A new book by authors Paul Waldman and Tom Schaller claims that voters in the South are actually the biggest threats to Democracy. Mike Papantonio is joined by Independent newspaper publisher Rick Outzen to explain why that’s not actually the case.

Transcript:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Mike Papantonio: A new book by authors Paul Waldman in Tom Schaller claims that voters in the south are actually the biggest threats to democracy. I’ve got independent newspaper publisher, Rick Outzen, with me to explain what a crazy statement. You know what, Rick, I looked through this article. I looked at the interviews that they did with him. I tried to find that golden side to what they were saying, it was.

Rick Outzen: Oh, without a doubt.

Mike Papantonio: I mean, that’s all I can do is tell you. And I, can I tell you Waldman, I like the guy. We’ve interviewed him. Farron Cousins has interviewed him. I’ve interviewed him over the years. He’s actually brilliant. I was so disappointed to see him involved with this, where his, the diatribe is it’s just partisan hatred. I don’t know how else to describe it. Like we’re southern idiots who are driven only uniquely by racism and misogynism. It just goes on and on forever. And I want to just say, really? This is how you’re gonna break through by telling us that everybody in urban America are a bunch of idiots.

Rick Outzen: Right. Well, it breaks it down to the argument is that rural America, we are just too stupid. Our values are inconsistent with American core principles, and that we’re waiting on Democrats to rescue us, and they’ve come back with the magic formula. We need to elect better Republicans. Which Mike, we heard this argument 40 years ago when Republicans were complaining and about Democrats, blacks voting with Democrats all the time, or Hispanics voting, that they’re not electing the right Democrats. What did the Republican party do? They started listening more.

Mike Papantonio: Yeah, that’s exactly, as evil as Lee Atwater was, he listened. He didn’t go out there and say, look, you guys are just a bunch of losers, hate-filled losers that have no, and it wasn’t, he’s not just talking about the south. You understand, he’s talking about the entire United States that’s urban. Okay. So what is it, what is it that he says these folks are focused on that if we don’t do something about, democracy is gonna fail. He says, I can’t believe they focus on CRT or DEI or college professors, or Antifa, or California or New York. This, look, the point is this, we’ve become so divided in this country that these writers actually felt comfortable basically pulling a Hillary Clinton, the deplorable argument. That’s all this is.

Rick Outzen: Well, and they’re getting touted for it. They’re getting touted in the mainstream media by the elites.

Mike Papantonio: Like, this is brilliant. This is absolutely brilliant.

Rick Outzen: They found something really unique. And this argument’s been used over and over again for one group of people against another. I mean, the other thing that’s really insulted, Mike, in looking at it, is they talk about the brain drain. That so many young white people have left.

Mike Papantonio: Oh, look at the demographics on that, buddy.

Rick Outzen: Have left the rural country.

Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Look at the demographic. Look at the movement back to the rural areas.

Rick Outzen: Right. Well, that’s what they’re not, they don’t want to admit that. And the other assumption is because they leave, because they get better educated, this is their view, is that the core values of of the rural part of our country are so bad. But, it doesn’t work that way.

Mike Papantonio: We can disagree. I mean, we can disagree. Farron and I, Farron Cousins and I have been doing shows together since he was 20 years old, 21 years old. And he doesn’t agree with me on most things. I don’t agree with him on a lot of stuff. But we don’t attack each other. We can disagree, and we can still have an intelligent conversation without it digressing into attacking intelligence, attacking faith, attacking passion. That’s what’s happening here. That these are qualities that we’re going to attack because in our elitist ivory tower, we see it as a drag on democracy. This is just nothing more than the Hillary Clinton deplorable attack. And you know what? It cost Hillary badly. And if candidates believe that this is something they’re gonna tie into, and they’re gonna make this they’re talking point, it’s a mistake. I remember, you might even done this story, I think you might have. We did an article on, it was when we did the Ed Schultz radio show, and it was talking about an analysis that was done of liberals, and it said, they tried to make it look like it was a mental illness.

Rick Outzen: Right.

Mike Papantonio: Okay. The mental illness of liberals. They were total left brain without capacity for precise analysis. They had an overwhelming tendency to be angry and unhappy. Do you remember this?

Rick Outzen: Right.

Mike Papantonio: They were unimaginable. They could not handle objective evaluation if they disagreed with it. It goes on and on. This was an evaluation by these so-called shrink sociologists who were telling us what the mind of a liberal looks like. We attacked that then.

Rick Outzen: Right.

Mike Papantonio: We said, this is ridiculous. I’m attacking this right now. This is ridiculous.

Rick Outzen: Well, we have to, I mean, they blame rural white America for not voting democratic. Well, look at how little time Democrat candidates spend in the south.

Mike Papantonio: Talk about that.

Rick Outzen: Because here we’re in Pensacola, this is definitely a Republican stronghold. A lot of independent voters. You know, over, gosh, the last 20 years, 25 years, we’ve had George W. Bush, George HW Bush, we had Mitt Romney, John McCain, Donald Trump, all come here, hold huge rallies. Not one Democratic presidential candidate has been here.

Mike Papantonio: But the point is this, your point is they wanna say that, and it’s again, they’re not talking just about the south here. You know, you got rural right outside New York City.

Rick Outzen: But it’s talking about my home, so that’s why I get.

Mike Papantonio: He did talk about your home Mississippi. It’s called, White Rural Rage and how it’s destroying democracy. If candidates believe this is a selling point and this is a positive thing to be talking about in elections, boy are they in for a surprise.

Rick Outzen: Right.

Mike Papantonio: Rick, thanks for joining me. Okay.

Rick Outzen: Glad to be here.

Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week. But all these segments will be posted right here on this channel in the coming week, so make sure you subscribe. I’m Mike Papantonio, and this has been America’s Lawyer, where we tell you stories every week that corporate media won’t tell you because they’re advertisers, they won’t allow it. They just won’t allow ’em to tell the stories without them losing advertising dollars or their political connections don’t allow for it. They’re either so Republican or so Democrat that they can’t shake the tree at all. They can’t say anything that colors outside those lines. Obviously, we don’t have that problem here. Hope to see you next time.