MSNBC host Rachel Maddow blamed former President Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the Iowa caucuses on a “radicalized” Republican primary electorate Monday.
Trump was declared the winner of the caucuses by multiple networks by 8:45 p.m. Monday evening, earning 51.03% of the vote, according to Fox News. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley remain in a tight contest for second place, with less than 2,300 votes separating them. (RELATED: ‘He Lost Me’: Jonathan Turley Rebuts Biden’s ‘Assault On Democracy’ Speech In Less Than 60 Seconds)
“If we are worried about the rise of authoritarianism in this country, if we are worried about the rise of potential rise of fascism in this country, if we are worried about our democracy falling an authoritarian and potentially fascist form of government, the leader who is trying to do that is part of that equation, but people wanting that is a much bigger part of that equation and the American electorate is made up of two major parties,” Maddow told a panel that included MSNBC hosts Jen Psaki, Joy Reid, Chris Hayes and Lawrence O’Donnell.
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“One of those parties has been flirting with extremism on the ultra-right for a very long time,” Maddow continued. “They’ve brought them in in a way that they haven’t been central to Republican electoral politics ever before. Once you have radicalized one major party so that those are the preferences of the people who adhere to your party, the leader’s interchangeable. Trump is a miss sometimes, what we call it, MAGA movement is probably a better way to do it.”
Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows of Maine disqualified Trump for the office of President of the United States Dec. 28, citing the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection” clause and the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol building. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump was disqualified from appearing on the ballot in the 2024 election in a 4-3 decision Dec. 19. The Supreme Court will hear the case Feb. 8.
“There is an authoritarian movement inside Republican politics that isn’t being bamboozled by Trump, they are pushing Trump to get more and more extreme because the more extreme things he says, the more they adhere, and that is coming from a very large proportion of the American right that appears to the Republican Party,” Maddow claimed. “That’s why this is a Republican Party problem more than it is the problem of one man.”
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