MSNBC host Zerlina Maxwell found a ready audience in Breitbart News turncoat Kurt Bardella, now an adviser to the DNC and DCCC, when she pitched the idea that a person has to be consumed with white privilege to be concerned about inflation — it’s not by accident that 40-year high inflation leads among voter concerns today.
Plying his trade as a former member of the Lincoln Project grift to disparage Republicans, Bardella claimed the GOP “made the most fatal flaw they can in a campaign” when they stood on the side of not killing unborn babies in the overturn of Roe v. Wade and even suggested Democrats may retain control of the House — he may be the only pundit in America to hold that view.
But he really went off the rails when Maxwell asked if inflation and the cost of things is a liability for Democrats.
(Video: MSNBC)
“Do you think bodily autonomy in the minds of a voter who’s going into that polling booth — do you think that’s more top of mind than the cost of their gas?” she asked.
Bardella responded with the mother of all stupid comments.
“You know I think ultimately that in order to even have to care about inflation you have to be alive,” he said, oblivious to how that remark plays out in light of their focus on abortion. “And if you’re a woman right now, who has a difficult pregnancy that’s threatening your health. You know what? That’s going to matter a lot more to, I think, than inflation.”
The remark provided the opening Maxwell needed to bring race into the discussion.
“One of the things that you’ve said there that I really think is important is the fact that, you know, inflation, it’s almost a privilege to care about inflation as your number one issue,” the MSNBC host said. “The same is true for gas prices or even the idea that it’s the economy, stupid. I always found that analysis lacking because as a black person I don’t want to get killed on the way to my job. So I’m glad I have a job. I’m glad I make a living wage. But if I can’t be alive then what does that other stuff matter?”
Her take being what, that black people are at risk of being killed by white people? Police? Never mind that when it comes to abortions, black babies are aborted at a disproportional rate.
When cued to support her take that the Democratic base is preoccupied with more important things than putting food on the table, Bardella dutifully complied.
“Yeah listen, if you just lost your house because of a flood in Kentucky, if you just lost your livelihood because it burned down in a wildfire, if you just lost your life because you are the wrong color and you are pulled over somewhere, inflation doesn’t really matter to you or to your loved ones,” he said.
“There are much broader things going on right now in this country that affect so many demographics that the dollars to cents case that has been made time and again about — you know, like you said it’s the economy, stupid — there’s a blind spot there,” he added shamelessly. “And you’ll notice that the majority of people who make that statement are generally white. There’s a real reckoning going on in America right now and we’re seeing multiple things converge from the threat of climate change that’s upending these peoples’ lives and homes, to the struggle with social justice, to still the ongoing struggle with the pandemic, not to mention again what Republicans have done just advancing an entire war against women.”
The hope here from Bardella apparently being that he can speak these talking points into truth.
“Those are the things that I think cut much more personally and directly than the overarching issue of inflation because it’s almost a luxury to think about that when these other things are threatening your everyday life, or the lives of your kids,” he pontificated. “We live in a country right now where if you send your kid off to school, you don’t know that that child’s going to come home safely because Republicans are in the back pocket of gun manufacturers and the NRA. Those are the things that I think matter, as much at least as inflation.”
And we wonder why our political rhetoric is driving young impressionable minds to commit heinous acts.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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