Political science professor and MSNBC political contributor Dr. Jason Johnson did not hold back Monday evening when discussing the current state of American politics. He suggested the GOP is a “dime store front for a terrorist organization called ‘MAGA,'” and warned that its “true believers” are “dangerous people” who are “a danger to our democracy.”
After discussing Alabama’s Republican Governor Kay Ivey’s decision to go all-in on The Big Lie and declare Donald Trump the winner of the “stolen” 2020 presidential election despite all evidence to the contrary, he unleashed his attack on the entire GOP.
“So this is really my concern going into 2022,” Dr. Johnson told MSNBC host Ari Melber on “The Beat.”
“There are Republicans like Kay Ivey, like Ted Cruz, who do know the truth, right? They know, they don’t pretend, but they do know the truth. They know that Joe Biden won the election, they saw the numbers, they made private phone calls, they know what the Secretaries of State – Republicans and Democrats – have said.”
“They’re just liars, right? They’re just doing whatever’s convenient. They’re gonna blame the Big Tech, Big Blue, Big Contract. We’re gonna blame somebody right, but they know that that’s just a performance thing. What frightens me is a lot of people who we’ve seen running now for the midterms are, they believe this stuff. They’re not just doing this for a performance thing. They really do believe that the election was stolen and that is infinitely more dangerous.”
“I can tolerate the people who are inveterate liars like Ted Cruz. I can tolerate the quislings and weasels who just say, ‘Hey, I’m gonna do whatever it is I need,’ but the people who are true believers? They’re dangerous people who were at the Stop the Steal rally, who now want to be Secretaries of State? That is a danger to our democracy.”
“At the end of the day, you have a certain segment of the population that has told the Republican Party, ‘We do not believe in a multicultural democracy.’ So anything that you have to do to make sure that this country stays in the hands of straight white men is okay. That is the danger.”
“I don’t really think there are two parties in this country anymore. One is a semi-governing party called the Democrats, and the other is a dime store front for a terrorist organization called ‘MAGA’. That is the real problem here. It’s no longer about lies and disinformation. It’s about having our sitting government take an active role in controlling dangerous people who do not believe in democracy anymore.”