Rachel Maddow just nailed it
Now that Donald Trump is gone and the Democrats are in charge, far too many media pundits are now calling for the Democrats to find “unity” with the Republicans. Of course what they really mean is that the Democrats are supposed to give concessions to the Republicans in good faith, even knowing that the Republicans are going to respond in bad faith.
Rachel Maddow, the best pundit on television, used her MSNBC show tonight to emphatically call out this faulty rhetoric. She pointed out that “in this century,” there is a consistent pattern of Republicans acting in as bad of faith as possible when they have majority power, and that there is no impetus on the Democrats to reach across the aisle now that they’re in power. This is important to keep in mind as Senate Democrats prepare to pass the stimulus relief bill without any Republican support, and certain pundits line up to disingenuously criticize the Democrats for their lack of “unity” on the matter.
Rachel Maddow also used her show tonight to point out that Democratic Senator Joe Manchin’s rationale for voting against Neera Tanden is hypocritical and unacceptable. Maddow echoed something that Palmer Report said last night, which is that with Manchin rightly taking a lot of heat over this, he could end up feeling compelled to change his mind. As Palmer Report has pointed out, Manchin likes to take a position just to see whether it plays well, and is no stranger to flip flopping.
