Real Time” host Bill Maher pushed back against MSNBC contributor Malcolm Nance’s declaration that all 70 million people who voted for President Trump are “racists” and “tribalists.”
During a panel discussion about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, Nance told Maher he was going to “channel his inner” colleagues at MSNBC, Eddie Glaude and Jason Johnson.
“They have been on-air saying this: These people have revealed themselves for the racists that they are, the tribalists that they are, they don’t care about ‘E Pluribus Unum, ‘from many, one,’ they care about ‘I got mine and, you know, you shouldn’t get anything of yours,'” Nance exclaimed.
“You think that’s every Trump voter?” Maher asked.
“They voted for this consciously knowing what Donald Trump stood for, for the last four years! They know him!” Nance double down. “It’s almost a level of fanaticism that I’ve only seen in cult groups and Middle East terrorist groups.”
A fellow panelist, Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks, jumped in to “disagree” with Nance, suggesting Trump voters were inside their own “information bubble” and thus lived in a different world than media elites do.
“They’re being fed a line of crap, yes,” Brooks said. “And if that’s all you’re hearing and Uncle Joe and Uncle Bob say the same thing and Cousin Mary say the same thing … I don’t think it’s that people are dumb. I think it’s that people, you know, how do we know what we know? We know what we know because people we trust talk to us and if everybody we trust is being fed the same s—, then s— in, s— out.”
Maher then pointed to President Trump’s expanded support among Black voters in reported exit polls.
“Trump did a lot better with the Black vote than he did last time,” Maher told Nance.
“We don’t really know that,” Nance pushed back. “We don’t really know that because the exit polling we saw were people who showed up at the polls. There’s that 100 million Americans who actually voted by mail so I’m not exactly sure if I buy that. And that’s sort of in the same thread of propaganda that we generally get from conservatives.”
“Well, this I read in the New York Times,” Maher shot back. “It’s not a conservative paper. … So you just deny the premise?”
“No,” Nance responded with a smirk.
“Well, maybe you’re right. That’s true, the mail-in ballots, maybe we don’t know,” Maher conceded.
“We don’t know,” Nance agreed.
After Brooks suggested that Trump voters have succumbed to the far-right’s “information warfare,” Maher pushed back against her as well.
“Or maybe people just see the world differently,” Maher said. “I think he’s a terrible leader but I don’t think that it’s terrible that there’s diversity in the Black community. Or in any community.”
Later on, during his closing monologue, Maher appeared to further repudiate Nance’s characterization of Trump voters by calling for unity.
“Let’s all stop seeing each other as deplorable,” Maher pleaded to viewers.
