MSNBC Guest Estimates 20% of the Country ‘Basically is White Nationalists’
Author and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Thomas Ricks revealed during a Morning Joe appearance this week that he believes approximately a fifth of the country’s population is made up of white nationalists.
Appearing on Morning Joe on Wednesday, Ricks discussed an opinion piece for the Washington Post in which he claimed he is no longer as fearful of a potential civil war in the U.S., mainly citing the response to the January 6 Capitol riot.
“Oddly enough, the main things that give me hope arise from former president Donald Trump’s attack on the electoral process, culminating in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. At the time I feared that the unprecedented insurrection was the beginning of a sustained war on American democracy,” Ricks wrote for the Post. “Yet nothing much happened.”
The Post piece is titled, “Why I’ve stopped fearing America is headed for civil war.”
Asked by Eddie Glaude Jr. about his seeming optimism and the “cultural engine” driving the current divided political landscape, Ricks revealed that despite his newfound hope that the country won’t be ripped apart by civil war, he still thinks a large portion of said country consists of white nationalists.
“I think that there is a 20 percent of America that basically is white nationalists,” Ricks said.
The author added that these “white nationalists” have been emboldened by former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party in recent years.
White nationalists, Ricks said, “were given permission by the president and the Republican Party.”
He still argued most Americans are against white nationalism, circling back to his vague political optimism.
“I think the large bulk of Americans don’t like white nationalism, especially violent white nationalism, and they are reacting to it now and saying enough is enough. You people go back under your rock,” he said.
Watch above via MSNBC
