Never missing an opportunity to be melodramatic, Hardball host Chris Matthews lamented Tuesday that a Ted Cruz presidency would be even "scarier" than a Trump presidency. Because, according to Matthews, Cruz is so hard-right that he is an "enemy of the state." Newsbusters provides the segment clip and transcript (bold font added by TR) of the MSNBC host's latest hyperbolic rant:
MATTHEWS: I expect if he [Donald Trump] keeps in there fighting against somebody like [Ted] Cruz they’re gonna realize something that really is scary to most moderates and progressives, that Cruz is scarier than Trump and that will be a frightening prospect to realize that Trump is the more – well, he’s not acceptable to progressives, but when you look at him against Cruz. I mean, Cruz, if we weren't talking about Trump, we’d be talking about the horror of this country possibly being led by Cruz. So, it's a strange competition and the people that are left out of this, it seems, are what used to be called the Republican establishment. I've noticed we’ve only used the word establishment now in terms of saying it's finished.
Because I think the anger that we see driving Trump, the anger on the right, white people, if you will, working white people, whatever that category gets defined as, are so angry, especially the very religious people, that they're willing to put somebody in there who's a complete enemy of the state. They’re willing to go all the way to the hardest far right rail. You can't be too hard right.
I mean, here's a guy with a Cuban American background who’s very much against any legalization of anybody who comes to this country illegally ever. I mean, it’s a pretty strong position to be taking. How's that much different than Trump? It’s really hard right. And so, what's going on now is your battle between – you’re seeing a battle between two fairly nasty campaigns for the hardest right position.
Apparently, advocating traditional American values is considered right-wing "fringe" behavior and those who engage in it are an "enemy of the state." That shows you just how far to the left the pendulum has swung in today's society -- that political positions even traditional Democrats would have held only a two or three short decades ago is now considered "hard right" lunacy.
