“The motivated ignorance of Donald Trump has been a lifetime habit, a lifetime habit. He’s been operating on motivated ignorance since he’s been 17, 18 years of age. He did it all through his business career, all through his life, nearly every day. And in politics, he’s done it consistently. And he has developed indeed a cult around him. Now part of that cult, I would think given human nature, you’d have to feel badly for because they are people who bought into what Trump says in his motivated ignorance thinking it was going to help improve their lives. Well, it hasn’t, it hasn’t, and that’s the way you defeat Donald Trump. Point out the facts of people’s existence. The big tax breaks that he always talks about. Did it help someone making $100,000 a year? No, it helped people making millions of dollars a year. And so, now in the debate, for the first time, that motivated ignorance is going to be displayed publicly in an empty hall. There’s going to be no crowds saying, ‘oh yeah, that’s great, yeah,’ applauding if he does indeed walk towards President Biden’s podium. If he does the crazy things that he’s apt to do. It will be met by silence, and he will be told to go back to his podium. His microphone will be shut off; that, I think, is going to be the most interesting aspect of this debate,” says veteran columnist Mike Barnicle during this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Amanda Carpenter as they discuss Peter Wehner’s latest article for The Atlantic titled, “The Motivated Ignorance of Trump Supporters,” ahead of the first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on June 27th, with both campaigns having agreed to various rules for the debate, including microphone muting and no studio audience.
Jun 18, 2024