If you’re reading this blog, you probably don’t watch CNN. Who can blame you? The network drives me to talk back to my flat-screen TV all the time. Perhaps you saw the CNN news hour, when Don Lemon and his guests laughed at the “boomer rube demo” that supports the President. It’s so embarrassing the RNC has already featured the three elitists in a campaign ad.
The “star” of the segment was political strategist Rick Wilson, who once helped George W. Bush in Florida and Rudy Giuliani in New York. Asked to criticize Secretary of State Pompeo for demanding NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly point out Ukraine on a map, Wilson dope-slapped America’s president: “…Donald Trump couldn’t find Ukraine on a map if you had the letter U and the picture of an actual physical crane next to it.”
Despite how you feel about Mr. Trump, poking fun at America’s president and his intelligence is fair game. All presidents know it comes with the job, and Trump gives as good as he gets (cue Jeb Bush claiming, “you can’t insult your way to the presidency, Donald”). Furthermore, Don Lemon was not breaking new ground, and the map gag was actually funny.
However, Mr. Wilson then crossed the line: “That’s partly [Pompeo] playing to their credulous boomer rube base.” Translation: this presidency thinks its supporters are gullible. If you’ve heard Trump speak at a rally, then you know that’s not true. Suggesting a “credulous boomer rube base…backs Donald Trump” proves Wilson is the credulous dummy. Who else thinks Russia-Ukraine is a front-burner issue at most kitchen tables?
Reasonable Americans reject US involvement in Ukraine because they reject regime-change wars (such as Democrat Tulsi Gabbard). Many intelligent voters care more about North Korea or the impact of illegal immigration on rural wages. This is true, but Don Lemon giggled while Wilson and Wajahat Ali smeared rural southern whites.
Wilson (in mock southern accent): “Donald Trump’s the smart one and y’all elitists are dumb.”
Ali (in a mock southern accent): “You elitists with your geography and your maps and your spelling.”
Wilson (in similar accent): “Your math and your reading…hah-ha-ha”
Ali: “ha-ha-ha…yeah, your reading, you know…your geography, your reading, knowing other countries…sipping your latte…”
Wilson: “ha-ha-ha…all them lines on a map.”
Ali: “ha-ha-ha…only them elitists know where Ukraine is.”
It’s shameful when a brown-skinned Muslim (Ali) and black homosexual (Lemon) belittle another aggrieved identity group: rural whites aggrieved by the absence of a living wage and the rise of community decay. It was also stupid. Ali himself played to stereotype: Muslims ignore the Golden Rule (“love your neighbor as yourself”). And Lemon had to later apologize on-air that he was laughing at a joke – not a group of Americans.
And there you have it: three CNN talking heads legitimized the Trump populist meta-message: these liberal elites think they’re better than you. If it wasn’t confirmed when Adam Schiff (D-CA) told senators they can’t trust 2020 voters, then one minute of pundits stereotyping 63 million voters as stupid on CNN proved it beyond all reasonable doubt.
And here’s their gift to Republicans in 2020: working-class whites with high school educations don’t resent Wilson’s college diploma, and they don’t resent Lemon’s CNN salary. What makes their blood boil is thinking Wilson and Lemon think they’re better than we are. With enemies like CNN, the RNC should thank Nancy Pelosi for the impeachment circus.