While trying to find a reason behind more voters turning to former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-hosts pointed to identity and cultural politics based on their own experiences.
Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist both recounted what they saw and heard in the lead-up to the election that saw Trump reelected — backlash against the Democratic focus on trans identity and the Israel-Hamas War. As Mika Brzezinski read an excerpt from Matt Bai’s analysis in The Washington Post, Geist and Scarborough offered up real-life examples of Bai’s observations.
Geist recounted a local race where he lives, which he described as a “rural” area outside the city:
I live in a relatively rural area outside the city. There was a local race there, and the Republican changed her signs picking up on this. And every sign said “Save Girls Sports.” It was just her name for a long time. And she said, if you read and talk to people around the campaign, she couldn’t print enough of those signs. People were driving by saying, “I want one of those for my yard.” When it was just her name, they said, “Oh, it’s another candidate. I don’t even know who she is or what she’s running for.” “Save Girls Sports,” and they were all over the place.
Brzezinski read
I do think the prosecutions fed a narrative of Trump as a victim. I also think Democrats dug themselves into a hole on cultural issues and identity politics. Trump’s vicious transgender ad in the closing weeks [“She’s for they/them, he’s for you”] was probably the most effective of the cycle. I think that probably landed with a lot of traditionally Democratic voters who feel like the party is consumed with the cultural issues while the economic issues don’t really change. I think people needed a reason to feel good and hopeful about voting for her. And absent that, a lot of frustrated voters apparently decided to go with the guy who wants to burn it all down.
Scarborough then laced into the pro-Palestine protests on college campuses that were driven by far-left movements (and anti-Semitism) and caused a division among Democrats:
Let’s dig a little deeper because you have that stacked on top of what happened on college campuses this fall, stacked on top of what’s been happening on college campuses over the past four or five years. I have said this on the air, and every time I’ve said it, people said, “Oh, you’re just saying that because you’re a White conservative.” No, I’m just saying it because every Democrat that we have ever
sat down with dinner with over the past five years who have kids that go to colleges, say their kids are afraid to speak in class because they’ll be canceled.Let me say that again — and they’re all Democrats — everybody that we’ve had dinner with, if they have a kid in college, “How are the Red Sox going? Yeah, fine, yeah, yeah.” And they’re eating. “You know, beautiful day today, wasn’t it?” “Yes.” “You know, my daughter at the University of Virginia? She’s afraid to raise her hand in class because if she says something that’s politically incorrect, she’ll immediately be canceled. She’ll be shunned from class. She’ll be destroyed in social media by noon. So they just sit in class quiet.”Now, if any of you — which camera, give me a camera to look at — boom! I’ll look at that one. If any of you out there say, “Oh, that’s just like a conservative, White, southern guy–” That’s why you’re losing. That’s why you’re losing. Because that’s what I heard. And I didn’t hear it from Republicans. I didn’t hear it from Trumpers. I heard it from Democrats over the past three or four years. Theirkids were afraid to talk in class and say something unpopular because they would be canceled. And it’s an epidemic. Willie will tell you, it happens in New York City schools. It happens in colleges. And all of this adds up to people going, “Come on. Come on. This is crazy.”
But when it came to the anti-trans talking points, Scarborough cited popular opinion about transgender women in sports:
By the way, by the way, as we’ve said on this show a thousand times, Democrats should be smarter on the women’s athletics thing. Eighty-five percent of Americans oppose men transitioning after puberty and competing against women. And I’m not just saying this the day after the election. I’ve been saying this for years. This is not a hard call. You can show compassion and you can show grace. And as the Republican governor of Utah said, “Let’s figure out a way to do this.” But one way we don’t do this is by allowing men who transition after puberty competing against young girls who have been working their entire lives to be as good as they can be. And then they get destroyed in the pool, on the track, etc., etc., etc.
Watch the video above via MSNBC.