I've got this mild beef with Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow about having conservative guests on their shows, and it seems I am not alone in my beefdom. Heather on Crooks and Liars has the video of Chris Hayes addressing his left wing critics on this point, especially dealing with Assemblywoman Fiore's interview. While Heather and others have extremely valid points that Chris is just giving wingnuts a platform to push their agenda and to scream lies for political debate, I'd like to focus on Chris's point that we all live in this country, and we need to understand how the other side thinks during a political argument.
For starters, do we all live in the same country? Geographically, yes, we do, but nations are also defined by social and economic factors and political views. And as any political scientist can tell you, those other factors are not defining an America that is integrated or sharing common views. In fact, all the social, economic, and political factors are segregating Americans into different camps with completely different views of America, if not the Universe.
Chris or Rachel might agree with the above assessment, but Chris sees some duty to "understand" where the conservatives are coming from. The inference from Chris is that maybe by understanding conservatives we, as liberals, can find some way to communicate with conservatives. Communication might then lead to compromise in the current political arguments raging all around us. Or at least we might find common ground, which would be a starting place for political compromise.
Unfortunately, even in the segments Chris showed, NONE of that happened. While Fiore was going off about the BLM killing Bundys' cattle, Chris brought up an analogous hypothetical situation. What if the ICE was coming to take away your parents for deportation to Mexico because they were no documented. Would the rest of the family have the right to arm themselves against the ICE agents?
Fiore was stunned for a moment, and I suppose Chris was hoping he got her to think about that situation with regards to what she was doing. Nope. She went off on Chris saying he was advocating for the needless killings of cows, even though Chris pointed out that those cows would eventually be slaughtered.
No light of reason went on above Fiore's head. Instead, Fiore got to do everything that Crooks and Liars pointed out. She lied like a cheap fucking rug to push her extremist political agenda.
The supposed "debate" with Fiore was British High Tea Time compared to the interview with Stefano of Americans for Prosperity. Stefano spewed and hurled lie, after lie, after lie at Chris about the ACA, then she went after Chris himself. Given the Stefano works for the Koch Brothers, what is there to understand about Stefano? She's PAID to act this way! If she ever told the truth or agreed with a liberal on the ACA, she'd be fired!
Finally, we had Paul Wolfowitz on the program. A man who has hundreds of thousands of deaths on his hands. This is a man, along with his fellow neocons, who believes that the ends justifies the means. After all the deaths, does Chris think he will find some understanding with a mass murderer? Will there be a Perry Mason moment when Wolfowitz yelled, "I did it! I killed them all! I'm so sorry!"
Fat fucking chance of that.
If Chris really wants to try and understand conservatives, I guarantee that he will come to conclusions that most liberals have already learned. Conservatives are in their own world, and no matter of facts or reasons on the parts of liberals will ever drag them into political compromise.
