Cross posted to the MRC's NewsBusters blog
Appearing as a guest on MSNBC's The ReidOut show on Friday, Vanderbilt University professor and former MSNBC political analyst Michael Eric Dyson treated viewers to the kind of trash talk that qualifies as political analysis on the far-left network.
After making a number of bad jokes and cracks about Jim Crow to paint Republicans as racists and declaring that "the real religion -- the real politics in America is whiteness," he further claimed that the GOP would have barred Jesus from being given a cup of water while he was dying on the cross.
When asked by host Joy Reid to react to the new voter restrictions passed in Georgia, Dyson melodramatically hyped:
This is Jim Crow, this is Jane Crow, this is their kids, this is the nesting of white supremacy. And if we're trying to pretend we don't know, this is the weaponization of conspiracy theory, and it now has come to the place where we find so reprehensible. And I end by saying this: Brian Kemp and Raffensberger and those, that crew, you fought against, you know, Donald Trump -- you wanted to get back in his good graces -- so, as you pointed out paradoxically, you undermine the very ostensible legitimacy you possess to defend yourself against him now to hand him the plate. The real religion -- the real politics in America is whiteness and whiteness unhinged.
A bit later, Reid followed up by asking Dyson about his recent meeting with President Joe Biden, and whether he thought the President would push for the Senate to get rid of the filibuster to help pass his agenda, leading Dyson to hyperbolically respond:
I think he's contemplating it seriously when he sees the consequences. What he needs to do is fill these busters with some fear of the government. These are the kind of people that would pass a law to keep Jesus from be -- getting a cup of water while he's dying on the cross.
This episode of MSNBC's The ReidOut was sponsored in part by Legal Zoom. Their contact is linked. Let them know how you feel about them supporting such incendiary trash talk.
Transcript is below:
MSNBC
The ReidOut
March 26, 2021
7;10 p.m. Eastern
JOY REID: It does seem like there's two pieces to what they're doing. One is saying, "Republican voter, we know you're less than motivated because we lost these elections in Georgia, so we're going to motivate you by guaranteeing that you'll win because if you don't like that black voters vote a lot, you can challenge their registration. If that doesn't work, we'll just put in a board and flip the election to what you want. That feels like they're saying to those January 6th people who sieged the Capitol, "We'll make sure that you never have to ever experience losing again." That is what this feels like. And not just this state, but all over the country.
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: And to echo you, Joy, and to provide a coda, we will give you the symbolic -- the symbolism. We will arrest a black woman who is legitimately elected to represent voters in Georgia. And, on January 6, we will allow you to storm the dome -- the most sacred space in civic America -- and allow you to have at will and do what you will. And so not only are we subordinating a woman who is legally designated as a legislator and then to subject her to criminal penalty, we will allow you to go free.
That's not a chronology -- let's put it right -- it's a Jim Crow-nology. And when we do a Jim Crow-nology, we understand that the Voting Rights Act is merely an inconvenient interruption of white supremacist power. What we have here is mail-in voting, as in white males. And they are in for voting, but they are not in for anybody else voting. They want to restrict it every way they can. And look at the machinations -- the imagination it takes to try to figure out how to deny black people to vote. Black people have been quite literal. We want to exercise the franchise. Therefore, we want to march to the polls, and we want to pull that lever. ... And white imagination has been galvanized in order to subvert it.
So this is nothing more -- I mean, President Biden is right. This is Jim Crow, this is Jane Crow, this is their kids, this is the nesting of white supremacy. And if we're trying to pretend we don't know, this is the weaponization of conspiracy theory, and it now has come to the place where we find so reprehensible. And I end by saying this: Brian Kemp and Raffensberger and those, that crew, you fought against, you know, Donald Trump -- you wanted to get back in his good graces -- so, as you pointed out paradoxically, you undermine the very ostensible legitimacy you possess to defend yourself against him now to hand him the plate. The real religion -- the real politics in America is whiteness and whiteness unhinged.
(...)
REID: Very quickly, you met recently with President Biden, Michael Eric Dyson, with other historians. Do you think that Joe Biden is ready to do that -- to get rid of the filibuster? Very quickly, we're out of time, very much out of time.
DYSON: You know, I think he's contemplating it seriously when he sees the consequences. What he needs to do is fill these busters with some fear of the government. These are the kind of people that would pass a law to keep Jesus from be -- getting a cup of water while he's dying on the cross.
REID: Yeah, that is sad but true. Sad but true.