Lawrence O'Donnell Sounds Frantic When Discussing Trump

When he discusses him, he sounds like someone with his hands over his ears insisting 'I can't hear you, I can't hear you.'

He now thinks Trump''s latest-a ban on Muslim immigration-is a bridge too far. Where have we heard this before? O'Donnell faults Trump for not understanding math, but it seems like he himself is not a math major.

He seems to think that Trump is in big trouble with just 30% of the vote-that's about where he is on the RCP average. To prove he doesn't understand math, Lawrence then points out that Bernie has 30% with a much smaller field.

Right. Because it's a much smaller field it's much less impressive. To get 30% of a 14 candidate field is much more impressive than a basically 2 candidate field-O'Malley isn't even worth talking about.

How did you miss this Lawrence?

What Rachel Maddow talked about last night is more meaningful-the Overton Window. Trump''s campaign has pushed it way to the Right,  Yet Lawrence says that the GOP voters are going to come to their senses and support a more reasonable candidate.

First of all why would a Democrat want them to support a more reasonable candidate that would by definition make it harder for the Dems to win?

But furthermore, who is really reasonable in the GOP field at this point? There's this Beltway narrative that there has been universal and bipartisan condemnation of Trump. Not entirely no. There has been a lot of that. But of course, Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus have stopped short of saying they won't vote for Trump.

And some candidates-notably Rand Paul-have boasted that they got to Trump's position first.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rand-paul-trump-muslim-ban

But that hub of Beltway seriousness, the Washington Post is oohing and aahing the bipartisan opposition to Trump.

"MOST CANDIDATES for the Republican presidential nomination, with an understanding of constitutional, democratic and social norms that Donald J. Trump utterly lacks, have denounced his outrageous call for a “total and complete shutdown” on Muslims entering the United States."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ending-the-gops-season-of-denial/2015/12/08/b8549424-9dd3-11e5-a3c5-c77f2cc5a43c_story.html?postshare=2631449613602126&tid=ss_tw

For the record there are now more than one pundits arguing that maybe Trump's proposal is not unconstitutional-or at least may not be-there is an argument that  he could win a SJC case for his plan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/opinion/trumps-anti-muslim-plan-is-awful-and-constitutional.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-regio

There are legal experts who say the Trump plan could conceivably win in the SJC.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/us/politics/donald-trumps-plan-to-bar-foreign-muslims-might-survive-a-lawsuit.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Back to WaPo's orgy of bipartisanship:

"Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Mr. Trump’s “habit of making offensive and outlandish statements will not bring us together.” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie blasted Mr. Trump’s call for excluding Muslims as “ridiculous.” Former Florida governor Jeb Bush called the idea “unhinged.” House SpeakerPaul D. Ryan (R-Wisc.) said Mr. Trump’s proposal “is not what this party stands for. And more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for.”

The WaPo has to get serious here. They are classic Very Serious Pundits, who are totally invested in the diea of being evenhanded between the two parties, in total moral equivalence between the parties.

I'll let Hillary Clinton answer this one:

"Now some Republican candidates are saying that Donald Trump’s latest comments have gone too far. But the truth is, many GOP candidates have also said extreme things about Muslims. Their language may be more veiled than Mr. Trump’s, but their ideas aren’t so different."

"Ben Carson says that a Muslim shouldn’t be president. Marco Rubio compares Muslims to members of the Nazi Party and refuses to rule out monitoring and closing of mosques. Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz have suggested that we implement a religious test for Syrian refugees—one that only Christians would pass. Chris Christie says not even 3-year-old Syrian orphans should be let in. And they insist on using the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism”—in fact, they criticize anyone who says anything else—even though it drives the exact narrative the jihadists want to advance: that we’re at war with an entire religion."

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/feed/no-donald-trump-were-not-barring-muslims-entering-country/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=tw&utm_campaign=20151208feed-trump

Thank you. If outrageous Islamophobia makes a candidate unfit for office, who in the GOP field is fit? Not one. The fact that they are more veiled to me in a way makes them more dangerous not less. 

But again, you see Maddow's Overton effect. The reasonable position is a religious test for refugees or maybe no 3 year old orphans. These are the serious candidates Lawrence O'Donnell thinks the GOP should be supporting.