MSNBC anchor Joy Reid said Thursday that Republicans “taught” Americans the word inflation to earn their vote.
Reid, speaking to “Deadline” in Orlando, Florida, claimed that the average American did not know or use the word “inflation” until Republicans “taught” them the word to win elections. The American people have experienced higher prices on gas, groceries and other essentials due to 4o-year-high inflation.
“The only people I ever hear use the word inflation are journalists and economists. That is not part of the normal lexicon of the way people talk. So it’s interesting that Republicans are doing something they don’t normally do, right, which is not use the common tongue, not use just common English to sort of do on their campaigns, like they’re doing with crime,” Reid said.
“But what they’ve done is they’ve taught people the word inflation, right? Most of the people who would’ve never have used that word ever in their lives are using it now because they’ve been taught it, including on TV, including in newspapers. They’ve been taught this word and they sort of wrap this word around whatever it is that they really want to vote — you know, the reason they really want to vote,” she continued.
Reid described the high prices of insurance, groceries and other essentials in the state of Florida, then said that the people she’d heard complaining about high costs of living were not voting Republican as a result. She went on to claim that supporters of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis were motivated not by inflation but by the governor’s anti-lockdown policies. (RELATED: Psaki Says There Was ‘Not A Lot Democrats Could Have Done’ With Inflation)
“The people I hear talk about [inflation], they’re not voting Republican,” she said. “These are people who are African Americans, young people, people who are Democrats,” Reid said. “And so, they’re not saying because it’s hard and expensive to live here, I now am going to vote for DeSantis. The kind of people who you hear down here saying they like DeSantis, it’s not about inflation, it’s about the fact that he didn’t close the state during COVID.”
She then called on the people struggling due to inflation to get out and vote, since they are “scared” that Florida is becoming “autocratic” due to DeSantis’ 15-week ban abortion, and restrictions on critical race theory in public schools.