It all started right here when Jeffrey Lord tried to equate the tactic of Trump threatening to deny subsidy payments for everyone currently on ObamaCare with the strategy employed by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King to fight injustice, racism and bigotry during the Civil Rights era.
And this really didn’t go over well with Symone Sanders.
“When I was a kid, the president [Lyndon Johnson] didn’t want to introduce the civil rights bill because he did not have the votes for it,” Lord explained. “Dr. King kept putting people in the streets in harm’s way to put pressure on for the bill to be put forward.”
Sanders was not at all amused by this comparison, however, and she absolutely let Lord have it.
“Dr. King was marching for civil rights because people that looked like me were being beaten,” she shot back. “Basic human rights were being denied to these people merely because of the color of the skin. Let’s not equate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — a humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize winner — to the vagina-grabbing President Donald Trump.”
Never the less, Lord pressed on — because of course he did — with Bakari Sellers and that Poning was indeed epic.
“The fact is that Donald Trump is trying to bring Democrats to the table to gut a piece of legislation which has insured many and saved lives,” Sellers went on. “If he is successful, people will die and rural hospitals like the one I use to represent will close.”
He went on to explain that Dr. King’s goal was to create equality with all races.
“I am not using a race card,” Sellers said after Lord made a blanket accusation. “I’m a black-American citizen who stands on the shoulders of people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr… The fact that you want to compare Donald Trump, who is trying to meet some political promise is astounding and even more it’s astoundingly absurd. The fact is this, Jeffrey, in our political discourse we have to remove these Hitler and Nazi comparisons. Donald Trump is not Martin Luther King, Jr. We’ve taken this to a place where it doesn’t need to be.”
The tactic used by Dr. King was to use non-violent resistance to highlight an existing crisis of injustice — Donald Trump isn’t doing that. He’s threatening to create a crisis for no good reason, threatening to take access to healthcare away from millions of Americans simply to try and make Democrats come to the negotiating table, when they’ve already offered to be at the table to improve American healthcare, as long as he stops trying to take it away from 20 Million Americans by repealing the ACA.
This is bullshit. Period.
Friday, Apr 14, 2017 · 6:25:05 AM +00:00 · Frank Vyan Walton
Alright so they went over this a third time, and it really, truly devolved badly — Don Lemon was shouting at Jeffrey before it was over because he’s really truly clueless to how nonequivalent and insulting his rationale is, constantly claiming it’s just about a “non-racial tactic”, yeah, uh, no. Non-violent resistance is about like cutting of people’s healthcare funding the way a pigeon is like a pterodactyl, which is to say — totally not.
“We don’t live in a colorblind society,” Lemon also said. He asked Lord to explain how he can face three people of color telling him that he was wrong and not be understanding to listen to them. Lord did as he often does when he is in trouble and began repeating Lemon’s name over and over again before starting to tell a story of his father and a black waitress.
“You’re not answering the question, Jeffrey,” Lemon cut in. “You’re not answering my question in the moment. Don’t take me back to some before the war crap. I want to hear what you’re saying to the co-workers you work with now, Jeffrey. Answer the question now! I don’t want to hear about stuff from 50 godd*mn years ago!”
In the second half of the segment, Lord tried to claim that Lemon was “talking liberal” and Lemon said that he was “talking real.” Lord kept talking over Lemon as Lemon asked him to let him finish. Lord wouldn’t stop. “I’m talking to you, will you let me finish?” Lemon asked again. Lord paused and Lemon began to talk about what Dr. King means but Lord began speaking again. Lemon persisted.
“Dr. King means something different to the people here than he means to you. He wasn’t a tactic for us,” he said. “He’s a real person, who helped me to be able to get here and Symone to be able to sit here and for Bakari [Sellers] to be able to sit here. And for you to come on and give some reckless comparison to his work and his legacy.”
Lord continued to talk but Lemon was done.
“Goodnight,” he said as Lord continued to talk. “Goodnight, we’re done. Goodnight, we’re done.”