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MSNBC analyst warns if you think prices are high now, wait ’til ‘fascist, authoritarian’ GOP takes over

June 20, 2022 | | Print Article


(Video: MSNBC via MRC)

It seems at times like we as a divided nation are living in two separate realities, and nowhere is that surreal sense more disturbingly felt than when hearing claims that defy logic presented as truths on mainstream news shows — claims such as those made by MSNBC analyst and Democrat pollster Fernand Amandi.

Amandi warned viewers on Saturday that skyrocketing gas prices will be much worse if no one is held accountable for the Jan. 6 “riots” and “totalitarian, fascist, authoritarian” Republicans take over.

Appearing on “The Cross Connection” with host Tiffany Cross, Amandi was asked a leading question that opened the door for the liberal guest to claim, without pushback and in defiance of actual facts, that Americans had better value “saving democracy” over “saving money” or we will surely fall under Republican rule and end up like Venezuela or Russia.

“Will voters remember what we are hearing from January 6th?” Cross asked. “Because you know, I just feel like [the] attention span of our fellow American people, including my own, it’s brief sometimes. And so you forget by the time you go into that ballot box. What are your thoughts here?”

“Tiffany, they better remember,” Amandi replied. “Quite simply because this is the most important story in the history of the republic.”

“Now I know that sounds like a big statement,” he continued, “but we’ve never experienced what we’re seeing right now, which is clear-cut evidence that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and his political party, the Republican Party, attempted to end the democracy and stage a coup to overthrow the government.”

Viewers of “The Cross Connection,” implied the MSNBC host, are well-informed and closely follow things like prime-time Democrat-led shows, but she was concerned “the distant people who might not wake up reading a paper every morning” may listen to the “constant storyline of inflation” and not think Jan. 6 is such a big deal when compared with soaring grocery bills.

While he wasn’t happy about gas and grocery prices either, Amandi’s focus on Jan. 6 and the need to ensure Republicans do not regain control in November was kept laser-sharp by the knowledge that everything is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fault.

“Look, I’m also upset about rising gas prices,” he said. “I’m also upset about prices rising. But I also know that it’s Vladimir Putin’s fault that gas prices are rising, and the supply chain issues that continue to bedevil around the pandemic as we get back to normal are impacting that.”

It’s the same narrative that has been pushed by President Joe Biden for months now.

Earlier this month, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre downplayed the suffering of Americans under 40-year-high inflation by declining to call the economic situation a crisis, saying instead, “We’re just in a difficult time.”

But according to a poll taken in early June, the majority of Americans — 59.9% of them — believe Biden’s policies, not Putin’s war with Ukraine, have contributed more to inflation.

And it may be this sentiment, coupled with weak ratings for the Jan. 6 hearings, that fueled Amandi’s hyperbolic claims.

It’s almost as though he wanted to scare people into caring about the events at the Capitol.

“The fundamental truth is, Tiffany, if you think the economy is tight now, if you think prices are a problem now, if you think gas is a problem now, wait till you see what it’s like in a totalitarian, fascist, authoritarian government,” he warned. “Because you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

“And I say that as someone who comes from a Cuban family, who — go to Cuba now,” he continued. “Ask me about gas prices and the economy there. Go to Venezuela. Go to Russia.”

Rather than ask Amandi what, if anything, Cuba, Venezuela, or Russia has to do with Republicans winning the midterms, Cross replied, “Yeah,” giving Amandi the opportunity to argue that Americans aren’t capable of assessing the economic landscape or dissecting the events of Jan. 6 for themselves.

“It’s a really different situation,” he said. “But until those issues are put forth, Tiffany, to the American people, and are explained and contextualized, they’re not gonna understand.”

The only thing that can save America, he argued, is a bunch of Republican indictments, and if that doesn’t happen before the midterms, Amandi claimed, Merrick Garland will be to blame for voters just not getting it.

“And that’s why I hold Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, and the Justice Department responsible,” he said. “If they do not bring these indictments on what is crystal-clear, smoking-gun evidence, it will be an act of dereliction of duty by the Attorney General, before the midterms, so that the voters can see that not only is this real, this has criminal accountability, and they can make that judgment and decision when they go vote in November.”

Melissa Fine
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