize, what he stated in July to me matched the urgency of the second. What he’s saying right this moment doesn’t.

MASHA GESSEN [THE NEW YORKER, STAFF WRITER]: I couldn’t agree extra, Chuck. I feel that’s – that “urgency” is the important thing phrase and it’s the phrase that we can not use to explain what’s occurring right this moment. There’s this posturing, there’s this language that the USA is so used to, and that it’s straightforward for Biden, who has spent most of his life in authorities, sort of to fall again into. This certainty about what democracy is and the way it’s finished.

And the urgency that we should be listening to is, “Look, there’s a disaster.” There’s – the USA, over the course of the final ten months, is definitely a lesson in how democracies stumble and are available to the sting. And what are we going to do about this? How are we going to reinvent the system? And that we’re not listening to the language, we’re not listening to the reality. And you recognize, should you don’t hear fact, you possibly can’t have a dialog.

TODD: , Cynthia, I’m going to learn you a – simply this primary information clip from right this moment’s Axios. And as a substitute of listening to the phrases “Donald Trump” and “Republican Occasion” in right here, think about we had been speaking about one other nation and its fledgling democracy. “Donald Trump and his associates are systematically reshaping the Republican Occasion, working to put in hand-picked loyalists throughout federal and state governments and destroy these he feels have been disloyal. If most or all of Trump’s candidates win, he’ll go into the 2024 election cycle with much more folks keen to do his bidding who run the elections in key states.” That is about the USA and the Republican Occasion. What would you be saying if we had been describing the conservative celebration in Nice Britain?

CYNTHIA MILLER-IDRISS [DIRECTOR, AMERICAN UNIV. POLARIZATION & EXTREMISM RESEARCH & INNOVATION LAB]: Look, I feel, Chuck, if this had been occurring anyplace else on this planet, we might be sending democracy help funds, election screens to assist the democracy constructing efforts and restoration efforts. However I feel – you recognize, in another nation. However I feel what that quote additionally actually exhibits is that finally all of this will depend on particular person voters who’re making decisions. And, you recognize, it’s one factor to have a variety of phrases at a summit from presidential leaders that possibly assuage the fears of world leaders who’re nervous, as they need to be, about the USA and our dedication to democracy. Nevertheless it’s one other factor to really commit to creating the adjustments on the group stage that basically reinvest in renewal and reinvigoration of group assist for democracy and its norms and values.

And that’s actually the place the illness is, is on the native and group stage. And that’s the place the treatment additionally needs to be directed, by sort of public health-style commitments to educating folks and dealing with communities to revive this. As a result of all of the discuss on the international stage isn’t actually going to assist change the best way that voters assist rising political violence or proceed to look the opposite method round voter suppression if points – and even assist them – or storm the Capitol. I imply, all of the issues that unusual residents have finished during the last yr and year-plus are the foundation of the issue in the long run.

TODD: Cynthia, there’s one different uncomfortable truth, although. Many of those those who participated within the riot, which can be following the lead of the previous president, they swear they’re making an attempt to defend democracy. We have now a propaganda drawback.

MILLER-IDRISS: We completely have a propaganda drawback and a disinformation drawback. However finally, I’d argue, it goes again to the identical challenge. It’s additionally media literacy and a digital literacy drawback. It’s about equipping communities and people with the instruments to acknowledge that propaganda, to be much less persuaded by ways like scapegoating or fearmongering, to know and acknowledge disinformation.

(…)

TODD: Masha, assist me out with a dilemma that I feel a variety of us within the media have proper now, which is I do suppose that many people will look again in 5 years and say, “Boy, there was just one challenge we should always have been protecting the complete time.” And but, on the similar time, how do you do it with out coming throughout as alarmist and having folks tune out? I really feel prefer it’s an actual problem all of us face within the reality-based information media.

GESSEN: I’d wish to separate the alarmists from having folks tune out the issue. As a result of I feel you possibly can sound the alarm and you may assist folks perceive the story, which is the story of the disaster of the federal government of ruled, proper? Of what democracy must be. And do it in a method that doesn’t come throughout as hysterical and overblown. And that includes reporting, that includes understanding what’s getting in – on the opposite aspect.  That includes, for instance, understanding the core of the assumption that the election was stolen.

I’ve not really learn or finished good reporting on that, proper? I haven’t seen individuals who consider that there’s a disaster of democracy make a concerted effort to know the story of this disaster. And I feel there are numerous parts to it. There’s the aspect of the disappearance of native media, which I feel is a big story that we have now not coated sufficient. I feel there’s the aspect of, you recognize, the authorized, the courtroom legacy of the Trump administration, which is hobbling this administration in methods which can be woefully undercovered and misunderstood. And that’s simply two issues that may be coated in depth with out, you recognize, coming throughout as, you recognize, fly the flag the wrong way up.

(…)

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