MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle: If You Back Trump Policies, the ‘Response At a Dinner Party’ is You’re ‘Sexist or a Racist’

On MSNBC on Wednesday, host Stephanie Ruhle was speaking with guests; former Senator Robert Torricelli and MSNBC analyst Bret Stephens about the 2018 midterms. During the conversation, the three agreed that both Democrats and Republicans are abandoning the center for the extremes. Of particular note was Ruhle’s rare recognition that some of what is now standard political fare isn’t actually that helpful.

In fact, the MSNBC host thinks that perhaps reflexively calling everyone a sexist or racist every time they deviate from the latest liberal Democrat policy preference may not be the best electoral strategy.

Ruhle began the segment by playing a clip of President Trump talking about enthusiasm. Stephens said that the President has a point, and that congress does “seem to be delivering ‘at least some results for the Republican party.”

Ruhle took that point as segue to introduce an op-ed from David Brooks at the New York Times on tribalism. Ruhle quoted Brooks, reading that his takeaway “is that our political conflict is primarily a rich, white civil war. It’s between privileged progressives and privileged conservatives. You could say that tribalism is the fruit of privilege.”

“There’s a risk right now that the center, whether– on both parties, could lose, and we’d only be left with the extremes,” said Ruhle, turning to Torrecelli.

“I agree with that 100 percent. And the danger for American democracy is profound,” he said. “If you look at these elections what we’re– half of the democratic gains in the House of Representatives-and I think Democrats do take the house-half are going to come from California and the New York metropolitan area. The blue wave is on the coasts. In a lot of way it’s a replay of the presidential election of ’16 where Democrats won the popular vote, the big states. But we not only are not going to take the Senate, I think we’re going to lose seats.”

Torricelli analyzed the races a bit more before saying there is no political party in America “representing the center” and that the two parties are “racing to each extreme.” He said that leaves out “great, great numbers of Americans” as certain sections of the country move in the two far directions.

Stephens agreed, saying it used to be the case that there Democrats with some conservative views on the economy or foreign policy, and republicans who weren’t so conservative on social issues or gun issues. “Where have they gone? They’ve not only been run out of the party, they’ve been run out of the media,” he said.

Ruhle asked “isn’t this a moment for the center to rise?”

“Because when Bret tries to make an argument that is supportive of, let’s say, the president’s policies, or you could say ‘this works for Republicans, the immediate response at a dinner party is you must be a sexist or a racist to feel that way,” said Ruhle in what may have been an over-reveal for the journalist about the environment in the mainstream media. “And that causes people in the center to go silent.”

Ruhle related it to a recent personal experience, when she apparently took criticism from her peers for even daring to discuss with Hillary Clinton the affair between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. “Two days ago I was critical when Hillary Clinton said it wasn’t an abuse of power, her husband and Monica Lewinsky, and people said immediately why are you re-litigating that? I wasn’t re-litigating it, Hillary Clinton said it the night before.”

They did not arrive at an answer to Ruhle’s question about how to combat the so-called silencing of the center, but did suggest becoming less engaged with social media and not assuming that all Americans are as deeply into the tribal political games as one might think.

“Most normal people simply want to live their best lives,” said Ruhle.

[Featured image via screengrab]

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Follow Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) on Twitter

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