I did not know who Donny Deutsch was when I saw him recently on MSNBC’s 11th Hour with Brian Williams. According to Wikipedia he's apparently a rich New Yorker who inherited a company worth millions from his father and he appeared on NBC’s The Apprentice. It appears that MSNBC hired him because he is from the same general milieu that Donald Trump is and he markets himself as some type of Trump whisperer who appears to think that he alone has insight on how to defeat Trump.
I was thoroughly unimpressed with what I heard from him.
To me Deutsch appears to be a throw back to the mid 1980s and early 1990s who espouses the same Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) type market based policies that pushed away much of the working and middle class from the Democratic party in droves, or as someone who could be a character out of HBO’s The Sopranos.
I saw Deutsch again last night on MSNBC’s analysis program after the first Democratic debate. My opinion of Deutsch did not improve. I think that Deutsch’s comments after last night’s debate were utterly useless and quite off the mark. He simply stated things that were surface level opinions without any depth or insight or any apparent basis other than his gut feel. It seems as though just about anyone on DK could provide that same level of “analysis.”
People generally want analysis from those who are well informed, educated experts with some specialized knowledge, and not from just an average Joe sitting at the end of the bar espousing his opinions after downing several beers, which is exactly the impression that Deutsch gives me. Deutsch appears to me as a layman without any expert political knowledge, education, or experience who simply applies his “common sense.” I’d be surprised if he would recognize the name Joseph W. Martin Jr.
It’s simply ludicrous hyperbole to make a statement that if Elizabeth Warren were the Democratic nominee for president in 2020 that the Democrats would lose 48 states.
Also, Deutsch’s statement about how the Democrat candidates blew it by not going after Trump more in the first debate was silly. Of course, all of the Democratic candidates think Trump is an absolute abomination and must be defeated. There was no need for them all to say that last night, and there will be plenty of time to go after Trump after the field narrows. At this point voters want to hear the candidates discuss what their messages and visions for the country are.
Deutsch worst offense of the night was probably his derision of the general election chances of Elizabeth Warren with absolutely no evidence or supporting information, saying that he did “not believe Elizabeth Warren on stage with Donald Trump beats him. And I think if we’re honest with ourselves and we look hard at ourselves I think a lot of people agree with me.”
He then stated, “I just don’t think she has what it takes to beat this president.”
Thankfully, Lawrence O’Donnell, a Harvard graduate with actual political experience as an aide to U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, put Deutsch and his comments in their proper place in a remarkably candid manner.
O’Donnell said, “Let’s just identify this for what it is, pure guesswork a year and a half away and so it has and I say this respectfully, zero value…”
Deutsch cried, “Don’t tell me it has zero value!” and O’Donnell then replied, “It does…It’s a zero guess tonight.”
O’Donnell continued, “There’s no science in it, there’s nothing in it, and you can put any name you want in the wild guess you just made and it doesn’t make it true.”
Then MSNBC finally appeared to come to it senses and kept Deutsch off the broadcast for the rest of the hour.
Does anyone think that Deutsch brings any significant value to a well reasoned serious Democratic party political discussion? Am I missing something?
Here’s a clip of the O’Donnell-Deutsch altercation: