Most Ridiculous Moment – April 24, 2016

“Identity Politics”

It was a fun day on the Sunday talks shows. Reince Preibus and Charles Koch worked out their issues on national television, Bill Kristol is trying to get a General sign on to his plan for an independent run for President; and conservatives pundits are worried that America is too driven by “identity politics.”

Bernie Sanders was on ABC and CBS, where he explained his worse showing among low-income voters, by saying “poor people don't vote. I mean, that's just a fact,” and “I would hope that if I am the nominee that on Election Day you're going to see a very, very large voter turnout,” and added, “if we got a voter turnout of 75 percent, this country would be radically transformed.”

On ABC, George Stephanopoulos asked Reince Priebus why so many prominent Republicans, such as Senators John McCain, Mark Kirk, and Kelly Ayotte 

are already announcing they will not go to the Republican Convention. Priebus said,, 
“I don't remember seeing some of those folks at the convention in the past.” Stephanopoulos replied “Well, John McCain was your nominee.”

Priebus also unveiled his general election strategy, saying, “We had two soldiers from Benghazi at the RNC meeting who were

lied to by Hillary Clinton.”

Also on ABC, Jon Karl, sat down with the ninth richest person in the world, Charles Koch. Koch said “absolutely,” the system is rigged in favor of the wealthiest, and, “In favor of companies like ours. Because 

we have this corporate welfare.”

Karl pointed out that, “Republicans are adamant about protecting a lot of these tax breaks.” Koch replied, “absolutely.” Koch agreed Bill Clinton was generally a better President than George W. Bush, and that Hillary Clinton would be possibly be better than another Republican.

Bill Kristol, still mired in the denial stage, advocated for an independent run for President by a Marine General, dismissing skepticism by citing General Dwight Eisenhower, who ran as the Republican nominee.

On Meet The Press, the leader of the 'Stop Trump' movement expressed her “total frustration,” that people keep voting for him, saying, “I don't know why our voters ignored the 15 candidates that might have been able to beat Hillary Clinton.”

With Donald Trump openly mocking the idea of being Presidential, she observed, “it would be funny if it weren't so frightening. 

I mean, this is a guy that's running to be the leader of the free world.” Joy-Ann Reid suggested “that the party is the problem.”

But the most ridiculous moments came with conservative pundit discussion of 'identity politics.' Reihan Salam insisted that, 

“What people are missing is that Bernie Sanders is speaking to a lot of white voters, in many cases, who feel marginalized by the rising place of identity politics in the party, the rising place of African- Americans and Latinos. They don't necessarily think of it that way. But Bernie Sanders is giving them a way to say that, hey, we still have a place at the table.”

Ezra Klein pushed back, saying he was “very skeptical,” and observing, “I think when you look at what's happening with Sanders and the party right now you see fundamentally a generational split.”

The Meet The Press panel discussed possible Democratic Vice Presidential candidates, including Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Deval Patrick and Tom Perez. Nicole Wallace, who tried, vainly, to make Sarah Palin a plausible candidate for Vice President, said of the discussion, 

“The identity politics just reek of incredible cynicism to me.”

Chuck Todd said, “Oh, and you don't think we're going to see identity politics on your side?” Nicole Wallace said “the identity, this is where Republicans pull their hair, there's such an opportunity on the Republican side, because this is all about identity politics.
It feels very cynical, it feels very 
Clinton-esque.”

So, even the Koch brothers believe Republicans have rigged the system to give benefits to the rich; pundits can't understand why GOP voters don't want to vote for one of their establishment candidates; and the senior advisor of the team that wanted Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the Presidency says the Democrats are wrong for being Clinton-esque and incredibly cynical for 
considering a diverse group of 
Vice Presidential candidates.

And that's the most ridiculous thing that happened this Sunday.