>>> good evening. im chris matthews in this great historic city of philadelphia where we learned to first gather around and build a country. let me start tonight with that. the first requirement of every political leader is to know what country hes living in. it helps, too, to know what time youre lafing in. ted cruz and the advancing right of the republican party speak of a place where people refuse to compromise to cut the national debt. where people like shutdowns as a political tactic. where people dont believe in background checks for gun buyers. you might want to check your gps, your map, your country. it may be cuckoo land, but it sure isnt the united states of america in october of 2013. republicans in this country insist on getting -- they think its nutty not to check out who buys guns in this country. who does the hard core right mean when they speak so casually of the american people. both my guests are msnbc political analysts. both are americans. the more ted cruz and his cohorts man the battlements, the more they are called out. ridgell says many of his gop colleagues in congress including ted cruz dont live in political reality. it was the latest salvo from the non-crazies in the party. yesterday was written the republican governor of ohio john kasich took on republicans and said im concerned that there seems to be a war on the poor, that if youre poor somehow youre shiftless and lazy. let me go to this whole question of misapprehension of who the american people are but not even knowing who their own party is on key issues of gun rights and fiscal policy and shutdowns. their party doesnt think like the hard right does. >> the virginia congressman that y you mentioned and the ohio governor that you mentioned live in the reality of today. in virginia its quite likely that the tea party republican is going to lose to a democrat that many thought was unelectable. in ohio there are pockets of poverty and misery that john kasich that used to be a doctrineaire republican, it has put him in the traditional mainstream of ohio republicans who if anything are among the most practical. theres a reason why so many republicans were elected to the presidency from ohio. they understand the gritty reality of that state. kasich does. >> you know, also, whats really interesting -- >> i want you to answer a question though. when they say we the american people, who are he this talking about? are they only talking about people of a certain evangelical background? of a certain region? who are they talking about when they confidently say we the american people as if they dont mean blacks from the big cities. they dont mean people of other religions besides christianity, who are they talking about? lets nail it? >> they mean people they see at meetings? how do they get to be we americans? >> theyre free to say whatever delusional thing they want to say. but you know, talking about practical politics here, what i was going to say, ztoo, they both live, not just in the land of political reality, but in the land where barack obama wins. he won the district in virginia where the congressman comes from. and they won the state of ohio. so they know that the american politics are diverse, ideologically, policy wise, generational. so they know, to be successful politicians have to operate within those confines, the people, ted cruz and others are self-selecting, self-seg gra gaiting and coming up with this success that only relies on people who think like they do. >> howard, im not going to quit on this point. i like immigrants, especially people who come here legally and play by the rules. he did that. his fathers from cuba. he just got here from canada. and yet he gets to dictate to everybody on the north, everybodys a minority. the blacks who were here for 400 years, at least a lot of them. are they americans? how do you get to dictate this stuff to america to your convenience. its awesome. its an awesome arrogance to talk like this, we americans. >> you dont get to dictate it, chris. and i think its up to people within the republican party as well as democrats, as well as president obama to counter that notion. that the whole point of this country is, is its welcoming nature. controversial, yes, with conflict, yes. every group thats here wishes that the one after them wouldnt follow, but thats been going on for hundreds of years. and people have to stand up and say no, you do not, you, to the tea party, just because youre waving the dont tread on me flag, just because youre acclaiming a sort of exclusive control over an understanding of the roots of the country, thats not the case. thats not the case. this is a very -- >> i like the flag because it refers to other countries triding on us. its a total misuse of the flag. >> its up to others in the political arena to challenge them on that and to counter that very arrogance that youre talking about. >> you know, the history of america is about fighting over the definition of america. you can go back to 1800 when jefferson and adams were at each others throats fighting over what type of country this would be and what type of americans we would be. and throughout the civil rights period, throughout protesting vietnam, mccarthyism, theres always been this fight over whats a real american. and sometimes its very coded. sometimes its not too coded in racial or religious terms. so the fact that theyre advancing their very narrow view of this is nothing new. and it seems a little retro, a little tired and well see to what degree other americans have to fight to not let them suck side. it may be that theyre so marginalized that this fight is a last gasp, not a last hurrah. >> it seems a bit bizarre that the guy who caught the night train from canada decides whos in and whos out. >>> right wing blogger took offense and said like much of the republican leadership national review wants to win majorities before unleashing hell, but history shows us repeatedly that they dont unleash hell once they have the majority. they become well-fed denizens of power using it to reward friends and influence people. what do they want to do if theyre not running for office? is the hard right simply a clammering bunch of right-winger right-winge right-wingers. heres a guy saying we dont want to hold office. we just want to attack those who hold office. >> if people on the right think the national review is the problem they have a big problem. they are hard and fast conservative. but this is really, i think from eric ericksons point of view and others a form of political anilism. they want to destroy and tear down. and anybody who sees it differently is not just wrong, they are the enemy. they are the rot within. they must be defeated. theyre rinos, whatever you want to call them. the civil war, not just within the republican party but within the conservative crew, whatever you want to call it, is not getting any better. its getting more exacerbated as people feel more unburdened and able to attack the enemies. >> chris, theres a generational war going on here. the national review was started by william f. buckley and has its roots in the 1950s and early 1960s when i think even when william f. buckley said he wanted to shout, he didnt want to give up on the governmental process. he didnt want to give up in the ability of the american government to take wildly die verge interviews, to take very harsh arguments and somehow make progress from them. the difference between what bill buckley was doing with the national review ra generation or two and what some of the websites on the right are doing now is that the current crop, and i would put ted cruz in that category and some of the younger tea party people in that category is that they fundamentally dont believe in this system that the founders put together to be able to settle the arguments that they are fighting. so the irony is theyre the ones saying that theyre americans and the others arent, whether its these people who seem to have deep, deep, deep doubts, if not total fear of the very political system that the founders created. >> yeah. and the great comment, george f. will who said the american people are conservative. they wish to conserve the new deal. they like social security. they like medicare. they may have questions, and theyre always legitimate about the growing role of government, but so far theyve said okay. any way, thank you. and coming
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 01:41:48 +0000
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