Speaking during a Wednesday, August 11 appearance on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” with host Joy Reid, The Nation’s justice correspondent, Elie Mystal, said that the supporters of former President Donald Trump are “just as despicable” as the former president is, a statement even worse and more scathing than Hillary’s infamous “basket of deplorables” comment.
The comments from Mystal came after the similarly far-left Joy Reid claimed that former President Trump had, in visiting Arlington National Cemetary at the invitation of and alongside the Gold Star families of the 13 American service members killed at Kabul Airport during the Biden Administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, “desecrated” the cemetery.
Reid said, making that comment about the former president, “The way he desecrated Arlington National Cemetery would be career-ending for a normal politician. Even this piece about saying my building was the tallest until they brought down the World Trade Center, and now it is the second tallest. Everything he does is despicable.”
Responding, Mystal took to denigrating Trump supporters as “despicable,” saying, “The reason it does not end his career is his supporters are just as despicable. Trump is a narcissist, so his whole thing is a complete lack of compassion and empathy for everybody else. It is all about him. That is why he lies about 9/11.”
Continuing, Mystal compared Trump to former President Andrew Jackson, a commonly made comparison given the populist and nationalistic leanings of both former presidents. However, instead of being complimentary with the comparison, Mystal said that both were awful and not compassionate, as were their supporters.
Mystal said, making that comparison and framing it as being not at all complimentary despite Jackson’s great successes, “He is probably the least compassionate president we’ve had in 200 years since Andrew Jackson, and it works for him because his supporters are just as un-generous and have just as little compassion and empathy for others.”
Continuing, Mystal spoke about the alleged narcissism of both former President Donald Trump and his supporters, agreeing that Arlington had been desecrated by Trump’s presence. He said, “So when he is seen essentially, as you guys have put it, desecrating our national symbols, and when he is seen putting himself above all else, his supporters also want that to be the case.”
Concluding, Mystal said, further attacking Trump supporters as “crass and classless,” “They want to do that in their own lives. That is how they think of themselves. That why it is that it never hurts Trump when he takes these crass and classless actions. It’s because his supporters think that being crass and classless is actually kind of cool.”
Watch Mytal and Reid here:
Hillary, as a reminder, attacked Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables,” saying “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.” She added, “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people — now how 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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