Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Joe Scarborough offered his thoughts on why America’s so-called elites missed the rise of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election cycle.
According to Scarborough, a cultural divide exists between the elites and working class white America. He pointed to the television viewing habits of the two groups, which he said offered a lot of Americans exposure to Trump. And that he argued has benefited Trump in this election cycle.
“Charles Murray wrote this book called, ‘Coming Apart,’ talking about the decline of white America from 1960-2012,” Scarborough said. “And he talked about the massive separation between elites and working class white America. And one of his points was that working class white America watches an average of 35 to 40 hours a week of TV. You know what elites do? Elites go and they binge watch like their favorite shows on HBO or something else. These two worlds never meet.”
“So while we were watching, you know, ‘Mad Men,’ and while we were watching ‘House of Cards,’ and while we’re watching ‘Sherlock’ and while we’re watching all the shows we love to talk about here, they have been inviting Donald Trump into their house every week for 12-13 years on ‘The Apprentice’ – a remarkable run for a prime time show. About as remarkable as Ronald Reagan from the mid-50s to the early 1960s doing GE Theater, where over 20 million people every week saw Ronald Reagan coming into their house. Elites never saw it coming because they don’t live where most of America lives.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.