So, it turns out that Joy Reid’s old blog doesn’t just contain a few (hacked?) offensive or insensitive posts, it’s a gold mine of truly unhinged advocacy. Our own Jim Geraghty has been chronicling example after example after example. The Daily Wire just published another “new” list of extraordinary posts. And now she’s apologized, issuing a statement that includes these extraordinary words, “There is no question in my mind that Al Qaeda perpetrated the 9/11 attacks.”
I know that lots of folks on the Left believe that they belong to a movement with the ethos that says, “When they go low, we go high,” but John Ekdahl takes us down memory lane:
People forget about the insane conspiracy theories that floated around mainstream Dem circles during the Bush Administration. Joy Reid wasn’t *that far* out there.
— American Journalists Publish Chinese Propaganda (@JohnEkdahl) June 1, 2018
In 2008, Trig Palin trutherism populated the pages of The Atlantic, of all places. If you were at all familiar with the “netroots” — the radical, amped-up, angry collection of liberal bloggers who helped put Howard Dean on the map — you’ll know that conspiracy theories were common . . . and commonly crazy. Don’t forget, in 2006, “More than half of Democrats, according to a neutral survey, said they believed Bush was complicit in the 9/11 terror attacks. Let’s not even go down the rabbit hole of fever dreams surrounding George W. Bush’s 2004 election victory. This article, from Salon, provides a useful compilation, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s conclusion, published in Rolling Stone, that “The president’s party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004.”
Keep in mind, this was the last election where Republicans won the popular vote.
How easy it is to forget the progressive panic and fury at the Bush administration. Millions of people were gripped by the fear that “Jesusland” would rule them forever, and when Barack Obama faced John McCain, that was the Left’s own version of the “Flight 93 election.” John notes that when Reid was writing her posts, a “non-trivial” percentage of MSNBC personalities and executives “were saying the same things.” That’s one reason why she survives. They may not think she’s all wrong.