MSNBC’s Joy Reid is no stranger to controversy. In fact, on any other network, her blatant partisanship would likely have been too much to tolerate, even for CNN. Yet MSNBC is a left-leaning network and so Reid is likely there to stay.
However, the anchor doesn’t seem to understand a great deal she likes to talk about.
For example, she has opinions about Uvalde’s support for Gov. Greg Abbot during the 2022 elections.
MSNBC’s Joy Reid called out what she claimed was “learned helplessness” that prolonged efforts to enact gun control legislation during her show on Monday.
Speaking with Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts, Reid attacked Republicans for purporting to want action taken against crime but failing to support gun control legislation. Although Reid criticized efforts by Republicans to paint crime as a bigger issue over gun control, she primarily mourned that Democratic candidates who promoted gun control, such as Beto O-Rourke, failed to win in the midterm elections.
However, she concluded that this came from “learned helplessness” among voters rather than any view on gun control.
“And very quickly, there is this kind of learned helplessness that I think happens among a lot of voters. You think about Uvalde County where this massacre happened about these fourth graders. They voted to re-elect the current governor, Greg Abbott, by nearly 22%. The turnout, 45%. Fewer than half of people bothered to vote, and they could have gotten themselves a governor who would have done something about it. That’s learned helplessness,” Reid said.
In other words, it’s unfathomable to Reid that Uvalde residents could actually have had rational reasons to make the decisions they made.
Now, I’m not crazy about the voter turnout numbers either. Our nation requires an informed and involved electorate, but let’s also not pretend that Uvalde was any kind of outlier. Reid touts the 45 percent number, but she neglects to tell you that it’s about on par with the voter turnout in the rest of the state.
It wasn’t even that low compared to the nation as a whole, which was 46.9 percent.
So this wasn’t some abnormally low turnout, but Reid presents it as such so she can support her point that this is “learned helplessness.”
She can’t handle the possibility that more voters in Uvalde actually didn’t support the gun control candidate and possibly because he was a gun control candidate.
You see, Reid is like many other anti-gunners. She genuinely believes that everyone actually agrees gun control works, they just oppose it for some other reason and a horrible massacre like Uvalde should tip them over the edge.
She can’t comprehend that many didn’t. She doesn’t understand that many recognize the many failures that led to that massacre that gun control wouldn’t solve. They also know that gun control only inhibits the law-abiding, something Reid doesn’t seem to get, either.
Sure, the voter turnout wasn’t particularly high, but not particularly low when compared to the nation as a whole and Reid’s not citing that as an issue with regard to Democrats performing better than expected in the midterms.
Why is it only a problem with Beto getting his butt kicked yet again?
The truth is that Reid is used to having friendly guests and a friendly audience so she gets away with these assertions while on the air.
But it doesn’t make those assertions any less stupid.
