Updated 20160317 to reflect an excellent comment from rubyr. I was pretty ham-handed first time around. Of *course* Hillary supporters care about climate change! I just think Bernie’s the better candidate on that issue.
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As a hard core MSNBC viewer and Rachel Maddow fan, I’m almost always home in time for Maddow. Sometimes I even get home early enough to catch Chris Hayes, who I also like a lot. And rarely, but often enough to have formed an opinion, I hear a bit of “Hardball with Chris Matthews” while I’m doing the dishes and getting dinner ready.
Frankly, every time I do, I wish I hadn’t. His constant talking-over and interrupting of guests, his weird leg tingles for odious pols, his crass and obvious shilling for Hillary (yes, I’ll vote for her cheerfully if I have to), his wallowing in misty-eyed tales of the late great Tip and Ronnie… it all grates. The man is an irritating blowhard, from what I can tell, although a genial one with a twinkly smile.
But sometimes Chris Matthews is even more awful than usual, and this past election night was one of those times. Ted Cruz had just given his victory speech, and Matthews was offering up a bloviating critique.
To Chris’s ears, Cruz’s speech was aimed squarely not at Trump voters, to whom he might now want to try and appeal, but rather was targeted at the donor class – and specifically at the Koch brothers.
As an example of why he thought Cruz was talking to Charles and David and not to voters (of any stripe) Matthews scoffed “I mean, the EPA! What average guy or gal out there cares about the EPA?! This is policy – this is donor stuff!”
I am paraphrasing, which does not change his point, which was that average voters are pretty stupid and aren’t policy focused. I was so irritated that I actually SNARLED at the TV.
“OMG, Chris!” I yelled. “Besides that being an incredibly condescending attitude, it's also dead wrong. Plenty of “average guys and gals” care about the EPA. And about climate change. We’re called Bernie Sanders supporters, and we’re not stupid!” (Oh — and “we’re called Hillary Clinton supporters!” too. Because… well, obviously, a ton of folks in her camp are also passionate about this issue, and not stupid.)
Then I thought about it for 10 seconds.