The laughing, the ridicule, the condescending attitude. It’s everything Trump’s base hates about the liberal elite, and it was all apparent on Don Lemon’s show on CNN which aired Saturday night. And it was great – great for the side they were mocking, that is.
It started with a guest on the show, Rick Wilson, a former Republican strategist insinuating that President Trump could not find Ukraine on a map “if you had the letter ‘U’ and a picture of an actual, physical crane next to it.” He then went on to say Trump supporters are the “credulous boomer rube demo” before mocking them in a deep southern accent, “Donald Trump’s a smart one, and y’all — y’all elitists are dumb.” Wajahat Ali, the other guest on the show, couldn’t help but chime in, as he also mocked Trump supporters in a southern accent. “You elitists with your geography and your maps and your spelling…” and later continued “Your geography knowing other countries. Sipping your latte.” All this transpired while Don Lemon could barely catch his breath as he desperately tried to stop laughing so he could wipe his eyes.
Normal CNN coverage almost always attacks Trump, which usually draws the ire of conservatives, some moderates, and even @realDonaldTrump on Twitter. That’s perfectly fine, though. Trump knew when he decided to run for office that he would be the subject of heavy, fair, and maybe even unfair criticism from left leaning news outlets like CNN. But this clip wasn’t that. They weren’t going after the president, they were going after his supporters, which, according to the 2016 election, is nearly half the country.
They weren’t even trying to hide it, either. They were laughing right in the face of people they consider to be too dumb to understand geography, reading, or math. But even more surprising is that they still don’t understand why Trump supporters voted the way they did. A large reason is because they were tired of a Washington elite they know doesn’t respect their values, traditions, and beliefs. Trump supporters know that media and other liberal elites ridicule them for the stereotypes that float around. They sent Donald Trump to Washington to fight against those people.
This isn’t to say that CNN and other news outlets shouldn’t criticize the president when they feel is necessary. This isn’t even to say that Don Lemon or his guests are bad people. But we should expect better out of our cable news. It’s not much to ask of them to not laugh at half the country. They shouldn’t be arrogant enough to attack his supporters by stereotyping them all as uneducated southerners. Because the truth is that this segment motivated the people it sought to mock and only helped the person CNN despises the most: Donald Trump.
I thought this was a good article. Perhaps you should have mentioned the “basket of deplorables” comment Hillary Clinton made, which had a similar reception.