Posted on May 19, 2022

Joe Scarborough Wages Epic Battle With Morning Joe Crew Over Whether White Supremacy ‘Is Who We Are’

Tommy Christopher, Mediaite, May 18, 2022

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough pushed back at length when show regulars Mike Barnicle and Eddie Glaude Jr. insisted that the White Supremacy embodied by the Buffalo mass shooting “is who we are” as a country.

{snip}

Barnicle used his turn to deliver a television essay on the “shopworn” idea that “This is not who we are” as a country — a phrase that President Joe Biden invokes frequently.

One of the more shopworn phrases that we’ve heard repeatedly over the past few days with reference to Buffalo, this the latest example of who we are, is the phrase “This is not who we are.”

That’s not true. This is who we are. We are living in a country that has a virus without a vaccine. And we’ve been living in this country all of our lives. And it’s surrounded us all of our lives.

{snip}

Co-host Mika Brzezinski agreed “it is,” then veered away from the premise, until Scarborough then voiced his disagreement moments later:

{snip} I don’t believe this is who America is. I do believe this is who a large segment of our society is. I do believe that Donald Trump gave a lot of people permission in their minds to behave the way they behaved in Charlottesville. To behave the way they they behaved in Pittsburgh, the way they behaved in San Antonio, the way they behaved, sending the wrong message is not understanding, again, the power of those words that lead to those guardrails being taken down, that lead to the violence. I, I will say, and I think I’m probably in the minority here, I do want to offer people hope that are watching today. I believe just like Donald Trump lost in 2020. Just like Republicans in the House lost in 2020. Just like extremists. {snip}

{snip}